Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy. Tracy. When you think
Speaker 1: about like the gig economy or gig economy workers, like
Speaker 1: what first comes to mind for you? Uber left has
Speaker 1: to be right, that's I mean, I think for everyone,
Speaker 1: I think that's the answer. The most freelance journalism. Maybe
Speaker 1: freelance journalism that might be like the next one, but
Speaker 1: it is a good point that, like what we call
Speaker 1: the gig economy, that everyone like has this idea of
Speaker 1: like these sort of like marginally attached workers. People think
Speaker 1: if it's a new thing, it's actually been forever. So
Speaker 1: obviously something like freelance journalism has been around forever, long
Speaker 1: before anyone had heard about Uber left. Absolutely, I think
Speaker 1: gig economy workers just kind of gave it a new
Speaker 1: label that made it sound a lot more modern than
Speaker 1: it maybe was. But one of the classic examples I
Speaker 1: suppose of a gig worker has to be a trucker,
Speaker 1: an owner operator in the in the trucking industry. Right,
Speaker 1: And we've obviously talked about trucking several times on several
Speaker 1: past episodes. But when you think about like it's sort
Speaker 1: of like an individual who is also their own boss,
Speaker 1: who may you know, go from one company to another,
Speaker 1: who you know it does not have sort of like
Speaker 1: some permanent, full time arrangement. Yeah, obviously it's like trucking
Speaker 1: I think is the number one in terms of this
Speaker 1: year number of people, or number one or number two
Speaker 1: maybe like Amazon warehouse workers up there, but the most
Speaker 1: common job I think of the US or one of them,
Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, I think it by by any sort
Speaker 1: of definition of what we would call a gig worker,
Speaker 1: I think many truck drivers would obviously qualify, right. And
Speaker 1: in recent years we have seen efforts to improve working
Speaker 1: conditions for gig workers. But it kind of gets into
Speaker 1: this gray area where yes, a lot of gig workers
Speaker 1: are uh exploited. Um, a lot of them are working
Speaker 1: under suboptimal labor conditions, earning less pay than they would
Speaker 1: if they were actual employees, certainly less benefits. But there's
Speaker 1: also a certain type of gig economy worker that may
Speaker 1: be values some independence and likes working as an independent contractor. Right,
Speaker 1: So this really gets at the question and people look
Speaker 1: at arrangements like with Uber and there are people view
Speaker 1: this as exploitative or unfair to the worker, or the
Speaker 1: workers are being deprived benefits that perhaps an employee should get.
Speaker 1: And then there are also people that, you know what,
Speaker 1: I like the flexibility of being an uber driver. I
Speaker 1: like the arrangement of not having a company being my
Speaker 1: full time employer. And I think all of these things
Speaker 1: clearly applied to truck drivers as well. And going the
Speaker 1: right legal frameworks to think about these things is pretty complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, I mentioned this idea of a gray
Speaker 1: area and trucking. I mean, it's already a gray area,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of like just stepped into another gray
Speaker 1: area because it's been caught up in some of the
Speaker 1: legal issues around gig economy workers, specifically in California, but
Speaker 1: there's also legal issues elsewhere in the US as well.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's dive more into this question about
Speaker 1: how some of these sort of legal thinking regarding gig
Speaker 1: economy workers or gigs in general are intersecting with the
Speaker 1: trucking industry. We have a friend of the podcast, Rachel Primat,
Speaker 1: the editorial director at Freight Waves and the author of
Speaker 1: the Great Modes newsletter, joining us. She's written a lot
Speaker 1: about these issues. So Rachel thank you for coming on
Speaker 1: the show, Thanks for having me. Absolutely, So why don't
Speaker 1: you sort of I mean, first of all, is that
Speaker 1: kind of right that we've talked about gig workers, but
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of basically the employment arrangements of
Speaker 1: truck drivers, what do they look like and do they
Speaker 1: basically fit in with what people generally have in their
Speaker 1: mind of what a gig worker is. Yeah, so right now,
Speaker 1: they're about two million employed long haul truck drivers in
Speaker 1: the US. About three hundred to four hundred thousand of
Speaker 1: those are owner operators, and the rest are employees of
Speaker 1: either you know, small trucking fleets with maybe ten to
Speaker 1: a hundred or a few hundreds of other truck drivers,
Speaker 1: or they are employees of fleets of so called mega
Speaker 1: fleets that would have thousands or even tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of truck driver employees. But the owner operator community, and
Speaker 1: that's in trucking is pretty substantial and it it does
Speaker 1: really set you could say, the culture for the larger
Speaker 1: trucking industry as well. A lot of drivers might start
Speaker 1: out as employees and you know, have the goal of
Speaker 1: being owner operators, but generally, um, you know, owner operators
Speaker 1: are a pretty big part of trucking and they definitely
Speaker 1: would count and as the so called gig economy, even
Speaker 1: though it's not really. We don't really think of them
Speaker 1: the same way we think of Uber lift or door dash.
