Companies to blame for truck-driver shortage
I read with interest your article in Triad Careers, April 13, on a “severe shortage of truck drivers.”
As a person who has spent the last 30 years in the trucking business, your report is not completely accurate.
There are companies that have a shortage of help, but show me a company that has trouble recruiting drivers and I will show you a company with (a) a pay scale below industry average, (b) that treats help like dirt, (c) and/or operates poorly maintained equipment.
The better-paying companies that treat drivers like people and operate a well-maintained fleet don’t have a labor shortage. The attitude of some companies is truck drivers are a dime a dozen.
If a company with a high driver turnover really believes there is a shortage, it would try to keep the drivers it had.
But instead of improving their “severe shortage” problem, their attitude is if you don’t like it, quit because, when it comes to truck drivers, the woods are full of them.
Robert Embler
Thomasville
Comments (10)
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That's PROGRESS, Embler ! Stop your whiney liberal bitch.
There're plenty of brown skinned truck drivers willing to steer poorly maintained equipment while working at below industry pay scale for companies that treat them like dirt.
For 30 years part of your salary has gone into building roads used by companies so they don't have to bear the full cost - they keep all the profits and share the risk and losses .. It's Capitalism, man .. !!
Vote Republican, the Supporters of The American Way: Fair and Balanced Capitalism !
Posted on May 2, 2008 4:50 AM
Most of those trucking companies are owned by Republicans-- as one who spent 32 years in trucking I know them quite well.
The LTE writer is absolutely correct-- James D. Rockefeller is a loud mouthed idiot who doesn't have the courage to use his real name. -Billy Jones
Posted on May 2, 2008 7:07 AM
"they keep all the profits and share the risk and losses"
Interesting talk about profits JDR, especially when diesel is $4.20/gallon and trucking companies are getting hammered. Meanwhile corn farmers are making good profits AND getting govt. subsidies.
Posted on May 2, 2008 7:32 AM
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Hang in there, oh, ye who decry the driver shortage! Help is only a few months away!
No matter WHICH of the three principal "contendas" for the White House is elected, high on his/her agenda is legitimization of "undocumented workers." Then there'll be PLENTY of drivers ... complete with North Carolina driver's licenses!
~
Posted on May 2, 2008 11:00 AM
Longterm outlook for career truckers is dim. Once NAFTA superhighway opens up West Coast ports won't be able to compete with the Mexican port and the majority of goods coming in from Asia will enter the US on rail or trucks driven by the indigenous countrymen of the port country.
High fuel costs will move more companies to ship by rail.
Once the illegals in this country are granted amnesty with a provision they can bring their kin into the country, it will be all over for the corn-bread American independent trucker. The trucking companies will survive by paying lower wages to those who will work for it.
Posted on May 2, 2008 12:20 PM
"Interesting talk about profits JDR, especially when diesel is $4.20/gallon and trucking companies are getting hammered. Meanwhile corn farmers are making good profits AND getting govt. subsidies".
Obviously the Teamsters do not have the “horsepower” of the farm lobby, "the most powerful force behind biofuels on Capitol Hill”.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975-1,00.html
==
“… most of the money goes to 150,000 big corporate farmers, further hastening the death of small family farms.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102101372_pf.html
Posted on May 2, 2008 3:32 PM
Billy The Blogging Poet … ever heard of sarcasm?
btw – get a large room. Fill it with my friends and family and call out “WHO’S JD Rockefeller ? They will all point to me. Gauranteed. Then get a life, dude.
Posted on May 2, 2008 3:34 PM
"...most of the money goes to 150,000 big corporate farmers, further hastening the death of small family farms.”
We agree on this, it is true and it's sickening. I don't support big tax breaks for oil companies either. I'm not a corporate welfare kinda guy.
Posted on May 2, 2008 3:50 PM
Dan and JDR, you guys don't understand. It's not about paying the farmers, it's about helping those polar bears who had to swim for a long time. I think. Or maybe it's about renewable resources. Anyway, an environmentalist could explain it to you.
Posted on May 2, 2008 5:36 PM
Brian .. I think we understand very well .. perhaps you meant to single out 535 individual members of Congress ..
Posted on May 2, 2008 5:58 PM