John Oliver discussed the many problems faced by truckers in the US and an industry that mistreats them.
The Last Week Tonight host started by saying that “everybody loves” trucks, from kids to producers of reality shows, and they remain a “vital part of the economy”. He detailed that 70% of the tonnage that moves around the US travels via trucks.
After just three days of no truckers, “every produce department would go from all you can eat market to all you can eat raccoon buffet”.
But the industry is “facing a massive problem” with drivers. But despite headlines that might suggest the opposite, “it’s less a problem of driver shortage and more a problem of driver retention”.
Driver turnover can be as high as 300% in certain companies over a year, with most about 100%. The base compensation is down 50%.
One of the central problems is that “most drivers are paid by the mile not by the hour,” which doesn’t allow for the many hours spent loading and reloading. It’s become “a huge sticking point”, said Oliver, who showed footage of one driver who was stuck in his truck for 19 hours without pay.
Many truckers are then forced to make up for time, which can be dangerous. About 5,000 people die each year in crashes with large trucks. The drivers are “squeezed between regulations and the companies that they drive for and at no point in the process are their own feelings or needs taken into account”.
Another issue is that most companies classify them as independent contractors not employees, which means they receive no benefits and “all the costs and risks of truck ownership get pushed on to the truck driver” – which leads to “a pretty shitty bottom line”.
Oliver also spoke about the fallacy of lease purchase agreements, where drivers are offered the chance to lease their truck from the company so they can eventually own it themselves. But they “almost never succeed”, Oliver reported, with one company saying just 5-10% of them were able to complete the purchase.
That means truckers are tethered to one company and are paying back earnings. Companies often charge them for parking in their own lot and on one occasion, for using office toilet paper. This can lead to a driver owing the company money at the end of the work week. “Can you imagine picking up your paycheque and finding an envelope of $-5 bills?” he said.
But some of these “predatory” companies are now finding themselves involved in lawsuits, including a $15m class action suit against Western Express.
“We should probably recognise that we have all gotten used to the idea of next-day shipping, but someone somewhere pays the price,” he said. There is “a fundamental lack of value placed on their time that clearly needs to be addressed”.
Ultimately companies need to “make it a job people actually want to stay in”, Oliver said.
