CTA, Teamsters urge provinces, feds to work together on Driver Inc.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) and Teamsters Canada have written to the Forum of Labour Market Ministers, urging them to coordinate enforcement actions on Driver Inc.
Driver Inc. involves classifying company drivers as independent contractors, which the organizations say deprives drivers of their labor rights and can result in unpaid taxes.
Federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan has spoken out against the practice and the CTA and Teamsters want provinces to also get on-board with an enforcement crackdown.
“Some provinces have already taken steps to combat this issue, for example, through their provincial workers’ compensation boards, but more can be done,” the letter states. “At a minimum, when one level of government finds gross non-compliance related to Driver Inc., this information should be automatically shared with all other levels of government for possible follow-up enforcement action.”
The two groups say Driver Inc. represents one of the “largest abuses of labor currently taking place in Canada.”
“It preys on truck drivers – and new Canadians in particular – while robbing government coffers of revenue. It is also having a devastating impact on the competitive landscape in one of Canada’s most critical sectors,” the letter said.
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We need truck drivers to paid by the hour like O P P or ambulance drivers with overtime and the driver inc problem will go away
One cross border company pays 25% of gross on pay plus 1% bonus or vaction pay. The same company pay 33% for lease ops after all truck expenses on ave or 81% pulling a company trailer or 87 plus a 1 % to 3 % saftey bonus
A lot of payroll drivers from a # of large trucking companies in ont with 3 or more yrs of exp have switched after me and other people are telling that too many payroll drivers are ending up homeles and disabled if they get sick or hurt in the U S.
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87 % with own or leased trailer
Recently a company I started working for “changed their payroll” and I wasn’t paid. 1st they told me I didnt turn in my trip envelope, 2nd they told me they cant find my pay details and one lady who wouldnt give her name told me she cant pay me until I hand in my incorporation papers?
I have already left the company but now that last pay is still unpaid because they dont have incorporation papers.
A bigger problem in this industry than driver inc is the attitude that a company can just not pay you out of spite for leaving.
How appropriate this article is. In the Jan 22 issue the top story was about “The Canada Truck Operators Association (CTOA), comprised largely of trucking companies run by people with South Asian backgrounds” wanting ” A seat at the table” to be able to push the DRIVERS INC. These are the same companies preying on their own drivers.
As a small fleet owner with only 8 AZ Payroll drivers at the moment ( used to have 14 payroll drivers at the most), I can simply tell you the reason most small and medium size companies hire AZ Drivers-Subcontractors.
It is: we as an employer / company, have to match 100% the CPP and unemployment insurance taxes on what the drivers are paying out.
Real- my own example: I have to fork out about $45,000 a year ,
to match what the drivers are paying out.
I’m not even talking about WSIB expenses or other expenses related to drivers on payroll.
I am a real person contracted out to FedEx Ground. Anyone can contact me directly to verify the information. Companies are getting away with, at least $10,000 a year or more per driver , by hiring “stupid” drivers that want to be subcontractors.
Excuse my French , I’m saying “stupid” , because by being a subcontractor driver ,
subcontractors do not save any money at all ,
looking at the big picture, ( I can prove it) ,
and I’m not trying to be on the government’s side here or on anybody’s side specifically.
I’m being very objective about things.
As I said, before, in my comments, here, as Mark Twain the famous writer said it famously :
It is much easier to fool people ,
than to actually inform them that they have been already fooled.
To explain it further, which I don’t really need to do, the Fooled once are the drivers working already as subcontractors, where unscrupulous, small and medium sized companies are taking advantage of them.
The numbers just don’t lie. Still…Life has to go on.
The Federal Government has failed the Trucking Industry with Driver Inc. They could have eliminated this years ago and chose not to.
The teamsters do not represent a broad spectrum of truckers today. Less than 20% mostly public service drivers. The govt needs to leave truckers alone for awhile now. Concentrate rather on safe parking issues places to eat access etc.