Complaint Review: Little John Transportation

 The icon of the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus sits on the shelf behind Vince O'Bar's desk on his fourth floor office in the Galleria district of Houston.  O'Bar recounts with fondness how the intercession of the Virgin Mary saved his son's life. I tried a lot of things in my career enjoying success in some areas and set backs in others.  A career in Sales offered me the satisfaction that my results would determine my compensation.  O'Bar promised to pay me a base of $ 600, commissions based on a percentage of the line haul and bonuses if I booked certain levels of freight. O'Bar's office is  one of several held by the Little John Transportation Agency owned by O'Bar's lifelong college friend Chris Dale.  With 140 employees, Dale's Agency - Little John Transportation Incorporated - henceforth known as LJTSI - boosts sales of over $ 120 million in sales with over twenty years of performance. 

Before employing us, O'Bar placed a 10 year noncompete agreement as a condition of employment. O'Bar said that we could make $ 100,000 a year and that his top producer "Fred" made over $ 300,000. I later found out that restrictive noncompete agreements are unenforceable.

It took me ten days to book my first load.  One can attribute that to the weakness of the broker.  I do not claim to be an expert salesman or a master negotiator.  I have few experiences in my career like this.  O'Bar promised to train me.  His assistant manager taught me a lot, but most of what I learned I gained from other brokers.  Like everyone else there, I was on my own.

I gained more sales through friendships I made with other colleagues in my office than by O'bar's coaching.

The top producer in the office always prided himself on honesty sometimes relating hard truths to both customers and vendors.  O'Bar will say anything to close the deal and he will say anything to get out of a deal - even re-write or reinterpret contracts in order to manipulate others to get them to do whatever he wanted.

One day I booked a deal that did not make the agency the kind of money, he felt we should earn. He told me to lie to the trucker and tell the trucker that the customer pulled the load. I told him I would not lie for him or anyone else. If he wanted to pull the load then he should call the trucker himself. It was one of many such conversations.

Within a couple of months I was making a significant amount of sales to qualify for bonuses and commissions. When I asked why I had to wait and wait, wait weeks sometimes months to be "paid" on these commissions to get paid on commissions, O'Bar responded vaguely to wait until the freight settles. Yet   Landstar pays Truckers 7 to 15 days on Proof of Delivery (POD). 

I learned later that though the LJTSI is the biggest agency, LJTSI pays its brokers the least - about a third of what a normal agency pays. UTI, US Logistics, Freight of all Kinds, they also pay more about 50 to 60% on brokered spreads.

LJTSI has Agents in O'Bar's Houston office booking 1 to 3 million a year, yet none took home a paycheck above $40,000.

Also, LJTSI is cheap. They demand their agents work "five by eight" or eight hours a day five days a week which translates to 40 hours a week. On the surface this sounds reasonable. In exchange for this "five by eight," LJTSI pays its agents $ 600. However if that same agent works 40 hours with seven hours on Monday and nine on Tuesday or if that agent works only 39.5 of 38 hours, LJTSI only then pays its agents $ 400 a week.

I averaged over 50 to 60 hours there. Though LJTSI regarded us as hourly employees they never treated us as hourly employees and never paid overtime. LJSTI is also extremely rude to its agents. Consider this email exchange from an agent bringing $ 3 million in revenue to the agency to Debi Hawkins, LJTSI's Human Resources representative.

 AGENT
Will we now be paid on an hourly basis?  If so what is that rate?  If we work over 40 hours a week will we be compensated for that?  Will you be sending out the new policies on this and the time off?

Also, when does our PTO go into effect?  Does it begin at the first of the year or is it according to the day you started?  Will you be sending out the hours available to each employee so we know how many hours we will be getting this year?

DEB HAWKINS, LJTSI
no.  Pay is still the same way.  There are too many people that don't use the time clock correctly so we have to do something to rectify the situation.  We have over 140 employees and it is hard to continue to get time corrected if I have to call and find out employees time.  Yesterday was a holiday and I am the only one in the office today.  I have not nor will I have time today to calculate everyone's time.  For those who qualify, you were given 80 hours on January 1, 2015.

 Lastly and most importantly, LJTSI does not pay their commissions on time and does not pay them at all. After weeks of being employed there and being eligible to make commissions. I asked O'Bar when LJTSI would cut me a check for the money I made them. O'Bar said that LJSTI guarantees us $ 200 in commissions every week so instead of it being a $ 600 base salary like we agreed it is actually a $ 400 salary. He equivocated, changed the subject, lied and in short has done everything not to pay me my commissions. He has his explanations. They do not make sense. He contradicts himself. Further when an agent leaves their employment there, LJTSI denies them all commissions due to them.

They even denied me my request for Family Medical Leave. My mother has cancer. I requested Family Medical Leave. They responded with excuses stating, "An eligible employee is one who:

* Works for a covered employer,
* Has worked for the employer for at least 12 months;
* Has at least 1,250 hours of service for the employer during the 12 month period immediately
preceding the leave*; and
* Works at a location where the employer has a least 50 employees within 75 miles."

But that is not what the law says. The law says:

The FMLA entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. Eligible employees are entitled to:

Twelve work weeks of leave in a 12-month period for:

the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;

the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;

to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition;

a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;

any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” or

Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered service member with a
serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the service member’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or
next of kin (military caregiver leave).

O'Bar calls himself a Catholic. The Catholic Church considers it a mortal sin to cheat the worker of his wages.  Yet That is what Vince O'Bar and Chris Dale are doing at LJTSI.  They promise to pay commissions but they never do.  According to his own religion, O'Bar will not go to Heaven.  The Bible says O'Bar must make restitution to four times the offense.  If O'Bar does not repent and restitute he invites curses on himself and on his house.

I have been damaged by this experience. No one likes being cheated out of what was promised them. No one likes to be lied to. I have lost out on other employment opportunities because I believed in Vince O'Bar. Do not do business with this man. Stay away from him and Chris Dale.