Technical amendments to SAFETEA-LU reaffirm overtime protection for light weight truck drivers.

• Author: Longoria, Marguerite M.
• Position: Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005: A Legacy for Users

In June 2008, Congress passed a Technical Corrections Act amending the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users passed in August 2005 and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to provide that drivers, drivers' helpers, loaders and mechanics of vehicles weighing 10,000 lbs. or less who perform tasks that affect the safety of vehicles operating in interstate commerce are encompassed within the maximum hours provisions of 29 U.S.C. [section]207. This article will examine that legislation and demonstrate its retroactive impact on the eligibility of these workers to obtain overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act between 2005 and June 2008.

When Congress passed the FLSA in 1938, its principal purpose was to protect all covered workers from "substandard wages" and "oppressive working hours...labor conditions [that are] detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers." (1) The FLSA was designed to give specific minimum protections to individual workers and to ensure that each employee covered by the act would receive "'[a] fair day's pay for a fair day's work'" and would be protected from "the evil of 'overwork' as well as 'underpay.'" (2) Congress attempted to secure this goal, in part, by enacting a prohibition which generally mandated that individuals who work more than 40 hours in a week receive an overtime premium. (3)

Upon its enactment of the FLSA, Congress provided that its overtime pay requirements should not apply with respect to any employee to whom the Secretary of Transportation has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service under the Motor Carrier Act (MCA). (4) The exemption of employees regulated by the Secretary of Transportation from the overtime requirements of the FLSA was based on the fact that since the enactment of the Motor Carrier Act in 1935, the Secretary of Transportation (DOT) and its predecessor, the Interstate Commerce Commission, had the authority to establish maximum hours of service for drivers, drivers' helpers, loaders, and mechanics employed by "motor carriers" and "motor private carriers" who engage in performing tasks that affect the safety of vehicles operating in interstate commerce. (5) Congressional provision of an exemption from the overtime requirements of the FLSA for workers under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Transportation reflected its expectation that the secretary would enact legislation regulating the maximum hours of service for employees within his or her jurisdiction. (6)

Notwithstanding her authority to do so, (7) during the 73 years since the enactment of the MCA, the Secretary of Transportation never exercised his or her power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service over light weight (10,000 lbs. or less GVW) motor private carriers. (8) Instead, the secretary focused primarily on safety regulations for commercial vehicles exceeding 10,000 lbs.

Because the Secretary of Transportation preserved but did not exercise jurisdiction over motor private carriers, the hours of employees affecting safety of operation or working on vehicles in interstate commerce weighing 10,000 lbs. or less were left unregulated by either the secretary's hours-of-work regulations or the overtime premium requirements of the FLSA. However, allowing employees to work without regulations restricting their maximum hours or imposing overtime premiums that would deter employers from imposing onerous work requirements was at odds with the purpose of the MCA to ensure the safety of vehicles operating in interstate commerce. This oversight resulted in an unsafe and unfair situation in which many workers in the transportation industry were deprived of protections from substandard and unsafe work requirements, as well as overtime premiums, which other workers in the U.S. enjoy.

Furthermore, the MCA exemption from the FLSA was not restricted to individuals employed as drivers in interstate commerce. Even workers whose primary duties were arguably outside or peripheral to the transportation industry, with only an incidental involvement with interstate transportation, have been held to have an impact on the safety of vehicles operating in interstate commerce that places them within the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Transportation. A notable example involved computer field service technicians who drove their personal vehicles (and occasionally flew and rented cars) to travel between job sites to perform installation, preventive maintenance, diagnostics, and repairs on their customers' computer hardware. The computer technicians routinely traveled in and out of state transporting tool kits weighing approximately 35 lbs. Their transportation of this minimal amount of property across state lines was sufficient to disqualify them from the protections of the FLSA9 and leave them, unregulated and unprotected, within the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Transportation.

Enactment of the SAFETEA-LU

On August 10, 2005, the scope of the FLSA's [section]213(b)(1) exemption was markedly decreased when the Secretary of Transportation's jurisdiction over motor carriers and private motor carriers which weigh less than or equal to 10,000 lbs. was withdrawn. (10) This happened as a result of the enactment in August 10, 2005, of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).

The SAFETEA-LU was transportation reauthorization legislation enacted to allow vehicles not subject to safety regulations to pass through U.S. borders without inspection by safety inspectors.11 The bill eliminated the requirement for motor carriers to register with the Secretary of Transportation, unless they were also subject to the secretary's federal Motor Carrier Safety regulations.12 Section 4142 of SAFETEA-LU amended the definitions of "motor carriers" and "motor private carriers" in [section]13102 of Title 49 of the U.S. Code to cover only commercial...