Growing way to Cut Pay: Treat Worker as Contractor

Chicago — Truck driver Lucio Barrera said he didn’t think twice about signing a contract in 2013 with DNJ Intermodal Services, even though it barred him from using his truck to do business with other companies and he had to use and pay for DNJ’s communication and tracking systems.

Barrera said he started having doubts about the arrangement last year, when he got paychecks that showed zero earnings. Barrera said DNJ was deducting costs for repairing, towing and storing his 1996 Freightliner semitractor-trailer truck. In January, the company seized the truck for back payment and told Barrera his services were no longer needed, Barrera said.

In June, Barrera, 41, of Chicago, filed suit against DNJ in federal court in Chicago claiming the company imposed so much control over him that he should have been classified as an employee, not an independent contractor. Barrera said in his suit that he believes 50-100 other drivers “suffered the same type of economic damages as a result of DNJ’s practices and policies.”

DNJ, a unit of Memphis, Tenn.,-based IMC Cos., declined to comment.

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