Where’s “Sailors of the Concrete Sea”?

Posted on 26-10-2004

Where’s “Sailors of the Concrete Sea”?

Filed Under (Trucking - Driver Shortage)

I first saw mention of this book from an interview with the author, which I also wrote about and linked here. From the interview he says that there is no driver shortage and the high turnover that trucking most trucking companies experience is intentional. I (and many others) thought the high turnover was because trucking sucked. But to realize that it’s intentional to keep wages low was eye opening to say the least.

I ordered this book when Amazon (click here to order) first had it available. I keep getting emails about a delay. I tracked down one of the authors, asking a few questions and I got a really nice response, here it is -

Wayne-

It is not a bother at all. I am glad someone is interested in the book. Sadly, I am not quite sure when it will finally be released. We have checked the galleys and returned them, which means it should be soon.

> I’ve read Prof Belzer’s book Sweatshop on Wheels, do you agree with any of his conclusions? That trucking can be fixed by more government intervention?

Mike and I tend to approach the question in different ways. Sometimes government intervention can help. One of the positive things that came out of the new HOS is that trucking firms are now charging for shippers who waste drivers’ time. This was not directly the intent of the HOS regulations, but this could have many beneficial effects for both firms and drivers (we’ll see what ultimately happens with the HOS).

I reviewed Prof Belzer’s book here. His ‘fix’ for all of our problems is the implementation of the Fair Labor Act for trucking, collective bargaining and an overhaul of the Hours of Service rules. The new HOS rules were done after the book, but I’m sure the Professor wouldn’t have approved of the new rules.

I’m not sure what FMCSA’s intent was making the 14 hour rule more strict, but it did work. FMCSA can’t come out and say, “you must pay drivers for sitting around”, but restricting the number of driving hours because we are sitting around or working for free can and did have an effect.

>(me) Isn’t this “driver shortage” especially if it gets “worse”, the real answer to our (truck drivers) problems? And does this current so-called shortage and new HOS affect your conclusions and your opinion about trucking?

Much like you, I have never believed in a driver shortage since a shortage should result in increased wages. It seems that given our economy’s move to “recovery” and the congestion in rail, we might actually be approaching a real shortage which would result in better wages for drivers.

My conclusions about trucking have not really changed over time. It can be a good profession for the drivers - allowing them to increase their income above other alternatives, but this comes at a rather high price (time away from home, poor working conditions, etc). I think the public and firms fail to see the human side of the trucking industry - robots don’t drive trucks. The public likes to villify trucks, but don’t give too much thought to the work that drivers are doing and what that means to the economy. This is quite evident where I live, Long Beach, CA, where we have an incredibly low-paid trucking workforce at the port.

I will be sure to check out your blog and will keep you updated as to the actual release day of the book.

Regards,
Kristen

The interstates around Long Beach are filled with trucks with containers going back and forth from the port there. Port drivers are about the only one’s that can get halfway organized. In my opinion, it’s because they are all sitting there together for hours on end waiting for containers to be loaded onto their trucks and it’s always the same bunch of drivers that have probably known each other for a long time.

I’m looking forward to this book and will post as soon as I read it.

Comments

don diaz on 28 December, 2005 at 11:18 pm #

Really enjoyed reading your blog.Allow me to comment on the above posting, which caught my eye because I live in Long Beach as well. I’ve gone to the port for the occasional container as a company driver and I just pity the fools who do this all the time. After last year’s ship unloading bottleneck that had the harbor looking like a parking lot (I am talking about ships riding at anchor waiting to dock, which had some people with beachfront property complaining about how it screwed up their view), the ILWU annouced the hiring of several thousand new longshoremen. These guys are the best-paid bunch in the harbor, yet their only investment in their job are the clothes on their backs. Their training is paid-for, on-the-job. By contrast, a driver who comes to the harbor to pick up a container usually is an o/o who had to get a commercial license, who had to go out and pay for a truck, had to pay for the necessary permits, had to pay for insurance and had to fill up his tanks before he could hook up to his first container. But in the harbor, this O/O is the low man on the totem pole.He has no pull, no clout, few rights and does his job according to how any number of other people tell him to do it.The thing is, I don’t begrudge the ILWU guy the money he makes and I think the O/O only has himself to blame for buying into a business model that, as so eloquently expressed elsewhere on this blog, just serves to shift the burden of risk and expenses on his shoulders without the attendent pay-off to his small business.
In addition, being an “Independent Owner-Operator”, none of the rights granted by state and federal labor law apply to him.In fact, any attempt in the past to act in concert has been thwarted by opposing parties by invoking laws against collusion, price-fixing and other anti-competition statutes.
In closing, a Teamster aquaintance of mine explained to me that there used to be a time you could not work at the port in any capacity without being member of a labor union.So with specific regard to container hauling here in SoCal whatever it is they are complaining about,it is a situation of their own making.
I hope, this posting was of interest. If I was unclear on any of the points I tried to make, please feel free to e-mail me.

dondiaz