Groundbreaking research surveys drivers coast to coast, exposing the "independent contractor" misclassification scheme behind the trend
New York,NY,USA -The Street/PR Newswire -6 Dec 2010: -- The 110,000 truck drivers who move goods from the nation's ports onto America's store shelves this holiday season are routinely paid poverty-level wages as employers skirt workplace laws and cost U.S. billions in lost tax revenue... The port truckers who move our nation's imports -- televisions, tennis shoes, mattresses, and MP3 players -- toil long hours for low pay, often below the federal minimum wage. The companies they haul for call them "independent contractors," thereby shifting costs to the drivers and avoiding taxes, but this classification is far from the truth, the report shows... A national conference-call briefing to release a major report exposing an illegal business tactic in the port trucking industry. The report reveals how port truckers are routinely paid poverty-level wages because of a pervasive industry scheme of misclassifying these drivers as "independent contractors" ... The authors of The Big Rig: Poverty, Pollution, and the Misclassification of Truck Drivers at America's Ports -- the first-ever systematic examination of misclassification across an entire U.S. industry -- will discuss key findings, consequences, methodology, and recommendations for policymakers on the telephonic press briefing... The report authors are among the nation's experts on misclassification, which drains public coffers of tax dollars, strips workers of important protections and benefits, and undercuts businesses that play by the rules. The Obama Administration has made it a key priority to crack down on the growing practice... (Photo from Life/t0.gstatic: The truckers sued the City of Los Angeles alleging that the program is unfair to truckers, favoring large trucking companies over smaller independent contractors who tend to drive older trucks)
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