Originally published at: ATA caves on driver shortage lie: hard pivot to 'quality' dodge, no apologies - FreightWaves
The ‘driver shortage’ myth might finally die.
Only took 20 years for one article, but thanks. Well written. Now maybe you could address the Rate confirmation fraud that brokers and shippers perpetrate on their drivers, by telling them they get a certain percentage of the load, (ex: 70/30, etc) But never have to show the original rate confirmations. They just print out arbitrary numbers on a pay report and never show the original. They run 2 books. Which allows them to steal massive percentages on top of the actual load payouts. The broker I used to work for was taking over a hundred percent and then still skimming the 70% that was supposed to go to the driver. The drivers have no choice but to run on fumes. They can’t afford maintenance and most are on ■■■■■■■ to provide for their families. And the same goes for drivers that are supposed to get 30 percent of the load for just driving. They can sit a driver in a yard for hours and they don’t get paid. And if they do it is nothing compared to their HOS getting destroyed and not able to drive the next day. 10 hour off-set plus business hours. It is exponential. All that while being available 24/7 basically. Goodluck.
Typical Democrat party hack, squawk hysterically about a non-existent, self serving problem while covering up the existing problem you’re responsible for creating until you drive the well-qualified drivers out of the industry with mountains of ■■■■■■■■ coupled with low pay and ZERO respect and then when the system predictably collapses under the total chaos YOU’VE created, change your tactic and start blaming the problem you created on the industry while telling everybody you again have the solution.
Much like that Climate change hockey stick guy who was shrieking about the coming ICE AGE back in the 70’s who is now convinced that bovine ■■■■■■■■■■ is the 4 largest cause of global warming.
Honestly, the biggest problem in America today is/are the BRIBES that Congressional legislators and SENATORS are LEGALLY PAID everyday, IE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, PAID by lobbyists AND their SUPPORTERS. It’s not a bribe THEY say, politicians have to spend campaign money on elections and some of their daily expenses. BUT ONCE THEY LEAVE OFFICE, THAT MONEY IS NOW THEIR’S TO SPEND ON THEMSELF AND IF THAT DOESN’T MEET THE DEFINITION OF A BRIBE, I got some Ocean front property in Arizona I’ll sell you cheap.
We need to change the way we fund political campaigns in order to thin out the self serving THIEVES THAT TOOK OVER WASHINGTON DC IN THE 90’s and replace them with qualified public service minded politicians and government employees.
When I started driving in 1972 I ran Team for 4 years Edmonton, Alberta to Laredo, Texas. We were getting paid .28 per mile - each. Back then a driver could support a family and buy a home and a cabin on a lake. Today how much are companies paying their drivers?
Who is the ATA? I believe it is the Mega trucking companies, and we all know who they are. It’s obvious they are not there wanting to give their employees a good life ( although they are taking it for themselves) but are dragging them through the gutter.
I believe these companies should be folded, and All the equipment sold at auctions. Big = Greed
I think trucking companies should be held back to maximum 100 trucks, or maybe smaller. Employees should after 5 years become share holders with voting rights.
Safety is #1 issue. Truck drivers bust their buts every day, putting in their 11 hours and 70 hour weeks. Who else works like that. Truck drivers need to again be recognized as King of the Road, and be paid accordingly.
It’s the brokers an logistics phi beta omega collegiate to blame
How did lack of work force development investment suddenly become a “lack of driver quality”?
Like calling grader schoolers stupid for not already being high schoolers?
Always someone elses’s fault, not my management strategy or the working conditions or minimalist compensation? How is all this the driver’s fault?
Your as guilty as the ATA ever thought about being. You spread this misinformation as well, knowing full well it was bogus. Why did you not call it out for what it was then? The great freight reckoning will be the obvious facts you fistorted all these years.
I was at ATA from 2003 through 2008. I initially bought into the driver shortage claim, but when I started drilling into the reasons, I found that drivers were leaving the industry for jobs in construction and even coal mining. Low pay was a huge issue, as was time away from home. I wrote a white paper to this affect, but only a subsection of ATA members saw it (I was working for one of ATA’s Councils, the NAFC) ATA always blamed low pay on shippers, who surpressed what they would pay for transportation. While this was partially true, they never really addressed the quality-of-life issue, i.e., time home with family. You have to question why former drivers would take dangerous jobs like coal mining over driving a truck. I could only conclude that going home after work to be with family was a primary reason. Of course, pay was higher too. ATA’s economist didn’t produce economic research per se: he used government figures from FMCSA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to compile their reports. That unfortunately led to faulty conclusions. In graduate school, I had a statistics professor who explained how it was possible to “lie with statistics.” I doubt this is what was going on, but not drilling further into the issue left a lot of things unsaid, leading to faulty, incomplete and inaccurate conclusions, and an industry which bought into the driver shortage paradigm.