Updated:
1/13/2009 4:30:00 PM
Opinion: Assault on Independents Threatens Trucking
By J.R. Gonzales
Founding Chairman
Coalition for Independent Contractor Freedom
This Opinion piece appears in the Jan. 12 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
If you wanted to shore up a beleaguered industry, would you do it by creating a new threat? Of course not, but that’s exactly what some U.S. policymakers seem ready to do to the already devastated U.S. trucking industry.
Trucking companies already face the massive twin challenges of volatile energy prices and a global recession. While energy prices have eased in recent weeks, there are no guarantees that they won’t surge again. Worse, the severe economic pullback is a massive blow to truckers. When production and consumption grind to a halt, so does transportation.
Under those circumstances, you might expect government to take steps to strengthen the trucking industry’s efficiency and effective operations. Instead, federal and state governments are doing the exact opposite — putting the industry’s viability at risk.
The problem is the government’s treatment of independent owner-operators. These independent contractors are vital to the industry. The trucking and delivery industry relies on more than 300,000 independent contractors and owner-operators — almost 10% of its workforce. Independent contractors and owner-operators provide cost-efficiency and “surge capacity” to the industry and its customers — drivers and trucks available on flexible schedules to meet rapidly changing demand.
For truckers, working as owner-operators is a time-honored tradition and a practical way to find work quickly (especially after layoffs), balance work and home life, volunteer to work longer hours in order to boost income and build equity by owning a business.
For trucking companies, independent contracting means the ability to add or cut capacity to cope with volatile conditions in manufacturing, retailing and the other industries they serve. And many larger trucking companies started out as an independent owner-operator’s small business.
© 2010, Transport Topics Publishing Group. All rights reserved.