The Women in Trucking and Real Women in Trucking organizations have long advocated for same-sex truck driver training. When Stevens Transport didn’t have another women trucker to train three female drivers, the company allegedly declined to hire them. That, in turn, triggered the women to file a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“I got licensed, and I clearly could drive,” Ashli Streeter of Killeen, Texas, reportedly said. “It was disheartening.”
Streeter borrowed $7,000 to enroll in truck driver training school. She expected to secure a good-paying job after learning the trade and passing her CDL tests, but was reportedly passed over. Officials at Steven Transport categorically deny claims the company engages in gender bias.
“The fundamental premise in the charge — that Stevens Transport Inc. only allows women trainers to train women trainees — is false,” the trucking company’s attorney, Bruce Dean, reportedly said. “(It) has had a cross-gender training program, where both men and women trainers train female trainees, for decades.”
The trucking industry appears to be struggling with the best way to manage an influx of female drivers to a prominently male workforce. Organizations such as the Women in Trucking Association and Real Women in Trucking continue to push companies and government to eliminate harassment, bias, and hiring barriers.
“The industry continues to place women in an environment that has the potential to encourage sexual harassment and even rape by forcing them to sleep in a sleeper berth for days at a time with trainers who likely are males,” former Women in Trucking president and CEO of Ellen Voie stated. “There is no other market segment in transportation that mixes genders in a training situation where a bed is within inches of the trainer and trainee, and the two are expected to sleep in tight quarters of each other each night.”
Critics of same-sex policies generally point to the small percentage of women driving trucks as a hiring barrier. Female truckers comprise an estimated 10 to 15.7 percent of the workforce, depending on the source. Others point out that companies could foot the bill for separate hotel rooms instead of sleeper berths when same-sex training is not an option. While a small number have taken on the added cost, that option does not necessarily eliminate sexual harassment.
In a related employment discrimination case involving a deaf CDL holder, a jury recently awarded a man more than $36 million after he was denied employment. Should the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigate and conclude the three women were wrongly denied jobs, the complaint could be escalated to a civil lawsuit.
https://www.zippia.com/professional-truck-driver-jobs/demographics/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/business/economy/women-truck-drivers.html
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