Speaker 1: You know, I mentioned we've done several episodes about trucking
Speaker 1: and of course we talked to your I guess boss
Speaker 1: Credit Freight Waves and that was one of the eye
Speaker 1: opening things. I think for us. It's just like, how
Speaker 1: easy it is to launch a new truck and company. Well,
Speaker 1: why don't we launch our own? Right? We joke about
Speaker 1: starting our own trucking company all the time. But this
Speaker 1: kind of gets into something I wanted to ask you,
Speaker 1: which is, what are the requirements right now when it
Speaker 1: comes to being a truck driver and how does it
Speaker 1: work on a state level, because we're going to be
Speaker 1: getting into some of these state differences versus a federal level. Right, So,
Speaker 1: to launch your own trucking company, you need insurance, you
Speaker 1: need um the authority to to launch a company, you
Speaker 1: need the funding to secure uh, you know, your tractor
Speaker 1: and you know perhaps also a trailer. Um you need
Speaker 1: a commercial driver's license. It is absolutely one of the
Speaker 1: easiest businesses to literally start, like people kind of compared
Speaker 1: it to the restaurant industry, where you can very easily
Speaker 1: open your own trucking business and you know, be a
Speaker 1: small business owner. So it is, uh, you know, people
Speaker 1: who are in favor of the current structure of the
Speaker 1: trucking industry say it is really the classic version of
Speaker 1: the quote American dream. So just to make it clear,
Speaker 1: and you sort of broke it down, there's the owner operators,
Speaker 1: and then people work for a small fleet and then
Speaker 1: kind of megaflates the people who work for the fleets.
Speaker 1: Do they have the same like tax and employment status
Speaker 1: that like Tracy would have in Bloomberger were just employees
Speaker 1: of a company? Like what are the different I guess
Speaker 1: like employment and tax arrangements that that that one can
Speaker 1: have in the industry, Right, So they're definitely like good
Speaker 1: jobs to haven't tracking and not so good jobs. So
Speaker 1: it gets a little complicated because you have your classic
Speaker 1: employee of a trucking company and they're actually not paid
Speaker 1: you know, a salary or even an hourly salary. They're
Speaker 1: paid per mile. And that's just across the entire tracking
Speaker 1: treking industry, is that you are paid per mile rather
Speaker 1: than per every hour. That you're spent on the job.
Speaker 1: So you could be an employee of a so called
Speaker 1: mega fleet, or you could actually be a least owner
Speaker 1: operator for a mega fleet, meaning you have the benefits
Speaker 1: of employee, which you know, more stable work, more stable pay,
Speaker 1: but you also have that flexibility that true owner operators have.
Speaker 1: So it does get a little bit of a gray
Speaker 1: area when you're looking at least owner operators versus full
Speaker 1: on owner operators who just truly own their own truck
Speaker 1: and own all of their own assets. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think drilling a little bit deeper. Whether or not you
Speaker 1: are at least owner operator, a true owner operator, or
Speaker 1: a true employee, you are still being paid per mile um.
