WARNING: Shippers Responsible for Trucking Corporations’ Unfair Labor Practices

Shippers must be additional cautious in regards to the trucking firms they rent to move their delivery containers to and from the ports. If not, shippers may discover themselves liable in authorized motion in opposition to the trucking firms from truckers over unfair labor practices.

Truckers Strike & Litigate Over Employment Classification

Regardless of the event of automated autos creating doubt over truckers’ future in worldwide delivery, truckers are a completely important a part of the provision chain. Sadly, truckers haven’t typically been handled or paid commensurately with their worth within the trade and even how a lot they really work.

Common readers of Common Cargo’s weblog could bear in mind us posting about truckers strikes on the Ports of Los Angeles and Lengthy Seashore in 2015 and 2017. Nonetheless, despite the fact that truckers have been placing on the ports, it wasn’t the ports that truckers had the issue with.

Their employment classification was truckers’ largest situation.

Truckers felt exploited and cheated out of truthful wages and advantages whereas being compelled to tackle truck bills by being categorized as unbiased contractors — what they name a misclassification. Taking the difficulty to court docket, truckers had already been awarded hundreds of thousands in lawsuits by the point of the strike in 2017.

Nonetheless, the businesses truckers work for appealed the rulings, and the battle raged on, remaining an enormous situation to this present day.

Chris Dupin reported final week in American Shipper, “The U.S. Supreme Court docket has declined to listen to an enchantment by the California Trucking Affiliation (CTA) of a choice by the ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals on the employment classification of truck drivers.”

Shippers Liable If They Rent Trucking Corporations With Unhappy Court docket Judgments

Despite the fact that this battle has been occurring proper within the provide chain of U.S. shippers importing and exporting items, it has been comparatively simple for shippers to disregard. The sporadic truckers strikes on the ports have had little impression on operations. Even the trucker scarcity that has been occurring for years now hasn’t stopped shippers from getting their items trucked out and in of ports.

Nonetheless, this part, particularly the final two paragraphs, of Dupin’s article ought to catch shippers’ consideration:

In January, the workplace of California’s labor commissioner stated it had acquired greater than 1,000 port trucking wage claims and issued 448 choices in favor of the truck drivers with greater than $50 million in wages owed since 2011. The overwhelming majority of the instances filed by truck drivers with the labor commissioner’s workplace contain drivers out of the ports.

Underneath a legislation (SB 1402) that went into impact this 12 months, the California Labor Commissioner has begun posting a listing of port trucking firms with unhappy closing court docket judgments, tax assessments or tax liens. Retailers and different companies that rent firms on the listing are collectively and severally accountable for future labor and employment legislation violations dedicated by these firms.

Which means shippers, the shoppers who contract with the listed motor carriers, will now share civil obligation and civil legal responsibility for the complete quantity discovered due for unpaid wages, unreimbursed bills, damages, penalties and relevant curiosity owed to a driver, the state stated.

Record of Trucking Corporations with Excellent Judgments

Clearly, shippers ought to be cautious about hiring trucking firms from the California Labor Commissioner’s listing as a result of doing so may open them as much as expensive liabilities.

We’ve pasted the newest listing (as of March twenty sixth, 2019) on this weblog beneath, however the Labor Commissioner’s Workplace updates the listing month-to-month, eradicating firms which have glad or settled their court docket judgments and including port drayage motor carriers with unhappy closing court docket judgments, tax assessments, or tax liens.

The listing might be discovered on the State of California Division of Industrial Relations’ web site, which states that the listing have to be up to date by the fifth of every month and particulars the names, addresses, and important data of the port drayage motor carriers listed.

In fact, when importing door to door via Common Cargo, we make sure that your cargo isn’t being trucked by an organization that might open you as much as this legal responsibility.