{"id":1767226,"date":"2022-12-08T08:17:29","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T13:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1767226"},"modified":"2022-12-08T08:17:33","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T13:17:33","slug":"like-rail-workers-truckers-are-also-feeling-the-pain-of-predatory-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/like-rail-workers-truckers-are-also-feeling-the-pain-of-predatory-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Like Rail Workers, Truckers Are Also Feeling The Pain Of Predatory Systems"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flike-rail-workers-truckers-are-also-feeling-the-pain-of-predatory-systems%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1767226&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>President Joe Biden and Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/article\/railroad-strike-explained.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">moved last Friday to<\/a> exercise their constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce and prevent a rail labor strike by imposing an agreement mandating increased pay and schedule flexibility for railway workers. The agreement was previously rejected by some railway worker unions, which deemed the move insufficient. Although lawmakers from both sides of the aisle hesitated to impede unions\u2019 ability to negotiate freely, the alternative is far less desirable. A railway worker strike would have cost the American economy an estimated $2 billion daily, in addition to ravaging supply lines during the busiest time of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The issues facing the railroad industry are not unique, and this act by Congress should serve as a warning sign for other areas of the supply chain. Like railway workers, truck drivers, too, have suffered from shrinking pay and grueling hours, issues made possible largely because <a href=\"https:\/\/www.navesinkriskmgmt.com\/technology-and-hiring\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">most drivers<\/a> work as independent contractors \u2014 not salaried employees. Problems ranging from rates of payment to crooked contract agreements to unsafe driving standards have resulted in a driver shortage, high turnover, and declining wages. To avoid similar interventionist measures becoming necessary in the trucking industry, the government needs to ensure that the legal distinctions between independent contractors and employees are more clearly defined.<\/p>\n<p>To understand how this issue came to be, we have to go back to the <a href=\"https:\/\/prospect.org\/economy\/why-trucking-cant-deliver-the-goods\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Motor Carrier Act of 1980<\/a>, which slashed much of the industry\u2019s previous oversight and barriers to entry. Until that point, trucking was a decently lucrative field; the average truck driver in 1980 earned about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2021\/dec\/27\/us-truck-drivers-economy-pay-conditions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$110,000<\/a> annually, adjusted for inflation. After the act passed, new, loosely regulated trucking companies flooded the market, which arbitrarily classified their drivers \u2014 drivers that functioned as employees working exclusively for one company according to its standards, hours, and routes \u2014 as \u201cindependent contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By doing so, these companies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fellermanlaw.com\/truck-driver-misclassification\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">became exempt<\/a> from paying for drivers\u2019 Social Security taxes, FICA, and overtime or providing them with insurance and other benefits. Despite working longer and more grueling hours, truckers today make less than half of what they used to in real terms \u2014 capping out at around <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/ooh\/transportation-and-material-moving\/heavy-and-tractor-trailer-truck-drivers.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$48,000<\/a>. As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/truck-driver-salary-decrease-pay-cut-2018-9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Larry Mishel<\/a>, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, put it, \u201cThis was a conscious decision to make the trucking industry a dog-eat-dog industry. The prices of trucking got cheaper, but the ability to make a living evaporated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A staple of these modern independent contractor agreements is lease-purchase plans, under which drivers lease their trucks directly from the company, becoming quasi-owner-operators. Essentially, drivers pay their companies to use the trucks and all the associated maintenance costs, receiving a fee for the loads they deliver. They typically can\u2019t take the truck home or use it for any other purpose. If they want to leave the company, they can end up indebted with no job and no truck. Unsurprisingly, this practice almost never works out profitably for the drivers. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.transportationnation.com\/what-you-should-know-about-fmcsas-new-plan-to-tackle-predatory-truck-leases\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Lewie Pugh<\/a>, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There must be clear legal criteria differentiating drivers who are truly independent contractors from those who are employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1607,"featured_media":1767229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1767226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1767226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}