Speaker 1: In the case of a least owner operator a true
Speaker 1: owner operator, you are uh, you know, covering your own
Speaker 1: health insurance, You're paying for meals and gas and these
Speaker 1: sorts of things that you have on the road. The
Speaker 1: difference is really whether or not you want some form
Speaker 1: of protection from a large company or you'd rather just
Speaker 1: be fully truly on your own. So when it comes
Speaker 1: to the per mile payment. I remember this is something
Speaker 1: came up in some of our episodes from last year
Speaker 1: where we were talking about congestions at the ports, and
Speaker 1: trucker is getting very very upset that they had to
Speaker 1: wait for hours. I mean, in some cases, you know,
Speaker 1: twelve or fourteen hours in order to pick up loads.
Speaker 1: They're not paid for those white times. Um, but obviously
Speaker 1: it's eating into their ability to earn money. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to the new gig economy regulations, specifically in
Speaker 1: places like California, on the surface, it feels like there
Speaker 1: should be some truck drivers who are like, yes, pay
Speaker 1: me a salary, pay me benefits, and yet according to
Speaker 1: the things that we've been reading, it seems like there's
Speaker 1: some resistance. So why is that. Yeah, it's definitely a
Speaker 1: it's a it's an issue that I think is really
Speaker 1: confusing to a lot of you know, labor activists in
Speaker 1: the trucking world. Uh, you know why we have seen
Speaker 1: protests at the port for the passing of a B five,
Speaker 1: which basically requires owner robberators to become employees rather than
Speaker 1: full owner operators. Um. It's it's a little unclear why
Speaker 1: the current system is really you know, tightly held onto
Speaker 1: and it has been sort of the case for decades
Speaker 1: and trucking where owner operators who do not have the
Speaker 1: same sort of worker rights and uh study sort of
Speaker 1: pay that full on employees in trucking have. They are
Speaker 1: very defensive and protective of the system, even though you know,
Speaker 1: from the outside perspective it's not really a system that
Speaker 1: is particularly beneficial to their pocketbooks and livelihood at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. But um, you know, if you
Speaker 1: are becoming a truck driver, you're probably someone who is
Speaker 1: very fiercely independent. You are taking that job because you
Speaker 1: want to be literally alone in the truck all day.
Speaker 1: It's not really a job you take if you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I really enjoy you know, leadership and working without the event. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's literally the large corporate environment. Yeah, it's you literally
Speaker 1: take the job because you don't want anyone bothering you.
Speaker 1: So it makes sense that even when it comes to
Speaker 1: being an owner operator, they would prefer not to have
Speaker 1: any sort of government interference. On top of that, they
Speaker 1: don't view themselves as employees. They view themselves as small
Speaker 1: business owners. They're viewing themselves as building a business, building
Speaker 1: a life for themselves, rather than you know, being a
Speaker 1: wage lady. Well back up for one second, So what
Speaker 1: would if we were if the California regulations were to
Speaker 1: go on full force and apply to on our operators,
Speaker 1: What does that mean specifically? Like who would be the
Speaker 1: employer who would have the obligations the entity that they're
Speaker 1: driving a load for? Like what is the current arrangement
Speaker 1: between Like I just don't really get, Like what the
Speaker 1: what the theoretical endgame looks like if these regulations were
Speaker 1: to fully apply to truck Right, So, if you are
Speaker 1: a quote true owner operator, you own your own truck,
Speaker 1: you own your own trailer, nothing really changes for you
Speaker 1: because you are literally just on your own. This is
Speaker 1: your business, that's just you. But many, many truck drivers,
Speaker 1: especially port drivers, are those least owner operators I had
Speaker 1: mentioned where you are least onto a larger company. They
Speaker 1: are the ones who are, you know, actually paying your paycheck,
Speaker 1: but you don't have the sort of protections that you
Speaker 1: would have as a full unemployee, you know, including health
Speaker 1: insurance and paid medical leave and paid time off. So
Speaker 1: in the case that this law is enforced in the
Speaker 1: way that they are saying it's going to be enforced,
Speaker 1: the carrier, the trucking company, would be the one paying
