The "supply chain problem" is a King Kong size economic problem for America it is helping fuel intolerable inflation in the country. A small part of the "supply chain problem" is a shortage of "truck" drivers, the American Trucking Associations puts the number at eighty-thousand drivers. Of course, there is many reasons for this shortage what however is clearly occurring in this industry is that there is high turnover amongst truck drivers they jump from one employer to another and frequently jump out of the industry, one glaring reason for this is that truckers frequently have to wait long periods of time to drop off their cargo or to pick-up their cargo and the real "bow one over" hardship is that in most instances the truckers don't get paid for this wait period, not one penny! This grave injustice needs to stop yesterday; these truck drivers aren't second class human beings they are human beings and thereby have the right to be treated fairly in the workplace and this situation is patently unfair. America is a country that enshrines fundamental rights so how can our national elected leaders allow this abuse to continue! Some experts believe that if the country stopped this terrible work environment for truckers, the turnover problem of truckers in the industry would stop and the industry would have the employment level needed to eliminate the "shortage of truck driver" supply bottleneck problem in America! Washington meaning Congress and the President need to pass legislation to improve this problem. There is two ways they could improve this problem. First, they could consider this from a minimum wage perspective and deem that this wait period for truckers is time they are working for an employer and therefore are entitled to a minimum wage for this period of time. This would require independent truckers to be considered employees for this wait time issue; not a big deal the logic exists for this classification. The employer in this situation would be entities like the shipyard, the warehouse owner or lessee who is controlling the warehouse and thus is responsible for the delay. So to try as much as possible to eliminate this administrative burden, shipyards and warehouses would have a one hour window for which this regulation, paying for wait time, would not kick in. So as to stop the gaming of the system where within this one hour the warehouse gives the trucker one box or removes one box from the trucker's truck then claims the regulation does not apply but situation is the trucker still has to wait for the balance of the freight to be loaded or unloaded, Congress should put in the regulation a fair time period for such loading and unloading or let the Department of Transportation determine this and any time in excess of this set time period for a specific trucker by law shall be deemed wait time and the compensation requirement should then apply. The other way Congress could see that Truckers were treated fairly for wait time, is legally consider this time as time worked by the Trucker for which he or she should be compensated. By this I mean for example a trucker has a contract to deliver cargo from place A to place B for a set number of dollars. A certain amount of this revenue is going to pay fuel expenses and certain amount is going to pay for tolls a certain amount is going to pay for wear and tear on the truck and the balance is for wages for the trucker, one knows pretty much how long it will take to drive a truck from point A to point B so the truckers hourly pay rate can be determined. So the enabling legislation could require the shipyard pay the trucker the contract wage rate for the time period waiting. Congress could just require the Department of Transportation to determine an industry average hourly pay rate for truckers, determined by monitoring the ongoing payment in the industry, and just require the shipyards pay this rate for the wait period incurred by the truckers. For truckers that work for a trucking business or the like, the law could require the shipyard to pay the trucking business and also the trucking business pay the individual truck driver for this wait period.
I like truckers, but should we really be giving them extra benefits other than the infrastructure necessary to carry them through the day? Like rest stops, service areas, etc.?
Um, no! People have a tendency to think government action is needed to solve a problem. These people aren't using logic. Think about free-market solutions. Before you advocate government action you need to explain why the free market has a weakness in appropriately addressing the problem. Otherwise you are just applying piecemeal logic and not looking at the big picture in totality. No, you're not being logical. If the problem is a pay problem then there is really no actual "shortage" at all. Is there? If they are not being paid "enough" then the pay would increase on its own, wouldn't it? So no government intervention is needed. This is basic economics.
Truck driving is a difficult job, for multiple reasons. The pay can be good in some parts of the country (really dismal in other parts) but is still not all really that great considering what it demands. Also with the latest story like this: Man sentenced to 110 years for accidental automotive death of 4 people , I think you're going to see more people reluctant to be in that field. Yes, that's right, legal liability plays a big role. You can't put people under constant threat and risk of punishment and not expect people to demand higher compensation for that.
yes, that sentence is wrong, and will hopefully be corrected... the fact he is a trucker will help it be overturned as they are not second class citizens like normal (not rich) drivers that may not get the attention
Truckers fought to exempt themselves from federal minimum wage laws because it was more profitable for them to be paid by the mile. It is pretty much the only industry that still relies on a piece-work style pay system. It is by their own design so if now the tide has turned against them in foul weather, they can't have their cake and eat it too.
