B.C. trucking company goes after 3 former drivers for 'time theft,' loses every case

A trucking company from B.C.'s Lower Mainland that accused three former drivers of "time theft" cannot claw wages back from any of them, the province's small claims tribunal has decided.

A trucking company from B.C.'s Lower Mainland that accused three former drivers of "time theft" cannot claw wages back from any of them, the province's small claims tribunal has decided.

Sandhar Trucking Ltd. sought a combined total of $13,616 from Jaskaran Singh, Harjinder Gill and Gurmeet Sandhu in separate complaints to the Civil Resolution Tribunal, alleging each driver padded the hours on their timesheets.

For their part, Singh, Gill and Sandhu all countered that their former employer was retaliating against them for overtime complaints they had filed with the province's Employment Standards Branch.

Tribunal member Micah Carmody, in a trio of decisions posted online Thursday, does not address the retaliation claims in detail, but dismisses Sandhar Trucking's complaints against all three men.

In each case, Carmody wrote, the company "failed to establish" that the drivers had over-reported their hours, "intentionally or otherwise."

There has been controversy around the concept of time theft – particularly after some companies began using monitoring technology to track productivity among remote workers during the COVID-19 pandemic – but at its most basic level, time theft is defined as an employee being paid without working.

To successfully claim time theft, Carmody wrote, a company must establish that a worker "breached the terms of their employment contract to report their hours worked honestly and with reasonable accuracy," as well as the amount the worker was overpaid.