Three Southern California port truck drivers filed a class action lawsuit Monday against a prominent logistics company accusing their management of routinely denying workers owed wages and flouting state labor laws.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, represents about 160 workers at XPO Logistitics Cartage LLC with offices in Commerce and San Diego. It’s the latest effort to push back on a common industry practice of contracting with big rig drivers instead of hiring them as employees, which allows companies to forgo payroll taxes and other worker protections.
Despite working five days a week, sometimes 14 hours a day, “it’s not uncommon for these drivers to take home $100 a week,” said Julie Gutman Dickinson, a lawyer representing drivers in the lawsuit filed Monday. Worse, she said workers are at times left in debt at the end of the pay period, “keeping them in indentured servitude.”
