Retailers want 16-hour trucker workday (Walmart)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/08/trucker.rules.ap/index.html ^ | 3-9-05

[TXBSAFH]

Critics: 'Sweatshop-on-wheels amendment' Tuesday, March 8, 2005 Posted: 7:35 PM EST (0035 GMT) What's this? MyCashNow - $100 - $1,000 Overnight Payday Loan Cash goes in your account overnight. Very low fees. Fast decisions.... www.mycashnow.com Mortgage Rates Hit Record Lows Get $150,000 loan for $625 per month. Refinance while rates are low. www.lowermybills.com Compare Mortgage Offers Up to four free mortgage, refinance or home equity offers - one easy form. www.nextag.com LendingTree.com - Official Site Lendingtree - Find a mortgage, refinance, home equity or auto loan now. Receive... www.lendingtree.com YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Wal-Mart Stores Incorporated Retail Transportation or Create your own Manage alerts | What is this? WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wal-Mart and other retailers are lobbying Congress to extend the workday for truckers to 16 hours, something labor unions and safety advocates say would make roadways more dangerous for all drivers. Rep. John Boozman, an Arkansas Republican whose district includes Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, is sponsoring a bill that would allow a 16-hour workday as long as the trucker took an unpaid two-hour break. The proposal is expected to be offered as an amendment during debate over the highway spending bill on Wednesday. "Truckers are pushing harder than ever to make their runs within the mandated timeframe," Boozman said. "Optional rest breaks will reduce driver layovers and improve both safety and efficiency."

[SwordofTruth]

As far as I know it is against the law for a commercial truck drive to drive more than 10 hours at a time. This law has saved many lives and most truck drivers seem to be for it. Wal-mart may be able to get truck drivers to drive 16 hours a day in China, but it’s not going to happen in the USA.

[Smartaleck]

"A total of 5,082 people died (12 percent of all the traffic fatalities reported in 2001)" (involving trucks)

Which means 88% of all fatalities are NOT caused by the trucks.

What your data doesn't show is that the number of fatalities over the years has gone down and has been relatively flat of recent years, yet, the number of miles driven by truckers has increased.

[Smartaleck]

"People just don't understand basic physics"

In a similar distortion of reality........if the truck is say, a gasoline/fuel truck, and crushes the Honda it's recorded as a "hazardous materials" accident even though the gasoline had nothing to do with the fatlity....other than adding to the weight.

[Kretek]

Should companies be permitted to offer contracts which stipulate that the driver drive drunk? Sure, if that happened you could pin it all on the drivers, they weren't forced to take the contract... but highway deaths would skyrocket, and I, for one, wouldn't do any driving.

Contracts for illegal acts are unenforceable. Writing such a contract, and then taking even an otherwise legal act towards fulfilling that contract, is what (generally) constitutes the crime of conspiracy.

Disclaimer: IANAL, this is not legal advice, no trees were harmed in the preparation of this message but several million electrons were significantly inconvenienced, etc.

[KingNo155]

I drove a Semi OTR about 15 years ago and you could drive 16 hrs a day as long as you took 4 hr break after 8 hrs after 16 hrs of driving in a day you had to take 8 off before you could drive again. Most Truckers don't get paid when the take a break because they get paid by the mile.

[SaltyJoe]

Would Sam Walton support such measures?

I don't like the idea of working more than 8 hours a day nor working without a break.

I don't like the idea of driving in a smaller vehicle next to a big rig whose driver is working more than 8 hours a day with no breaks.

I don't like the idea of adults spending that much time working unless it's pursuing a personal passion and/or hobby...especially if these adults are fathers or mothers of children that need the presence of both mom and dad.

I don't like the idea that humans can be turned into a colony of sexless ants and bees working their butts off to feed the queen. We're humans and not insects. We have families, and we're royalty of our own realm. Labor laws keep us from becoming some queen's expendable pawn.

Our society has consumerism (idolatry) to counter. But if we need a tragic example of the graphic insect image, then look no further than North Korea, Cuba, Communist China, the former Soviet Union, slaves of the drug cartels and criminal empires, and slaves of terror cults.

What insurance company is going to foot the bill of an out of control rig weighing tens of thousands of pounds moving over 65 miles per hour? How many law firms smelling a blood-soaked buck will chase such wrongful death law suits? Don't we already have left-wing activists politicizing such loses on the job because of slave-driving capitalists?

