Transportation and Warehousing Wage Violations
The movement of goods across the country (and around the world) is critical to the functioning of our global economy. As a result, tens of thousands of workers are employed by the transportation and warehousing industries. To increase their profit, companies in this industry often cut corners on employee wages. As a result, thousands of workers in this industry have had and are having their wages stolen by their employer. The top wage violations in the transportation and warehousing industry are:
- Failing to pay workers overtime for all hours worked in excess of 12 per day or 40 per week. Even salaried workers usually are entitled to this overtime pay. It is illegal to pay overtime by banking it for “comp time”.
- Treating workers as independent contractors to avoid the cost of overtime, insurance and payroll taxes. Very few workers in this industry truly qualify as independent contractors.
- “Shaving” or under-reporting worked hours to avoid paying for those hours. Often this takes the form of automatic deductions for meal and rest breaks that never were taken or that were less than thirty minutes of uninterrupted time.
- Not paying workers for certain tasks performed before, during or after their regular shift such as driving to the job (or between jobs), inventory, waiting time, employee meetings, training programs, putting on, taking off, cleaning or maintaining equipment or gear and paperwork. Often employers illegally claim that this work is “off the clock”.
- Paying a flat daily or job rate without consideration of the number of hours worked and the requirement to pay overtime.
- Failing to provide meal/rest breaks.
If your employer is violating the warehousing and transportation overtime pay laws, you (and other employees) may be entitled to thousands of dollars of back pay. Please contact us for a free and confidential case evaluation or simply to learn more about transportation and warehousing workers and the overtime pay laws.