You work, you get paid, that’s how it should work. If you are a truck driver, you work and sometimes don’t get paid. Not paying drivers for the work they do is shameful.

A recent report titled “Running on Empty: Truck Drivers in Canada Are Underpaid and Overworked” highlighted the distasteful tricks some employers utilize to skim cash from hard-working drivers.

Significant portions of time at work go unpaid. Some do not pay a driver for waiting at shippers or receivers, border crossings, inspections, loading and unloading, and traffic delays.

Also, usually drivers are paid less per mile in Canada than in the U.S. Is the work they do less skilled or valued here than down south? The argument is that you drive and work fewer hours in the U.S., so you get paid more — 14 hours on duty with 11 hours of drive time.

In Canada, a driver is on duty for 16 hours with 13 hours of drive time. This is two workdays for most people. How would you feel if you were paid for only 10 or 12 hours of those 16? You would be very upset.

This has been occurring regularly, and drivers are livid. A couple of them who participated in the survey told me that they were fed up and under immense stress. Mental health was not great, and they were looking for a way out of the industry.

Withholding wages

Some sleazeball companies go a step further. Here, rates change from trip to trip and often without explanation. While paying by the mile, it is not actual distance driven but compensation is calculated using theoretical routes. Sometimes it is city-to-city, not accounting for the extra distance driven through time-consuming, congested areas to reach the destination.

There are carriers that hold on to a couple of weeks’ wages, others deduct insurance costs, and some pay a driver late. Some tell drivers that the money is being held in case they damage equipment. When they quit working, it is difficult to collect unpaid wages. According to the report, the average amount owed was about $10,000. Would you keep working if you were owed that amount?

Gaming the system

There are also reputable carriers that play this game. For example, a longhaul driver is dispatched from the yard with an empty trailer to a shipper within a city to pick up a live load. This could take half a day, sometimes longer, squeezing through traffic and waiting for hours to get loaded. For a longhaul driver, miles mean money, and there aren’t many miles in city driving. The trucker’s hours-of-service clock continues to tick, so there is less time to make money.

A carrier with better planning could have had this work done by a city driver. The longhaul guy could have hooked up to a loaded trailer and hit the road running. Or maybe it was planned that way, saving the company a few bucks and costing the driver a lot more.

Proper compensation is key

Drivers sometimes find defects during pre-trip inspections and inform the carrier. A trucker told me it takes hours for a mechanic to fix the truck. Delivery or pickup schedules do not change, adding to stress. The worst part is that he is not paid while waiting for the truck to be fixed.

At the end of February, I attended an event focused on making truck driving a Red Seal profession. Some speakers questioned why drivers were still being paid by the mile instead of by the hour. They said that if a driver is going to invest time and money to obtain Red Seal certification, they must be compensated accordingly. I agree.

There are some companies that offer drivers a guaranteed minimum pay. Change is coming, albeit slowly.

These changemakers are competing with bottom feeders that keep driving prices down by any means possible, including wage theft. And drivers are paying the price by not getting paid.