Speaker 1: the salary and um the so called shippers, you know,
Speaker 1: Macy's home depot, whoever it is that is have have
Speaker 1: the loads at the ports. They would still be paying
Speaker 1: that trucking company. So what change much for the shippers
Speaker 1: except I imagine their rates may increase of it. Right, So,
Speaker 1: this has been a talking point from some sides of
Speaker 1: this argument that if you have this new regulation to
Speaker 1: come into effect, all of a sudden, shipping rates are
Speaker 1: going to soar at a time when you know we've
Speaker 1: already seen shipping rates go up quite a bit. It
Speaker 1: most likely would increase the rate to move a truck load,
Speaker 1: you know, just at that point of the supply chain
Speaker 1: where you know, you're trying to move this load from
Speaker 1: the port to a terminal to a place where they
Speaker 1: can you know, move that to a different truck that
Speaker 1: would move that across the US, or move that onto
Speaker 1: a round car, or you know, any other sorts of uh,
Speaker 1: next point in the transportation system. I think I think
Speaker 1: there is some debate and some question, you know, just
Speaker 1: because of how bad the labor situation is, specifically at
Speaker 1: the Port of l A and Long Beach and at
Speaker 1: those terminals. Uh. You know, some might say, you know,
Speaker 1: it's overdue and we've been paying too little at this
Speaker 1: point for this service where you know, some drivers are
Speaker 1: allegedly working up to twenty hours a day where they
Speaker 1: might not even be receiving a paycheck, or some are
Speaker 1: even paying to work. Um, you know, the abuses, the
Speaker 1: labor abuses, uh at. You know, these ports have been
Speaker 1: pretty well documented and it is um you know, some
Speaker 1: some critics of the current system would say, you know,
Speaker 1: it is overdue that rates go up essentially, So one
Speaker 1: of the you know, one of the things we've learned
Speaker 1: in the course of our episodes about trucking is that
Speaker 1: there's like two distinct trucking markets. And there are the
Speaker 1: port drivers and then they're the long haul over the
Speaker 1: road drivers. And you were talking about this sort of
Speaker 1: like culture of independence and people get into trucking. You know,
Speaker 1: there might be a reason that they're not sitting behind
Speaker 1: a desk and some email job, But is that true
Speaker 1: for the like is the culture of port trucking the
Speaker 1: same as the over the road like convoy style they
Speaker 1: made movies about it, like it's at the same Because
Speaker 1: my understanding, or least my impression, was that the port
Speaker 1: drivers were more immigrants and people who had fewer opportunities
Speaker 1: in the first place. And also and sort of related
Speaker 1: to that, and uh, you know that you mentioned there
Speaker 1: have been these protests in California against A five. Are
Speaker 1: the people who are coming out to protest them? Do
Speaker 1: we have reason to think that they're like representative of
Speaker 1: the broader trucking industry or is it just like a
Speaker 1: certain subset within that uh space who is particularly threatened
Speaker 1: by this? You know, it's funny. I have reached out
Speaker 1: to truck drivers kind of like in my network to
Speaker 1: ask what they think about eight five. Most of them
Speaker 1: are long haul drivers. Uh. Many of them are based
Speaker 1: in the Midwest or you know, the Southeast. And when
Speaker 1: I asked them, like, oh, what do you think of
Speaker 1: this law, they were like, I don't care. It's in California.
Speaker 1: I don't live in California. So there's definitely like, oh,
Speaker 1: this this kind of idea of like, oh, that's happening
Speaker 1: in California. I don't I don't like I really care
Speaker 1: about California because I don't live there. And that's by
Speaker 1: that's by design. Um. The pork drivers though, it is
Speaker 1: definitely a different um. It's definitely a different like uh
Speaker 1: ethnic makeup. I would say, so you know, the current
Speaker 1: like statistics that I've seen is that you know, long
Speaker 1: held truck drivers tend to be medium aged, round fifty
Speaker 1: five to sixty UM, mostly white, you know, but there
Speaker 1: are plenty of uh, you know, black or even Punjabi
Speaker 1: truck drivers, so that it is, but you know, probably
Speaker 1: like sixty seventy percent white, you know, mostly conservative, basically
Speaker 1: everything you kind of picture when you picture a truck driver. UM.
Speaker 1: But the porth drivers are definitely quite different. Especially in
Speaker 1: southern California. It is mostly uh, immigrants from Latin America
Speaker 1: or East Asia. Uh. The ages are a bit more diverse.
