Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation [Hardcover]

Michael H. Belzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 24, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0195128869 | ISBN-13: 978-0195128864

Long hours, low wages, and unsafe workplaces characterized sweatshops a hundred years ago. These same conditions plague American trucking today.

Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation exposes the dark side of government deregulation in America's interstate trucking industry. In the years since deregulation in 1980, median earnings have dropped 30% and most long-haul truckers earn less than half of pre-regulation wages. Work weeks average more than sixty hours. Today, America's long-haul truckers are working harder and earning less than at any time during the last four decades.

Written by a former long-haul trucker who now teaches industrial relations at Wayne State University, Sweatshops on Wheels raises crucial questions about the legacy of trucking deregulation in America and casts provocative new light on the issue of government deregulation in general.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Is low pay in the trucking industry making the nation's roads unsafe [?] With the U.S. economy booming and the demand for drivers mounting, why haven't working conditions for truckers improved? [This book] argues that trucking embodies the dark side of the new economy."-"Sweatshops on Wheels," U.S. News and World Report

"Conditions are so poor and the pay system so unfair that long-haul companies compete with the fast-food industry for workers. Most long-haul carriers experience 100% annual driver turnover. The case for reform is made exhaustively [in] Sweatshops on Wheels."-- The Washington Post "The first credible cry in the wilderness describing the pitiful state to which the American trucking industry has fallen."--Land Line

"The cabs of 18-wheelers have become the sweatshops of the new millennium, with some truckers toiling up to 95 hours per week for what amounts to barely more than the minimum wage. [This book] is eye-opening in its appraisal of what the trucking industry has become."- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"The first credible cry in the wilderness describing the pitiful state to which the American trucking industry has fallen."--Land Line

About the Author

Michael H. Belzer, a nationally-known expert on the trucking industry, is Associate Professor of Industrial Relations and Director of the Graduate Program in Industrial Relations at at Wayne State University and an assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations. He is currently conducting two major government-funded research programs on truck safety. Prior to earning his Ph.D. at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, he spent eight years as a Teamster driving a tank truck over-the-road.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 24, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195128869
• ISBN-13: 978-0195128864
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,561,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars All Sweated Out...is more like it! September 2, 2000

By Kevin L. Sharpe

Format:Hardcover

Hurrah for Michael Belzer! He hit the nail on the head and now I hope American public opinion will drive it home! Belzer notes, that there have always been unique characteristics to the trucking industry that require economic, social and market regulation working in harmony in order to promote safety, and a reasonable standard of living for the participants. The smoking gun is open, unrestricted entry to the trucking business. It has resulted in under-financed companies operating 80,000-pound equipment at highway speeds in a society where aggressive competition drives the economy. That is simply bad public policy! When the freight rates drop below the cost of doing business, deferred maintenance becomes pandemic and that has created real social problems. Belzer stopped short of calling for economic regulatory controls as part of the only sensible solution, but I won't! Entry into the trucking business must require (continuing) proof of financial fitness to operate the equipment over the "long haul" in order to provide stability and safety. New under-financed entrants to the business who simply buy a truck and then try to operate on a shoestring in an environment where everybody's' front haul is somebody else's' back haul (read: non-compensatory, predatory and discriminatory freight rates) are a time bomb! The 22% national out of service rating for vehicles is proof enough for me! There is constant and unrelenting "churning" of entry and exit to the business, in an environment where just-in-time delivery, driver shortages, long hours, high speeds, irregular work hours, and unenforceable safety laws are the standard. Many of these same conditions existed in 1935, and resulted in the passage of national motor carrier regulation. We have been dismantling and tinkering with those regulations in a dangerous and piecemeal fashion since 1978. It is very disappointing but an accurate observation of human action that otherwise intelligent and educated people have a seemingly never-ending capacity for gratuitously ignoring history in pursuit of "solutions" to contemporary "problems". What is so woefully sad is that the re-introduction of failed ideas in the arrangement of human affairs almost always has both direct and indirect consequences and costs, in human terms. Resurrecting and repeating bad ideas and failed policies result in unnecessary and at times significant human suffering.

