When BC truck drivers complained about unpaid overtime, company took them to court
Three BC truck drivers found themselves in court after they complained they were shorted overtime by their former employers.
The complaints largely centred around Sandhar Trucking Ltd., a company based out of Delta. After the drivers took their complaints to the BC Employment Standards Branch, they said the company "retaliated" by claiming wage theft.
The BC Civil Resolution Tribunal dismissed all claims against the three drivers. One of them, Gurmeet Sandhu, was accused of time theft by Sandhar and its sister company Aaron Trucking Ltd.
Two of the drivers, Gurmeet Sandhu and Harjinder Gill, quit around the same time after a dispatcher found "irregularities" on their start and end times.
The company accused them of time theft and warned that they would be fired if it happened again. Sandhu and Gill both refused to sign a document admitting to the time theft. They both quit soon after.
Sandhu, who was also challenged for alleged time theft by the sister company, claimed he left because he was forced to work overtime and was denied sick leave.
The third driver, Jaskaran Singh, was fired around five months later after he forged a doctor's note. He admitted to the tribunal that he did forge it, but he said it was because the company required one for sick time and getting an appointment was difficult.
Each decision laid out a similar failed argument between all three drivers. The companies compared the truck GPS time to each driver's time sheets, finding the trucks were on for less time than the drivers claimed to have worked.
Sandhar and Aaron claimed the drivers were overpaid by more than $15,000 combined.
According to all four decisions, the companies failed to account for administrative work and pre-trip inspections. The tribunal found the drivers were rightly paid for time beyond simply their hours behind the wheel.
They were each accused of overstating time cards by more than 100 hours, over periods ranging from 10 to 18 months.
Whether they were repaid for overtime they claimed went unpaid isn't clear, as the tribunal did not say whether the Employment Standards Branch ruled against the companies.
The tribunal did, however, dismiss the time theft claims in all four decisions. The companies failed to both prove the drivers were overpaid and to prove their calculations were reliable.
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