As regular readers will know, I feel there’s a serious need for driver pay reform. I've recently pointed out a simple structure through which to begin the switch to an hourly-pay standard for OTR drivers. In some ways, a shift has been in the works for some time, with some fleets large and small having already started their own version of reform with guaranteed weekly minimum salaries, and many others offering detention pay. Yet many of the latter expect drivers to give away the first two hours sitting at the docks without compensation. No employee in any profession should be expected to give away their time without payment.
According to the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), between 2014 and 2018 the detention problem only got worse, creating a cascading effect on safety, and on-time pickups and deliveries. Since the electronic logging device mandate came into play in the last year of ATRI’s study of the problem, there’s some evidence little has changed.
But getting companies to step up and take responsibility and actually pay for all of the driver’s time is just one component. With the Transportation Research Board's compensation and safety study currently in process, we could see another piece of the jigsaw puzzle fill in the picture.
In my simple opinion, another step in the process of pay reform and fair treatment is disabusing many drivers and others around trucking of a notion that's been around since at least the 1970s, that the federal Labor department, Social Security or other agency classifies OTR truckers as "unskilled" labor. It is high time truck driving is more readily recognized by those within and without for what it is -- a skilled trade, as has been noted in these pages before.
[Related: Truckers are classified as 'unskilled labor'? Nope]
Skilled trades typically involve specified technical training, usually a mixture of traditional classroom training and hands-on training directly correlated to the field the trainee is entering.