Belzer correctly points out that this business is very different from telephones and utilities, where economic deregulation does not have a direct effect on safety. Wake up America, and follow the money! We are trading human life for cheaper goods! The government cannot now, and likely never will be able to put enough police officers on the roads to enforce truck safety standards. The motor carriers are simply not making enough money to maintain their trucks! Freight rates dictated by unlimited competition will not ever cover the cost of doing business. In the last decade more Americans died in truck accidents than in the Vietnam War...225 per week and rising...the equivalent of an airline crash every seven days. Minimum, compensatory freight rates, and financial and safety fitness entry standards are necessary for safety in the trucking business! Economic deregulation, without safety fitness entry controls has been a miserable failure! In my state, I can start and operate a trucking company with less training and expertise than is required to become a barber!

Transportation deregulation advocate Robert V. Delaney once said: "The goal (of trucking deregulation) is to create an environment in which any public or private carrier that is safe and financially responsible can haul anything anywhere at any price for anyone at any time." What happened to the "safe and financially responsible" part of the equation? Deregulation advocates knew of the safety consequences, better than most, yet they chose to ignore the warnings! Is global economic transportation integration worth the social costs? No, integrating the surface transportation system, virtually overnight, through heavily lobbied federal preemption has not been worth the price we've paid! To the Delaney crew I say: "Your shiny new cheap pairs of Taiwan blue jeans are all worn out and, I hope, shrinking around your privates!" Your moral and ethical obligations did not end with your statistical predilection of great economic gain at any cost. You knew the dangers and you remained silent, or worst yet knowingly opted for the trade-off!

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So True, So Common, So Sad, SO Dangerous! May 27, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

A former career military man who has worked the most horrendous hours while on active duty, in combat and deployed around the world I lived for 22 years with the common mantra....."We have done so much with so little for so long that we are now attempting the impossible with nothing". I never thought I would be chanting the same mantra as a driver for one of the larger trucking companies in Utah. Thankfully I'm no masochist.

Being reassured that I was not being encouraged to 'cook the books' and being told that safety was foremost, I had to laugh. A former statistician by trade I am no novice at numbers. Many times I found that I was the 'only driver available', the load 'had to get through' I would have to drive a steady 86 mph through Ohio (speed limit of 55) to 'be on time'. This after just dropping off a load and getting ready to bed down for my DOT mandated sleep.

Not being able to 'take the load' branded me as not being a 'team player' and often resulted in my being overlooked when another load came through. You know, 'punishment'?

Receiving a none existing load assignment to a place that had moved then gone out of business three years before. Trying to verify that pickup and being told to 'just get there' when 'there' didn't exist? On LONG ISLAND??

Being from Texas, a drive through the home turf would have been appreciated now and then but I spent my time in the North East. A friend of mine from Pennsylvania was kept on an LA to Florida run. We were not allowed to switch runs.

After emergency surgery, I was told that I could take no convalescent leave since they (the company) were not there to take care of my 'personal vacation needs'.

I find it sad that so many good men and women have died trying to meet a deadline just so company exectives could 'look good'.

I left the trucking industry after we lost a man in an accident while trying to make up time after a snow storm. Remember, the load HAD to be there on time and there is no excuse for weather delays, even freak storms. The man died, his family was left with nothing because he was a loyal driver. The excuse the company gave? He 'wasn't following safety guidlines'.

Kudos for an excellent book. I hope more regulators read it and start fining the trucking companies everytime a trucker gets stopped.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Michael Belzer names names and takes no prisoners October 6, 2000

By Natasha Flazynski

Format:Hardcover

My husband Russ has been an over the road truck driver for over 23 years now. This is the first book that actually pulls no punches with telling the truth on the trucking industry. This is the same truth that Russ has been telling me all these years as to why these are the most unhealthy, over worked and under paid workers in the most prosperous country in the world. Bravo! Michael Belzer, for putting this book to print. I highly recommend it! Natasha Flazynski, a truckers wife.