Speaker 1: It's not all you know, people in their fifties or
Speaker 1: sixties or seventies, UM. And I can't really comment on
Speaker 1: what their political leanings are, but it is definitely just
Speaker 1: it's a much different than graphic. I'd say. It's one
Speaker 1: one follow up you said, when you talk to truck drivers,
Speaker 1: they're like, well, I don't, I don't I'm not from California,
Speaker 1: what do I care? But my impression is actually really
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. And part of the reason this is now
Speaker 1: a legal debate is because you have California. It sounds like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, setting the rules for the entire country. And
Speaker 1: if there's differences in rules, then that creates problems because
Speaker 1: truck's cross borders. So can you talk about like the
Speaker 1: tension of California having its own distinct set of laws
Speaker 1: that verse the other ones. Yeah, So it really at
Speaker 1: this time, the main threat that people in the trucking
Speaker 1: industry who are against a B five C is other
Speaker 1: states implementing the same law. It's not so much as
Speaker 1: it's not so much the concern is like, oh, California
Speaker 1: is doing this, now we all have to do this.
Speaker 1: It's more, um, you know, California is doing this, and
Speaker 1: now we're looking at Massachusetts or Illinois. Both of these
Speaker 1: states are ones are moving towards laws like this. So
Speaker 1: that's really the big concern um in the industry. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you're if I, my understanding is that
Speaker 1: if your company is not based in California or Massachusetts
Speaker 1: or Illinois, um, it doesn't really matter what the what
Speaker 1: those state laws are because your company is based not
Speaker 1: in those places. And you know, the way the trucking
Speaker 1: industry is right now is that most inter operators specifically
Speaker 1: are based in states or areas with lower cost of living,
Speaker 1: just because the job is has a median pay around
Speaker 1: fifty thousand, forty five to fifty thousand a year. So, um,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make sense to live in you know,
Speaker 1: the Boston metro area or um, you know, Palo Alto.
Speaker 1: So most truck drivers, most inter operators are tend to
Speaker 1: be based, you know, in the Midwest or southeast or
Speaker 1: Appalachian area. So you mentioned earlier this idea of a
Speaker 1: very low barrier to entry to become a truck driver
Speaker 1: or an owner operator, and I think like de regulation
Speaker 1: sort of goes hand in hand with the American dreams sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, you can start your own business from scratch
Speaker 1: and you don't have to jump through that many legal
Speaker 1: loopholes in order to do it. Can you talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit more about deregulation efforts in trucking
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties, because as I understand it,
Speaker 1: like they were quite unusual for the industry, and this
Speaker 1: is really where some of that tension between the state
Speaker 1: laws versus the federal regulation is coming from. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is my literally one of my favorite things to
Speaker 1: talk about. I'm very glad that we're talking about this.
Speaker 1: So in uh, you know, so actually, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: back all the way to which, which is when the
Speaker 1: trucking industry was, you know, really in its infancy, and
Speaker 1: it was first regulated in part because of motivations from
Speaker 1: the rail industry. They're saying, Okay, this industry is being
Speaker 1: too big, it's way too Basically, their rates are incredibly cheap.
Speaker 1: We need to sort of like inter interfere and make
Speaker 1: sure these it's not as um, you know, economically viable
Speaker 1: to go to trucking rather than go to rail. So
Speaker 1: that was one kind of reason why we saw in
Speaker 1: NIVE that the trucking industry was regulated, And by regulated,
Speaker 1: I mean that every single thing that you moved via
Speaker 1: truck besides agriculture, which is a whole other topic. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you're moving widgets from des Moines to Detroit, UM
Speaker 1: you have to apply to the federal government and say hey,
Speaker 1: I want to move widges from Des Moines to Detroit,
Speaker 1: and they could accept your offer, they could reject it.
