A bill making its way through the U.S. House would follow in the footsteps of California’s A.B. 5 law, passed in late 2019 and codifying a prior court decision, by severely curtailing the ability of leased owner-operators to haul freight for larger motor carriers.
The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2021, in addition to other broad reforms to the nation’s labor laws, would institute the so-called ABC test for determining whether a business can contract work to an independent contractor. In the case of trucking, that means a motor carrier contracting loads to a truck driver, often via the common leased owner-operator model, in which a driver owns their own truck and business and runs under the authority of a larger carrier. The PRO Act was introduced in early February in both chambers of Congress.
State can rumble ahead with toll increases | Opinion
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Congress again looks to allow under-21 interstate truckers with 400-hour apprenticeship program
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(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
CHICAGO (CN) The State of Indiana was free to permit the operator of its toll road to increase fees on heavy vehicles, a Seventh Circuit panel ruled Tuesday.
The unanimous three-judge panel issued a short 6-page ruling, finding that a toll road fee increase that specifically targeted heavy vehicles did not run afoul of commerce laws.
“The Constitution does not establish the federal judiciary as a regulatory commission, after the fashion of utility regulators that try to keep natural monopolies’ charges in line with consumers’ benefits,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, who authored the opinion. “Truckers who want to avoid the tolls can use the many free roads in Indiana (including two toll-free interstate highways that cross the middle and south of the state from east to west.)”