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Independent Driver * USA - Contracts Are Under Fire, Lawyer Says
Legal warning comes as owner-operator status for port drivers under fire from agencies, labor
Sacramento,CAL,USA -The Journal of Commerce Online, by Bill Mongelluzzo -May 26, 2010: -- Work rules spelled out in contracts between owner-operator truckers and drayage companies may not provide the legal grounding to maintain the truckers’ status as independent contractors at U.S. ports, according to a Southern California labor attorney Robert Roginson, a partner in Atkinson & Assoc. firm... The independent status at ports is coming under growing fire, with the federal government, state governments and organized labor seek to demonstrate the drivers are direct employees of harbor trucking companies... The attacks on several fronts carry significant taxation and cost consequences for drayage company executives who believe their contracts with owner-operators provide adequate protection... The issue reaches beyond the ports, however, since several industries that use independent contractors, especially trucking and courier companies, are targets... Federal and state agencies are openly investigating the status of independent contractors with the assumption that tax revenues are being lost due to possible misclassification of workers... If owner-operator drivers are-classified as employees, harbor drayage companies face huge costs in terms of liability for minimum wages, overtime pay, and failure to pay worker’s compensation and employee benefits, Roginson said ... Harbor trucking companies attempt to maintain an arm’s length relationship with owner-operators by allowing them to leeway on work rules, including allowing them to drive for whichever companies they choose, reject any job assignments they don’t want and determine work hours... But many federal and state government agencies concerned about employee classification have varying definitions of what constitutes an independent contractor, Roginson said, and the issue is further complicated by the courts, which likewise vary in their definitions...
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