Deregulation turned trucks into rolling sweatshops.

In days gone by, the general public looked upon truck drivers as “knights of the road.” Those big and burly men (women truck drivers were almost unheard of back then) were quick to stop and help a motorist who might appear stranded. Motorists, in turn, looked for the roadside diners where the “big trucks” stopped, assuming, often correctly, that the food inside must be good.

Today, the media portrays truckers as the Mad Maxes and Maxines of the highway, out to terrorize the public in thundering, smoke-belching instruments of destruction – “killer trucks.” The former knights of the road have become demons, the old highway cowboys, outlaws.

In reality, there are very few killer trucks on the road today, but there are many killer truck drivers. They travel at speeds well over the posted limit, weaving in and out of traffic following less than a car length behind autos, using intimidation in hopes that the smaller vehicle will move. They cheat on their logbooks, drive when over-tired and fill the CB airwaves with language that would cause a barroom dog to drop its bone.

There was a time when such drivers would have been rejected by the trucking industry before they ever got behind the wheel.

Why the change?

To understand what has happened, let’s look at a little recent history.

Prior to1980, trucking was classified, not as an industry, but as a heavily regulated utility. As a designated utility, trucking developed into an honorable, sought-after career in which the wages were good, the lifestyle hard working, but relaxed, and the future secure. Well-qualified persons stood in line waiting for an opening to occur.

In 1980, the federal government ended trucking’s utility status by deregulating the industry. Free market forces were immediately released and began a feeding frenzy on the fledgling industry, which found itself completely without protection.

In fairness to the Carter administration, it must be said that it did have enough forethought to imagine market forces creating competition based solely on overworking employees. To head this off, lengthy studies were initiated, and new rules and safety regulations were proposed. However, these new rules failed to be fully enacted during Carter’s administration.

Later, the Reagan administration – armed with a cost-benefit analysis that claimed the costs of the new rules and safety regulations outweighed the benefits – tossed the new rules and regulations out.

Because the trucking industry had, until 1980, been regulated as a public service, it enjoyed an exemption from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In 1981, during the confusing early days of deregulation, the Minimum Wage Study Commission (MWSC) reviewed and recommended a continuance of this exemption. Their recommendation was based on the erroneous proposition – garnered from old, out-of-date information – that 80 percent of all over-the-road drivers were covered under union contracts and thus benefited from standards that exceeded the FLSA.

The facts are that union organization in the truckload sector of the industry – the largest sector – is, and always has been, next to nonexistent. Whether this was an honest error on the part of the MWSC or a means of arriving at a desired conclusion is left to speculation.

Once government opened the floodgates, changes came thick and fast. New companies, formerly limited in number by tight regulation, sprang up overnight. Unbridled competition, hoped by many to have a cleansing and beneficial effect, became destructive. Freight rates fell, bankruptcies skyrocketed and wages plummeted. Research shows that without the protection of either the union or the FLSA, wages of drivers in the non-unionized truckload segment of the industry fell as much as 30 percent to 50 percent between 1980 and 1997.

In a desperate attempt to maintain some semblance of a middle class lifestyle, drivers were forced to work much longer hours for the same take-home pay.

Faced with this new reality of extremely long hours and substandard pay, many professional drivers began leaving the industry just as the new companies began adding thousands of trucks to the competitive free-for-all. Drivers, who had been standing in line waiting for a good job, disappeared, as trucking became a job of last resort.

In a frantic attempt to find new drivers, trucking company recruiters significantly lowered their expectations and requirements. The resulting “scraping of the barrel” exacerbated the downward spiral. It is estimated that the current turnover rate among non-union drivers is 100 percent.

While loudly crying about an ever increasing “driver shortage,” truckload carriers make no real attempt to address the serious issues that have created the shortage. Spurred on by competition run amuck, they continue to hire the lowest wageworkers, available from wherever they can find them. This drives wages further into the dirt, compounds the skilled driver shortage and spills more blood on the highways.

In his book, “Sweatshops on Wheels,” Michael H. Belzer, an assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, cogently analyzes the effects deregulation has had on the trucking industry. According to his analysis, deregulation has resulted in fierce competition; extremely low wages, killing hours and a never ending struggle to maintain safety in such an environment.

The 20th century saw those dins of human exploitation and misery called “sweatshops” legislated out of existence. Could it be that the sweatshops of the last century have been replaced by thundering, rolling versions of the same thing?

My hangdog look is the result of knowing that Belzer is correct in his assessment: The “new” truckload carrier industry has created sweatshops that enslave many more individuals than the sweatshops of yesterday ever dreamed of.

Next time we’ll take a look at prescriptions for this ailing industry. Until then, keep the greasy side down and the shiny side up. Drive safely.

Guy Bourrie has been hauling on the highways for 20 years. He lives in Washington, Maine, and can be reached at [email protected].