Looking out for my Dad, 60 year old trucker I think is being taken advantage of

[doesntmatterz]

Hey all,

Long story short, my dad is 60, hard working trucker job (not the ones where you drive for 5 days across counties) but the local delivery drivers in Manhattan etc. Load unload, works tons of hours.

He recently called me and told me that he discovered a few things:

1-Boss says you MUST take lunch however none of these guys or my Dad can take lunch, they already work 12-15 hrs a day. Simply put they DONT take lunch.
2-My Dad and other workers accumulate about 15 hours over overtime a week.
3-Boss decides to take 3 hours of "lunch" a week from all his workers, but.... pulls the 3 hours from the Overtime PAY. This is a VERY expensive lunch.
4-He made it aware to Union rep who played "dumb" and said he will have lawyers look into it. It has now been 4 weeks since then, no movement there.
5-I did the math, in 1 year if hes taking 3 hours of Overtime away for so called lunch and not extracting it from the normal pay rate he is basically stealing money from his employees, thousands of dollars a year.

I spoke to a lawyer (free consultation) and said the question here is:

1-Should he be taking lunch away PERIOD since no one is able to take lunch.
2-Even if he should, he definitely should not be taking it from the overtime pay.

This is in NY btw.

Anyone have any insight on this? I dont want my Dad to lose his job by pressing these guys but also this guy is robbing everyone blind. Please advise, thanks in advance.

 

[Zigner]

Hey all,

Long story short, my dad is 60, hard working trucker job (not the ones where you drive for 5 days across counties) but the local delivery drivers in Manhattan etc. Load unload, works tons of hours.

He recently called me and told me that he discovered a few things:

1-Boss says you MUST take lunch however none of these guys or my Dad can take lunch, they already work 12-15 hrs a day. Simply put they DONT take lunch.
2-My Dad and other workers accumulate about 15 hours over overtime a week.
3-Boss decides to take 3 hours of "lunch" a week from all his workers, but.... pulls the 3 hours from the Overtime PAY. This is a VERY expensive lunch.
4-He made it aware to Union rep who played "dumb" and said he will have lawyers look into it. It has now been 4 weeks since then, no movement there.
5-I did the math, in 1 year if hes taking 3 hours of Overtime away for so called lunch and not extracting it from the normal pay rate he is basically stealing money from his employees, thousands of dollars a year.

I spoke to a lawyer (free consultation) and said the question here is:

1-Should he be taking lunch away PERIOD since no one is able to take lunch.
2-Even if he should, he definitely should not be taking it from the overtime pay.

This is in NY btw.

Anyone have any insight on this? I dont want my Dad to lose his job by pressing these guys but also this guy is robbing everyone blind. Please advise, thanks in advance.

Your dad needs to take lunch. If he does not, then he can be fired. Having said that, he must be paid for all time worked, so if he's working during his lunches, the remedy is to fire him, not to dock his pay.
Having said that, his unpaid lunch time DOES take away from his overtime pay, because he's not working during that time.

 

[xylene]

Dad's in a union, he needs to explain it to them, his peers, not just the reps. The union can work together. This affect a lot of people. Those people can make their influence felt. Get the crew together and 'take lunch' if they want to play the work-to-rule game.

Your pops is in a union, they should know what that is.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

There is an exemption from federal overtime rules for drivers and driver's helpers. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs19.htm

We have no idea what his union contract says but your father would be well advised to follow his employer's instructions as to taking lunch. People get fired for ignoring employer instructions.

 

[xylene]

We have no idea what his union contract says but your father would be well advised to follow his employer's instructions as to taking lunch. People get fired for ignoring employer instructions.

Let's be honest. The employer has conflicting expectations, and what the employer is really demanding is "Agree not to be paid for lunch and work through it like you've always done been expected to, and btw we'll take the lunch break out of your straight time hours like you wasn't working, costing you OT."

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

I see nowhere in the OPs post that the employer doesn't allow lunch. Quite the opposite he is telling the employees they must take it.

 

[xylene]

I see nowhere in the OPs post that the employer doesn't allow lunch. Quite the opposite he is telling the employees they must take it.

op says it right here:

none of these guys or my Dad can take lunch

The op says so, so I believe it. I find it completely believable that the employer that the employer is expecting them to work off the clock during lunch, and as a HR professional yourself who has worked in a large number of industries and workplaces across the country I'm unsure why you find it incredulous.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

He doesn't say the boss doesn't allow them to take lunch. In the post, he seems to imply that there isn't enough time to take lunch.

