"Sweatshops on Wheels"

Excellent book. Belzer's an economist, but he drove. No, things haven't changed much.

Also try "Pedal to The Metal - the work lives of truckers" by Lawrence J. Ouellet. Like Belzer, Ouellet's an academic who drove. There are also "Trucking Country - the road to America's Wal-Mart economy" by Shane Hamilton, "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere" by Graham Coster, and "Truck Stop" by Marc F. Wise and Bryan Di Salvatore, which is without peer. Marc and Bryan also drove. You can find these books at Amazon.

For grins and a gritty view of trucking in the 1940s: "They Drive By Night" with Humphrey Bogart. I think the whole movie is on YouTube.

Forgot to mention that Belzer deconstructs deregulation and its context; explains how the industry got to where it is.

 

My question is how can a driver justify working for less than a grand a week? I'm a firm believer in personal accountability. If a driver is working for chump change it isn't anyone's fault but his own. Companies are in business to make money. If they can get seats filled while only paying a few cents a mile more power to them. There are a lot of desperate and dumb truck drivers out on the road. As soon as they stop driving for "sweatshop" wages pay will increase.

 

Part of the issue is the current training situation.
Truck driving schools use to be private and take 8 weeks or so. The few that existed were very good and all used government grant and loan programs. So you could go to school, get a pell grant of qualified, or a normal student loan like in college. So this training was accessible to anyone that wanted to go for a fair rate and fair interest. Over time things have changed to company sponsored schools and quick licence mills. Where the bulk of training has transferred to the trucking company's, and the school is only for teaching how to pass the test.
This way the companys have total control of the process, and make up rules for training.

Contrary to what schools and company's will tell you, we have no regulations on truck driver training. None.
Getting a CDL does not require school or any set number of hours training. The insurance company's want drivers to go to a school, just so it looks good when and if they get in an accident and have to go to court.
Driver training requirements are a big deal now, finally. Since OOIDA has been fighting for standards for many years. The large training company's are very much against this change, since it will make training a much longer process again, and raise costs. But, if we have standards in place there is a good chance that government loans and grants can come back into driver training again. Since it will be a true accredited school. And we don't have many of those, if any, anymore.

I read Sweatshop on wheels many years ago. Might have to read it again some time. Good history of where we have been and how truckload and JIT freight have screwed up driver pay. Truck driving use to be one of the best paid skilled trades around. Now we are non skilled and under paid by over half of the pay we should be getting. Even the top paying jobs making around 100k a year driving are not as high as they were in the mid 80s. When looking at it from a cost of living standpoint.

 

Holy thread resurrection Batman!!!
Trucking is no different from manufacturing or any other industry, they will pay the lowest possible wage to operate their business. Driving a truck for $500-600 a week is a big step up for people whose $10-12 an hour jobs were outsourced..and most TL carriers know this. Hence the wages some companies offer, especially for new entrants into the occupation. If they wasn't able to attract and hire new employee's at the current rate of pay offered they would raise wages to meet the demand....right? Until that time, it will remain as it is. If they can keep you on the road for $600 a week instead of a grand or 1200 a week....they will do it. Trucking companies are notorious for touting mileage pay increases ( wink wink ) but quietly taking away from other areas of pay and by raising rates on insurance etc. to the point that it's a fine line between making less instead of more than you did before the raise.

 

Aren't these companies that have schools also getting free government money PLUS charging the student $6k to slave away for them for a year? So they are double dipping.That's the only way I see a company with 1,000 trucks hiring 10,000 people a year(just example numbers). They don't want truckers or to run a trucking company they just want the government cheese and those notes on their truckers heads. Maybe the government needs to cut them off the teet and you would see these companies improve or go belly up, either would be a good outcome for the trucker.

 

I've heard that they double dip; don't know for sure and haven't seen any documentation to support the contention. It's certainly possible. BTW, here's another good read: http://atri-online.org/1997/10/01/empty-seats-and-musical-chairs/
Click on their link to download the PDF, "Empty Seats and Musical Chairs." Briefly, "Why do drivers quit?" is answered one way by drivers and another way by management. Hey, it's all tied together.

 

just a little fyi, he also did a study where his recommendation was to tighten up HOS ... a lot to limit the driver to nearly an 9 hour work day.

 

CRASH and PATT would have loved it.

 

Most boring book I ever read. Stat after stat after stat.

 

It's a thick read. I also recommend "Trucking Country" which was also written as a phd thesis, but is more historical and IMHO an easier read. The problem with wages in this country is not unique to truckdrivers. Real wages, adjusted for inflation are lower now than they were in the 1970's. It frustrates me to no end that people don't seem to understand that this is the direct product of the tax and economic policy choices of our government.