Speaker 1: Most likely someone else already has that UM already has
Speaker 1: that lane. So you know they're going to reject it
Speaker 1: because they already have that lane. UM. So it was
Speaker 1: it was very challenging to enter the trucking industry at
Speaker 1: that time, and by night, which is when UH, the
Speaker 1: trucking industry was deregulated, we had about seventeen thousand trucking
Speaker 1: companies still so still quite a few. But so by
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteen seventies, with stagflation all these
Speaker 1: other topics, lawmakers and economists were really looking at deregulating
Speaker 1: industries to make things cheaper. Essentially, so the idea was, Okay,
Speaker 1: if we deregulate trucking, the cost of everything will go down.
Speaker 1: What they didn't realize is that by deregulating it, that
Speaker 1: that would also really cut pay for drivers. Essentially, a
Speaker 1: lot of the trucking companies were raising rates, raising rates
Speaker 1: UH in negotiation with teamsters, and you know the rates
Speaker 1: that you know retailers were paying eventually essentially just went
Speaker 1: straight to employees. So by night the industry was deregulated.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the first deregulation, but it was definitely the
Speaker 1: most um impactful and the biggest. They basically said, okay,
Speaker 1: actually no routes are regulated. Basically, it's a free for
Speaker 1: all and um, you can move whatever you want wherever
Speaker 1: you want. It doesn't matter. Right after that we saw
Speaker 1: hundreds of trucking and trucking companies go bankrupt. Most of
Speaker 1: those were unionized trucking companies. They went corupt within the
Speaker 1: first few years of the regulation. And it's just a
Speaker 1: price war and people couldn't stay afloat yeah yeah, um.
Speaker 1: And in its uh when all those companies went out
Speaker 1: of business, most of the companies that replaced them were
Speaker 1: not unionized. You know, they were smaller drivers, they were
Speaker 1: smaller companies. Uh. So we saw the industry go from
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand companies dimensioned at the end of the seventies too.
Speaker 1: Now there are more than two hundred thousand trucking companies.
Speaker 1: Some people have called it destructive competition, just how it's
Speaker 1: essentially a race to the bottom when it comes to
Speaker 1: when it comes to uh these routes. How unionized is
Speaker 1: trucking still today? Because you know, it's funny, like when
Speaker 1: I think of like the teamsters or something, it's like
Speaker 1: that's the industry that first comes to mind. But how
Speaker 1: prevalent is unionization? What is the role? What is their
Speaker 1: role on this? It's pretty it's it's not common. I
Speaker 1: would need to check on what the most recent numbers
Speaker 1: are but it's a few thousand I believe maybe a
Speaker 1: few ten thousand's who are who are employed. And again
Speaker 1: this is out of two million drivers. So you were
Speaker 1: talking about federal deregulation versus the California Act when it
Speaker 1: comes to gig economy workers. So what exactly is like
Speaker 1: how much of a mess is this for the trucking
Speaker 1: industry and how are people navigating it right now? Yeah? So, um,
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention. So after night, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: the industry was deregulated. All the sort of follow up
Speaker 1: from that happened, and then under President Clinton he passed
Speaker 1: something called the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, also called
Speaker 1: I know, I literally wrote it down to my notes
Speaker 1: to make sure I got every every word. But it's
Speaker 1: also called F for a So we don't ever have
Speaker 1: to say that again, just F for a. UM. And
Speaker 1: what that said is that you cannot, uh, any state
Speaker 1: cannot pass a law that interferes with the regulation. Basically,
Speaker 1: no state can have any of law that would regulate
Speaker 1: the pricing or the route or any of these other
Speaker 1: factors of a trucking movement. And that relates to trucking
Speaker 1: companies as well as intermediaries and any sort of other
Speaker 1: company involved in the trucking world. So the argument is
Speaker 1: that UM five, by preventing who can be a truck
Speaker 1: driver and who can be a truck driver employee and
Speaker 1: versus owner, operator and what have you, the argument is
Speaker 1: that that law interferes with f for a because it
Speaker 1: introduces a regulation to the trucking industry that's not on
Speaker 1: the federal level. You Know, what I think is really
Speaker 1: interesting about all this is that, you know, thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 1: the last time we had this big bout of inflation,
Speaker 1: the answer is like, right, do you regulate everything? Do
Speaker 1: you regulate trucking, do regulate ports? Do you regulate airlines?
