Rep. Van Drew: Pay truckers overtime

Rep. Jefferson Van Drew, R-N.J., is encouraging his colleagues to do more than just say kind words about truck drivers.

As part of a House Highways and Transit Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, May 10, Van Drew said action needed to be taken to help truck drivers and to improve the supply chain.

“Truck workers need to be treated fairly,” Van Drew said. “Let’s talk about the basic issues here. If it wasn’t for the truck drivers … we wouldn’t have a supply chain at all. The truck drivers are the ones who went out there, did the job and kept this country moving.”

Van Drew spent several minutes advocating for ways to make truck drivers’ lives easier.

“They need things. They need a place to park. They need to take a break. They need rest. They need help with fuel costs,” Van Drew said. “They are hard workers. They break their backs. They deal with bad weather, dangerous substances and dangerous situations. But quite frankly, I’ve been in this Congress for my third term now, and we talk about it a lot. I know we care, and this is not a criticism … This is just the reality. We’ve got to do stuff. We can’t just keep talking about it.”

OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh testified at the hearing and told lawmakers that if they want to improve the supply chain, they can start by passing pro-trucker bills to add truck parking, provide restroom access and remove the overtime exemption for truck drivers.

As part of the previous congressional session, OOIDA helped craft the Guaranteeing Overtime for Truckers Act, which would have amended the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to end the overtime pay exemption for motor carriers. OOIDA contends that paying truck drivers overtime would decrease problems with detention time, improve the supply chain and would send the message that a truck driver’s time should be valued.

It is common for truck drivers to work 60 or 70 hours a week, but most are paid by the mile.

Van Drew, who co-sponsored the bill, asked his lawmakers to support the measure when it is reintroduced.

“Truckers are an essential component of our nation’s supply chain and compensating them appropriately is the least we can do to support them,” Van Drew said. “Let’s be fair. Let’s be decent to the hard-working men and women who do this job.”

Pugh testified that paying truck drivers overtime would do more to increase safety than efforts to mandate speed limiters on commercial motor vehicles.

“I think it will improve safety. It will improve drivers’ lives. It will improve retention,” Pugh said. “The same people who are pushing for speed limiters because they say trucks need to slow down are the same people who are against paying truckers overtime. Trucking has long been a piecework industry where you are paid by the mile. My opinion would be that if you pay truckers by the mile and you have some crazy concern that truckers are flying down the highway – which they’re not – but if that’s what you think, then probably paying them by the hour and paying them overtime would automatically put them to (the speed) they should be going.” LL