Truck Drivers Score Major Wins Against Corporate Giants

by Jana Ritter - Published: 6/15/2015

Last week California truck drivers scored a major victory against the all mighty Walmart, when a U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the corporate giant was violating the state’s minimum wage law for not paying drivers for all of the tasks they do beyond just driving a truck. The court ruled, “under California law, the drivers must be paid for all the time that they were subject to Walmart’s control”.

                                                        

A Fresno law firm representing the truck drivers said in the lawsuit that the truck drivers were not compensated for a number of tasks such as waiting in line to load or unload cargo, washing and fueling their trucks, and filling out federally mandated trip slips. The court found Walmart in violation of the law because they considered those mandatory tasks as “unpaid activities.” As a result of the ruling, Walmart could owe between 100 to 150 million dollars in back pay and penalties. But not so fast, says Walmart. Despite being found guilty of wage theft, company spokesperson Randy Hargrove is continuing to deny the claims and made a public statement arguing that Walmart pays their truck drivers well. “There has been no finding that any Walmart driver has not been paid minimum wage for each hour worked,” he said. The legal team representing Walmart also attempted to challenge the ruling by making arguments that basically mocked the entire concept of paying truck drivers for every task.“Does the Labor Code require drivers to be separately paid for putting a key in the ignition or while sitting at a stop light?” they asked. Many saw it as a failed attempt to deflect the issue away from wage theft, since most truck drivers regard putting the key in the ignition and stopping at traffic signals to be part of driving. However, asking to be paid for being on the clock while cargo is loaded and unloaded is a reasonable request. The truck drivers argued that unloading a loaded truck takes far longer than inserting a key into an ignition switch, and workers should be entitled to compensation while they are still on the clock. They applaud the judge’s ruling and say that Walmart needs to compensate the truck drivers with the back pay they have earned.

                                                    

Truck drivers also scored another victory last week after FedEx Ground announced it reached an agreement to pay $228 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the company misclassified the drivers as independent contractors rather than company employees, thereby denying them certain state-required benefits. The case had also been taken up in a U.S. District Court in Northern California, and the settlement must still be approved by the court in order to be finalized. The victory follows two similar cases ruled on last year, in which both the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Kansas Supreme Court ruled against FedEx and in favor of the truck drivers.

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