In March, Saini says he twice drove a company rig to California, with a co-worker, spending more than 10 days on the road and covering over 16,000 kilometres. But the promised paycheque never came.

“I’m owed like $3,000 from them,” he said, noting the lack of a paycheque meant he was struggling to make payments for his car and rent. “I even had to borrow money from my friends.”

Trucking is big business in this country. The industry employs close to 350,000 people, according to Transport Canada, with new firms starting up on a regular basis. But as the industry grows, so do issues surrounding payments for drivers, who often find themselves fighting for what they’re owed.

“It is a huge problem,” says Navi Aujla, director of the Labour Community Services of Peel, a non-profit that has taken up the cases of more than 250 truckers over the last two years. “The majority of people that call us for help, it’s related to wage theft. They’ve already had to leave the job because they haven’t been getting paid.”