What‘s the alternative?
To what? Abusive labor practices? I’m confused by your question.
To replacing drivers with self-driving trucks
Replacing drivers with properly compensated drivers with proper labor protections in the short term.
In the longer term something much more drastic has to happen. With or without drivers, the amount of carbon fuels burned to move stuff around the US seems like an unsustainable problem. But I’m not an expert. I don’t see how underpaying drivers now and having them work in terrible conditions helps anything.
I am all for giving drivers much better working conditions now but commercial drivers are destined to be replaced by self-driving vehicles in the not too distant future. That’s something we should have already started planning for.
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Didn’t watch the Oliver piece yet but does he talk about the independent contractor scam? I’m friends with a guy here working under that arrangement who is very clearly getting fucked by his own family! And from what he’s told me, it’s pretty clear that his fam is doing all kinds of tax fraud and cutting corners on safety regulations / inspections. I’m half tempted to call in a tip on it.
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Yes
AQ, what does the average decent driver make these days, with unpaid wait times and the crazy backup at loading / unloading?
We’re on the same page.
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This can happen in professions for other reasons as well. I’m a mid-40s pension actuary. Since companies have been closing their pension plans for years, the number of graduates entering the pension actuary profession has been miniscule, and the older generation of pension actuaries is retiring. So there’s a pretty great (for me) labor imbalance between the demand for pension actuaries for another 10 years or so as we finally get all these legacy plans settled, vs. the supply of new pension actuaries which basically dried up shortly after I entered the workforce. My “human capital” projection is probably 10 years of high earnings and then nada.
My expectations are very low, both about congress doing anything about it and about anything actually incriminating coming to light.
who are the other top jobs
Honesty probably specialty stuff. Tankers and overdimensional immediately pop to mind. There are literally hundreds of thousands of trucking companies. Walmart is the best big operation I know of full stop. They had a looooong waiting list last I paid attention to it.
What are most truckers actually making (net) with all the issues brought up in the Oliver piece? Specially, not getting paid for the massive amount of waiting going on
Know what freaks the Chinese Communist Party out more than anything? Food riots. Bad history in China. I’m shocked they haven’t delivered 20kg of food to every citizen in Shanghai.
https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1513107694177198080?s=20&t=rsEur3gFvGlXbdAIJUnFjA
This is kinda more appropriate for the Covid thread, as the Chinese are looking pretty clueless, but I put it here because it may auger bigger internal China issues down the road. May not be a happy time for Xi.
Edited your post on the name. Also a reminder to please refer to other posters (Specifically AQ) by their current screen names. Numerous reasons for this with some very important. Thanks.
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No idea. When China was doing lockdown 2 years ago, I thought it wasn’t possible long term. To do it post-vaccine and after a lot of additional information, it seems nutty. I suspect that politicians are making calls that should be opposed by health authorities, in a manner much worse than under Trump and GOP governors.
It’s not about safety, it’s about CONTROL!
But maybe?
It’s a good excuse to experiment and discover the actual limits of their authoritarian powers. They can step things back here without seeming weak or acknowledging that they crossed the line of shit people will put up with.