And I don't find it incredulous. I do have issues with taking the second-hand word of the worker's son as gospel.

 

[Zigner]

He doesn't say the boss doesn't allow them to take lunch. In the post, he seems to imply that there isn't enough time to take lunch.

I agree with this. I believe the employer is saying "you have to take lunch" out of one side of his mouth, but saying "get your job done, even if you have to work through lunch" out of the other side. This way, he can claim to have told the employees that they have to take lunch, so he can't be responsible when they don't.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

That may well be the case but it is purely an assumption. The OP hasn't told us why his father isn't taking lunch.

I also question the OP's knowledge of the subject because he makes comments like this, "but.... pulls the 3 hours from the Overtime PAY", when of course it is going to come out of overtime pay because it is reducing the total hours worked.

He also goes on to say that that 3 hours is a very expensive lunch. Which sounds like somebody is actually eating lunch.

 

[Zigner]

That may well be the case but it is purely an assumption. The OP hasn't told us why his father isn't taking lunch.

I also question the OP's knowledge of the subject because he makes comments like this, "but.... pulls the 3 hours from the Overtime PAY", when of course it is going to come out of overtime pay because it is reducing the total hours worked.

He also goes on to say that that 3 hours is a very expensive lunch. Which sounds like somebody is actually eating lunch.

Fair enough

 

[doesntmatterz]

I agree with this. I believe the employer is saying "you have to take lunch" out of one side of his mouth, but saying "get your job done, even if you have to work through lunch" out of the other side. This way, he can claim to have told the employees that they have to take lunch, so he can't be responsible when they don't.

Thanks for all the feedback on this.

This is exactly what I meant by lunch. Employer is a bully, my Dad and other truckers need the job. They get beaten down to work 12-15 hour days but then the boss says "take a lunch guys its great" but at the same time keeps adding more and more to the work load.

You either eat lunch and end up spending even more time out on the day because in a truckers route TIME is everything. Time effects the delivery, the traffic worsens, your time back home, etc etc.

Employer is basically bullying people but hiding behind his "you can take you lunch and you have to" but behind the scenes he knows he is overworking his guys to the point they cant. On top of this he steals the lunch from the OT pay. Does that make sense?

 

[doesntmatterz]

Dad's in a union, he needs to explain it to them, his peers, not just the reps. The union can work together. This affect a lot of people. Those people can make their influence felt. Get the crew together and 'take lunch' if they want to play the work-to-rule game.

Your pops is in a union, they should know what that is.

The union rep has basically said "yea wow thats interesting that the boss is doing that, he shouldn't. Let me get some lawyers to look into that for you, sit tight buddy". Its been 4 weeks now yet I called a lawyer in 2 min to tell me that they shouldn't be doing that? Something doesnt add up.

Furthermore he did mention it to a few of his buddies at work and they were furious when they found out. They never realized it, yet at the same time everyone is afraid to confront so called employer in fear of losing their jobs. In addition most of those employees like my Dad assume, oh its just a lil here and a lil there, like the frosting on top of a cake, but its not. Its thousands of dollars per year hes taking away.... for an expensive 3 HR lunch per week..

 

[doesntmatterz]

That may well be the case but it is purely an assumption. The OP hasn't told us why his father isn't taking lunch.

I also question the OP's knowledge of the subject because he makes comments like this, "but.... pulls the 3 hours from the Overtime PAY", when of course it is going to come out of overtime pay because it is reducing the total hours worked.

He also goes on to say that that 3 hours is a very expensive lunch. Which sounds like somebody is actually eating lunch.

I understand your concerns on how I presented this, I get it. Lets be clear, I am being sarcastic on the 3 hr lunch being expensive. My point is the employer assumes lunch is taken, fair enough. But why would it be taken from OT Pay? In a normal 9-5 lunch is within the standard 8-9 hr day not OT rate hours.

Heres an example:

Dad earns 30$ and Hr OT rate x 15 HRS a week = $450
Employer takes 3 hrs away at 30$ x 3 = 90$
$450 - 90 = 360.

90$ a week for lunch X 49 weeks (3 are vacation) = 4,410 dollars a year.

Am I missing something here aside from taxes you need to pay on that? Now multiply that by 20 employees who average around 15 hrs of OT a week. = $88,200

 

[Zigner]

But why would it be taken from OT Pay?

They are taking it from the total hours worked, not specifically from overtime. When the total time worked is decreased, then the time over 40 hours is decreased.