Speaker 1: Do regulate electricity and so forth. It's interesting now, like
Speaker 1: obviously we're in this other phase of inflation, and yet
Speaker 1: no one really talks about that because I think like
Speaker 1: everyone thinks, well, we've already squeezed everything out of like
Speaker 1: the deregulation lemon we're going to get and now, like,
Speaker 1: if anything, our approach is like very different and much
Speaker 1: more like sort of at least the Democrats approaches, like
Speaker 1: much more active involvement in industry, like purposeful average to
Speaker 1: expand the supply side, like the kind of what we
Speaker 1: were speaking about with Ezra Client recently, right, like the
Speaker 1: idea that previous supply side measures were all about cutting
Speaker 1: taxes to regulating making it easier for people to produce
Speaker 1: more that way, whereas this new supply side liberalism is
Speaker 1: more about actually smoothing the business cycle and how to
Speaker 1: encourage investment. What's company with the business. It's like, I
Speaker 1: think the last time, like when we were talking about
Speaker 1: trucking before, is probably when prices were way up another down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So on the business on the market side, Uh, we
Speaker 1: are seeing especially for spot rates, which are more likely
Speaker 1: to be taken by owner operators or at least owner operators. Uh,
Speaker 1: those are going way down. Contract rates, there are signs
Speaker 1: of that finally softening, and that affects or the larger
Speaker 1: trucking companies. UM. So it's definitely we're definitely seeing a
Speaker 1: softening in the trucking market right now. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: diesel is still really an affordability issue for especially for
Speaker 1: smaller smaller companies. UM. Equipment is still hard to come by.
Speaker 1: There's all there's still all of these major headwinds and
Speaker 1: it is definitely a challenging time to be a small
Speaker 1: trucking company. Right now, what's the sort of macro take
Speaker 1: on trucking rates coming down? Like you speak to people
Speaker 1: in the industry all the time. What are they saying
Speaker 1: is that there's inventories are too big and they need
Speaker 1: to start reducing or you know, consumer demand is falling
Speaker 1: off a cliff. Like how important do people think this
Speaker 1: drop actually is? Yeah? So one estimate from Convoy, which
Speaker 1: is a freight brokerage, they estimated before that half of
Speaker 1: all trucking recessions were the harbinger for a larger macro recession. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, in twenty nineteen, we did see a recession
Speaker 1: in the trucking. The trucking recession predicted the pandemic. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: just like Okay, I wrote a story in about how
Speaker 1: the yield curve inverting was, Like, was the trucking was
Speaker 1: the precursor for the trucking predicted the inverting and the
Speaker 1: old curve invertict predicted COVID nineteen Yeah, exactly exactly. So um,
Speaker 1: but it is a really great um. Trucking is a
Speaker 1: really great UH window to look through the rest of
Speaker 1: the economy because you can see uh consumer behavior, you
Speaker 1: can see home building, you can see industrial. They're all
Speaker 1: these sorts of UM elements that you can see through
Speaker 1: through the trucking industry. UM. And for instance, in the
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen down to or and that wasn't so much
Speaker 1: a sign of consumer softness, but it was definitely a
Speaker 1: sign of industrial softness. And now we're now the current
Speaker 1: downturn and trucking is I would say more more UH
Speaker 1: widely reflects a consumer softness. So they're they're plenty of
Speaker 1: plenty of my macro elements of this. I suppose the
Speaker 1: big question is how much of that is just people
Speaker 1: buying less stuff because they loaded up on it in
Speaker 1: the past couple of years, and now we're going to
Speaker 1: see a shift to services and the economy might still
Speaker 1: be okay. So you mentioned, um, the free brokerage convoy
Speaker 1: when we were at we interviewed the CEO of a
Speaker 1: competitor free brokerage at your conference in May, Matt piet
Speaker 1: and arrived logistics. UM. This is another legal thing you've
Speaker 1: been talking about, which is right. So I imagine the
Speaker 1: industry must be ensured out the wazoo because truck drivers
Speaker 1: get into accidents from time to time, and that's bad
Speaker 1: and that could be extremely costly. There's issues now whether
Speaker 1: the brokerages themselves could be live. Well can you talk
Speaker 1: about that particular dimension. Yeah. So, also seen at the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, UH this summer, along with a B five,
Speaker 1: there was this case involving C. H. Robinson, which is
Speaker 1: by far the largest trucking brokerage in the US. UM
Speaker 1: they arranged the movement, UH that went through the state
Speaker 1: of Nevada. That truck driver who was the UM you know,
Speaker 1: client of C. Robinson I believe, went over the median
Speaker 1: of a road and crashed their car into a twentysomething man.
