Truckers Demand Feds Finish Rampant Wage Theft
Truckers took to the streets of D.C. final week to name on lawmakers to finish the unfair practices of their trade that locks drivers into poverty and debt, resulting in a manufactured trucker scarcity.
In case you missed it:
This isn’t like previous trucker protests, the place drivers slowed down site visitors, obtained flipped off by D.C. drivers and wished to arrest cops for forcing them to pissed themselves. These drivers have been with Truckers Motion for Justice, they usually took to the streets (on their toes, not their huge rigs) on Could 1 to checklist their grievances of wage theft within the type of unpaid wait occasions and lack of additional time pay, the Guardian reviews:
The group mentioned they met with senior officers from the DoT in 2021 as a part of Joe Biden’s trucking motion plan, a set of initiatives meant to extend the availability of truck drivers by creating new pathways into the career, however that they’ve but to see any motion on their three core calls for.
“We’ve misplaced our endurance. This has been going for years and has solely gotten worse with the shortage of federal motion. We don’t want taskforces and research,” mentioned Fernandez, who additionally serves as deputy secretary for Truckers Motion for Justice.
Pay for truck drivers has dwindled in latest many years even because the trade has constantly complained it can’t discover sufficient drivers. When adjusted for inflation, the common pay for a truck driver within the US in 1980 was about $110,000 yearly, in contrast with about $48,000 at the moment. Greater than 2 million People work as truck drivers within the US at the moment.
Ray Randall, a truck driver for over 20 years who has labored throughout the US mentioned he had spent hours in line at ports, unpaid.
“Drivers must be paid detention time,” mentioned Randall. “We consider all drivers must be paid for all hours labored, as a result of when you come on responsibility, you’re working. In case you come to a shipper and have to attend, I’m working. Additionally, after 40 hours, corporations pay staff additional time however drivers don’t get any additional time and we are able to put in 70-plus hours per week. We might be on responsibility 12 hours a day and we’re not getting paid for these 12 hours.”
Dang. In response to the Guardian, actual take-home pay for truckers has fallen by greater than half since 1980. That’s for a harmful job that’s onerous in your physique, thoughts and household. The trucking trade jogs my memory a substantial amount of one other trade which is at the moment working its most vital employees ragged within the title of income and to the drawback of security.
We’ve mentioned it earlier than and we’ll say it once more: The trucker scarcity is bullshit. Identical to all each different trade that insisted after the COVID-19 lockdowns that “nobody needs to work anymore,” there is no such thing as a trucker scarcity with out a pay scarcity. That’s regardless of the trucking lobbyist releasing more and more dire warnings a few trucker scarcity. The American Trucking Associations launched a press launch declaring America can be quick 80,000 drivers with out a lot problem from sure information shops.
