LA TIMES: Why paying truckers by the mile is unfair and dangerous

It's not just the driver really, that truck is an asset to the company, a revenue generator. If a company/customer is abusing the use, tying the asset up for hours, when it could be better utilized pulling for another client, that's lost revenue for the company.

Nobody wants to lose a contract with, say Walmart, to pull a load for Joe's Sprockets. But the smaller buisness might be able to turn around a billable load in less time than the big company takes to get the trailer off the dock. And the smaller company won't nickle and dime your rates down to save a fraction of a percent on the next quarterly earnings statement.

But this is interfering with the basic tenets of a supply/demand economy. I'd LOVE to hire a maid to clean my house, do my laundry & dishes, and get change back from a $1 bill. But nobody will work that cheaply. So I have to pay more until I reach a rate that both parties agree to.

By allowing a 2nd class citizen into the job market (in that they are not subject to the same rights & protections as a U.S. citizen) we are drawing down the labor market. We also do this by allowing trade with countries that do not abide by the same standards & practices we do. We have an FDA & an EPA & child labor laws. If we let a child work in a farm with dangerous chemicals we could probably do things as cheaply as China.

We also had a great "guest worker program" in the 18th-19th century. Didn't work out so well then either.

 

void

 

I believe you have Stockholm syndrome.

 

Crossed paths with 2 Russian's today pulling triples for FedEx. They were happy. Each had their own cab over.

I don't think hourly will work

 

Nailed it!

 

When the transcontinental railroad was being built, many more times the needed workers from China were brought in to flood the labor market and suppress the wages. Business leaders, in spite of what Republicans and Fox News say do not want supply and demand. They will always manipulate the supply to suppress demand for labor.

 

Well the larger a company becomes the more it begins to resemble a socialist organization rather than a capitalist one.

I had a whole theroy on this I'm not going to post here, but it was part of a thesis I wrote in college that I was (rainy day project) going to turn into a full book,,, someday.

 

Curious . How can a demand be met without a supply?

 

For some of these oufits, might be an improvement.