Comments By Kit

Granted, a wildcat strike would be fairly indiscriminate in terms of who would end up in the cross hairs. Your point is also well taken when you say that satisfaction is about much more than just money. Ultimately, the strike should be aimed at lawmakers (and to some degree, the judiciary) who could insist that workers in the transportation industry work reasonable hours and still receive compensation that is more in line with their productivity. This could be done in any industry, but as Frederick Douglass said: "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Trucking is uniquely situated (and perhaps teaching) to forcefully apply the demand. If the cause is just, this demand can be made in good faith. It isn't necessary to assume that a bunch of wannabes are just b*tching because they can't be as successful as certain company drivers who make loads of money and work whatever hours they like (although this assessment may not be quite as realistic as some people may wish other people to think it is). It's sort of like the bootstraps people telling all of the less worthy workers to suck it up and try harder. That plays right into the hands of society's owners.

There are two ways to get increased wages for drivers - laws or unions. No one is going to pass a law that says you have to pay truck drivers more money, and with such a fractured industry where 97% of all of the companies in the nation have fewer than 20 trucks how to you intend to unionize?

Wildcat strikes don't necessarily need a union to execute, as some recent teachers strikes in red states have shown.

What are the demands of the strike going to be? Who is it directed at? How is it going to increase wages permanently across the board for all drivers?

Again, with wildcat strikes, maybe it’s better that the unions don't currently have a lot of pull in trucking. The most effective strikes, lately, all over the world, have been wildcat strikes--leaderless strikes--where everyone involved has one or two simple issues that they all agree on and they all know when they are being fed a pile of bull. That way, the leaders wouldn’t pull the trigger, the drivers would. Union leaders have become way too cozy with management over the years and have sold out the American public right and left (conservative, liberal, radical, and anyone else you can think of). Union leaders, for the most part, are not our friends. It's probably better if this movement stays loosely organized around a few key topics (overall pay, shipper and broker ethics, quality of life, and safety) and allows for the regular people who actually do this for their livelihood to call the shots. When considering a job action, use the Duck Test: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck—it’s a duck . . . So instead of leaders calling the shots and negotiating behind closed doors, drivers can decide when to pull the trigger and, even more importantly, when to come back to work. Union leaders typically want to call things off way too soon.

If anyone in the discussions leading up the strike have an agenda, the most honorable agenda to have, always, is to advance the cause of rank-and-file workers. If a win-win with owners is impossible (and it isn't), then it would be better to sacrifice the needs of the wealthiest for the needs of those who actually produce something in society.

"Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community." George Bailey ~It's a Wonderful Life

I think the company drivers will stick with the movement if they can see how the rising tide for owner-operators also affects their wages, hours, and so forth. The plight of all workers, not just truckers, is tied together. It was much easier to make ends meet in the 70s, regardless of what you did for a living (speaking generally) than it is now. If a rising tide lifts all ships, a falling tide grounds all ships. The tide has been falling for most workers, no matter how you may want to spin it. If I have an agenda, it is that our owners (society's owners) stop calling all the shots. Wanting a bigger piece of the pie isn't socialism. Calling someone a socialist is a straw man tactic. Check out some of today's economists (particularly Stephanie Kelton) if you would like a reality check on how taxes actually work. Rich people can only spend so much. The rest goes to offshore tax shelters (also watch Nick Hanauer on Youtube when he warns fellow plutocrats to beware). Generally speaking, I believe that your organization has loads of helpful information and advice, for which I'm grateful. I would offer; humbly of course, because of my status as merely a part-time driver trying to make ends meet as I pay my child support; that the most ethical stance to take in all of this, is to promote that which most benefits drivers versus the mega companies that want to hire them. You have correctly identified that driver turnover is a huge problem. Don't be too quick to blame drivers (including terminal rats) for all of this. If we truly had a driver shortage, wages would be north of $140,000 as they are in some remote minefields and other places in Texas where there are actual shortages.

So raising driver wages through unionization would help driver wages, would have little or no influence on the profitability of trucking companies, and would hurt the economy in general. Because there are 3.5 million drivers that stand to benefit but 315 million (or so) Americans that would be hurt by higher truck driver salaries, nobody is in any kind of a hurry to unionize trucking. Add to that the fragmentation of the industry which would make unionization a million times more difficult than in an industry with only a few major players (the Airlines for example) and you come to the only conclusion you really can - unionization of the trucking industry is not going to happen anytime soon, if ever.

The premise of your argument is that of trickle-down economics. Paying workers more, overall, would help the economy, not hurt the economy. Putting money in the workers' hands allows them to buy more goods. The rising tide lifts all ships. Taking the money out of the hands of CEOs and putting it into the hands of the people who do the actual work helps the people who do the actual work. A related idea is that of taxation. Raising taxes on the wealthy is another way to get the money flowing up instead of down. This money could be used to fund our ailing highway infrastructure and to provide more rest stops for trucks.

"You see, Republicans almost universally advocate low taxes on the wealthy, based on the claim that tax cuts at the top will have huge beneficial effects on the economy. This claim rests on research by … well, nobody. There isn’t any body of serious work supporting G.O.P. tax ideas, because the evidence is overwhelmingly against those ideas."

Krugman Article--Tax Policy Dance

If taxing the wealthy doesn't hurt the economy, neither will raising wages hurt the economy.

The other issue is the increasing productivity of American workers in the time frame that you mention. Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. Therefore, “it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker.”

American Productivity

George Carlin said it best: "You have owners. They own you." If the April 12, 2019 wildcat strike I've been hearing about in Black Smoke Matters comes to pass, those owners may have to take a step or two back.

Supreme Court, missing a justice, considers a trucking case that could rattle the economy

A lawsuit brought against New Prime, Inc (“Prime”) has found its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision could have an enormous impact on forced arbitration agreements, driver classification, and driver pay.

It was interesting to read about Rainy's experiences before she entered trucking. I appreciate the high quality of the writing from the usual crew of article writers for this forum.

You probably also will need this adaptor. I'm not positive. It's all supposed to arrive by June 8 so I will update you, then.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B3X5BXR/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My TND 730 has the same issue. I already sent it back and they replaced the battery and when I got it back it still has the same issue. I wonder if that charger will work for a gps since he was using the tablet? I'd buy one in a second if I could find one.

Here is the charger he recommended (copy and paste):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BOJRZTO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I ordered one. I'll let you know if it can keep up with the charging needs.

Check YouTube.

Yes, good advice! On the following video the guy says that I need to buy a Road King charger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2LEVBUSiPA

I've been experimenting with it here at home. Even when it is plugged into a USB port connected to a wall socket, my TND 740 draws power faster than it can recharge when the unit is running--so the net result is that it eventually will quit even if it is hooked to power (the same as cell phones do as their batteries get older). As you probably know, I am driving long shifts and need the unit to stay powered on for most of those shifts. I was in a particularly messy situation, yesterday afternoon, trying to avoid traffic running through Philadelphia when the unit just stopped. My old TND 720 keeps plugging along as long as it's plugged in, although it shuts itself off if I hit a big bump and the power is interrupted. My new trucking company asks me to avoid tollways when possible but will allow routes that have a few minimal tolls. The new 740 unit does that well but the older unit only can handle on or off with regard to tolls. When the 740 was new, it could keep running indefinitely as long as it was plugged in. Now, it seems only able to handle 6 or 7 hours of running time and takes a solid 3-4 hours to get fully charged again when it is powered off.

Is it possible to change the lithium ion battery in the Rand McNally TND 740?