I disagree with many salaried wages because those that make such salaries are usually the best qualified for making families. Why keep them on the job longer when they should be with the children during that time? If someone is pushed into a salaried position, doesn't that mean they can be bullied to work harder without compensation?

Do we really need that money that much to work that hard? Isn't it better to offset the work to an evening crew and spread load the talent to the night shift? The best workers and managers don't always have to be on the day watch. I'm not so sure that all of the rumors of Wal-Mart are from Wal-Mart. There were a lot of rumors stating that President Bush was going to initiate a draft. No reasonable military mind would ever allow conscription when we obviously don't need it. So, I have to wonder about all of the Wal-Mart rumors. The conscription rumors led Pres. Bush to insure that a vote for him guaranteed no draft. Perhaps Wal-Mart will defuse similar rumors by countering them with pro-family and pro-American policies...even if these means switching their inexpensive product manufacters from China to South "America" to insure that (South) "American made" first remains part of their credo.

[Smartaleck]

"This is just another attempt to circumvent DOT laws to the benefit of a company at the expense of its employees."

If you're an independent you are the company.

As a veteran driver you probably knew how many miles you could make and still be legal, 500miles?

The new hours of service they put in, and were shot down for now, screwed everything up. It not only hurt business but affected the drivers too in as much as they couldn't get the same number of miles in in a given drive period.

Higher cost for buss. less money for drivers. My guess is that this proposal is to force the gov't to keep the old hours of service.

[Smartaleck]

"The fine for this is very large. Granted, some trucking companies push drivers.
But the majority find it uneconomical for a myriad of reasons not to run compliant."

They're also looking at mandating GPS to confirm logs as well as hub-meters and other drive time tracking devices.

The days of double log books are just about history.

[Final Authority]

I would be for it if all commercial trucks were required to have digital tachographs in use at all times and they were inspected at random by State troopers at rest stops and weigh stations. That the information on the tachographs was legal evidence of speeding and or improper time behind the wheel.

I think the truckers would not go for it but in the EU tachographs are mandatory.

[Smartaleck]

"Trucks comprise 4% of the total number of vehicles and are involved in 13% of the fatalities."

Check out how many fatalities result when a train hits a car.........regardless of who's at fault.

[Smartaleck]

"You clearly don't know what you're talking about"

No, I'm not a truckdriver. DOT compliance....haz mat certified.

[cripplecreek]

Then you know you're talking out your a$$

[giotto]

If a trucker is willing to work 16 hours and Wall-Mart is willing to pay them for it, then what is the problem?

No problem at all--as long as all those sleepy drivers are on a road by themselves. But when they're out there on the same freeways my loved ones are on, that's when it's a problem.

[Smartaleck]

"Then you know you're talking out your a$$"

How so?

[Kretek]

Between stuff like this, the bankruptcy bill, tort reform and the destruction of retailing as we know it by an NRST transition, they're headed for the "here there be monsters" portion of the map. Working in tandem with the puritan nannies who want to regulate cable TV...

Exactly. I don't regret my votes, but boy this stuff could come back to bite Republicans on an inconvenient part of the body politic.

[Kretek]

Think you could pass a CDL test....with Hazmat endorsement?

What is involved in the CDL and Hazmat tests? (genuinely curious)

[Dysfunctional]

Hey! Most people want to work 16 hour days...

...just like they want to work until they are at least 70 years old.

Anybody that disagrees is a dem-rat commie.

>;^)

[thathamiltonwoman]

It's not the same. You were out having fun as opposed to driving like that day in and day out. No-doz is great stuff but it has it's limits.

[Faith-Hope]

I am sure what they are proposing is that a driver could drive up to eleven hours in sixteen hours. Right now the rules are driving eleven in fourteen hours. The rub with this is the loading and unloading times. If you don't understand drivers logs this is very confusing. It certainly does not mean that you can drive sixteen hours.

[Mulder]

So many things are nowadays construed as 'legal privilages' that we hardly have any rights left.

Many of same posters who write this "blank is a privlidge for Joe Citizen", are the same ones who will defend the "rights" of korporations to do whatever the hell they want.

I'll tell you, many of them would have had *zero* problems with German concentration camps, so long as it was a private korporation running them.

Jefferson warned against big corporations. Too bad more Americans didn't listen.