Trucking companies don’t have to pay drivers for the time they spend in the sleeping compartment of their trucks, the U.S. Labor Department said in a July 22 opinion letter.
In a break from its longstanding interpretation of federal law, the department’s Wage and Hour Division said that the time drivers spend in their trucks’ sleeper berths relieved of all duties and allowed to sleep isn’t working time requiring compensation.
The view that some time drivers spent sleeping in their trucks had to be compensated under the Fair Labor Standards Act—which the WHD articulated in opinion letters in the ...