"The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream"

Published on Oct 14, 2016
Wednesday, September 21
(Please note that this video is 52 minutes long)

"The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream"

Steve Viscelli, Ph.D., Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

Long-haul trucks have been described as sweatshops on wheels. The typical long-haul trucker works the equivalent of two full-time jobs, often for little more than minimum wage. But it wasn’t always this way. Trucking used to be one of the best working-class jobs in the United States. Deregulation and collective action by employers transformed trucking’s labor markets--once dominated by the largest and most powerful union in US history--into an important example of the costs of contemporary labor markets for workers and the general public.

This talk will explain how this massive degradation in the quality of work occurred, and how companies achieve a compliant and dedicated workforce despite it. It is based on more than 100 in-depth interviews and years of extensive observation, including six months spent training and working as a long-haul trucker.