Employer Employee Agreements... Continued

I watched four or so hours of debates on the floor of the house of commons yesturday. One member would make a glaring accusation, only for the other party to make a completely opposite accusation about figures and numbers in the same document. To a person with common sense its obvious someone (or both) HAD to be lying... but nobody demanded verification of the claims....

It reminded me once agian that its always best to drink water from upstream of the herd.

Well now that the Conservative budget was passed by the Liberals… no wait!..

The Liberal budget passed by the Conservatives…..................... no…

The Conservative budget passed by… NO NO NO!

It’s the Liberal budget passed by… no… ratified by…………… aw!

y7tu6hrigkjbn! j7tu6hrigkjbn! (Head banging on keyboard)

Forget it! I’m going to the nearest carnival to ride the zipper and tea cup to regain my equilibrium.


Let's get back to trucking shall we?

The critical qualification of using subsistence allowance is the Employer Employee Agreement (EEA). If the designers agree, it can become a very creative application. Let's compare how flexible it is to the current system.

Another controvercy over the lunch bag let down is the application of the TL2. "Qualification" for the 50-80% increase is restricted to drivers who travel more than 160KM from their municipality and also gone over night (24 hours). However, in an employer-employee agreement operators can ignor those type of restrictions because that has to do with forms that apply to another system. Travel status qualification can start immediately when an employee marks "on duty" in their log book. That means if they leave before breakfast... they qualify to be paid for it! I know its a novel appoach that hasn't been applied to the trucking industry for decades but I think it may just catch on... don't you think? So not only is the system fair and just in its numbers it can be just and fair in application as well.

EEA's are also customizable! An EEA can add or remove specific features applicable to a specific job. The most important thing to remember is that it must be "reasonable". Let's remember that the definition of "reasonsble" is defined and mandated by CRA not by the public.

The simplest way to determine what is reasonable is answering this question: Has CRA accepted the application before? For instance, when a government auditor leaves home before 8am they qualify for breakfast, otherwise they don't qualify for subsistence until noon. Therefore, according to the Charter of rights and freedoms (equality or non-descrimination), because CRA allows one group to define travel status this way all other agreements may be taylored with this type of detail.

I can't caution operators enough, it must be reasonable! The application of subsistence allowance is NOT, and should not be considered a blank check. All I am promoting is a fair, just and equality based tax system, nothing more... nothing less!

Decades ago most drivers received a meal allowance from their employors but for "closed door" reasons trucking companies stopped paying it.

So lets get back to it... literally!