Speaker 1: It was a very bad accident. The young man is
Speaker 1: now was rendering the quadriplegic um and as a result
Speaker 1: of that, the family in the law firm wanted to
Speaker 1: not only hold the trucking company accountable for that, but
Speaker 1: also C. H. Robinson, which arranged the move So under
Speaker 1: F four A, as we discussed, a state cannot have
Speaker 1: any sort of in reference or regulation of a brokerage
Speaker 1: that is not already at the federal level. UM. So
Speaker 1: the argument that C. H. Robinson and you know, the
Speaker 1: broker community as a whole. Uh, they argued that you know,
Speaker 1: trying to hold C. H. Robinson accountable for UM for
Speaker 1: this for this accident would be in violation of F
Speaker 1: for A. Uh. The Supreme Court looked at this, UM
Speaker 1: did not want to weigh in, and that as a result,
Speaker 1: the the circuit level decision on this case stood, and
Speaker 1: UH the brokerage is going to be held accountable in
Speaker 1: court in a few months. So my big question is,
Speaker 1: you have this federal law f for A. I can't
Speaker 1: even remember the actual title of it, and then you
Speaker 1: have the these changes at the state level, UM, like
Speaker 1: in California and Massachusetts. It was Massachusetts, right, Massachusetts and
Speaker 1: Illinois are considering kind of similar law. Why won't the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court here these cases? Like what like, Supreme Court
Speaker 1: seems to be very into activism um for lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, right now, So why wouldn't they try
Speaker 1: to to, you know, come up with some sort of
Speaker 1: decision on something that seems quite disruptive and confusing. That's
Speaker 1: a great question. I cannot answer that because I'm not
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, but I would like to know. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know, many people in the industry were definitely
Speaker 1: interested in knowing that. My my assumption is that perhaps
Speaker 1: they agree with the lower court decision and therefore they're
Speaker 1: just going to let that stand. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: it does kind of get into this broader issue where
Speaker 1: we really don't see the federal government want to get
Speaker 1: involved in trucking at all, which I think the industry
Speaker 1: says is a good thing. But now with the current
Speaker 1: issues with uh A B five as well as the
Speaker 1: Robinson case, UH, now the industry is saying like, please,
Speaker 1: we need guidance, like please someone step in, which is
Speaker 1: um really unusual for any industry, but especially in US
Speaker 1: will for the trucking industry, which is historically pretty um
Speaker 1: anti regulation. But at this point the struggle is really that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in the industry they're not really sure like
Speaker 1: how best to move goods across the US because it
Speaker 1: could get to the point where we have for the
Speaker 1: eight distinct countries essentially in one country. So I guess
Speaker 1: this is kind of the argument for like the case
Speaker 1: against UH state level regulation, right, or why state in
Speaker 1: theory shouldn't be allowed to interfere, which is that you
Speaker 1: then that can interview with like interfere with the cross
Speaker 1: state commerce and create forty eight separate countries if you
Speaker 1: want to move something from California to Florida, and you
Speaker 1: have to comply with each state's law on the way.
Speaker 1: I just want to go back though to like this
Speaker 1: like question and the A B five question. We know
Speaker 1: like about the protesters and the culture of truck etcetera,
Speaker 1: Like have you encountered people? Uh, there must be people
Speaker 1: who drive today that want these new productions, want these
Speaker 1: new arrangements because again, like you read, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like us say today one that like uh pults or
Speaker 1: a few years ago for like pretty awful conditions for
Speaker 1: a lot of these drivers. Have you found any that
Speaker 1: want these changes? So a lot of them are fearful
Speaker 1: of speaking out on actually the there there basic is
Speaker 1: really challenging to find drivers who will speak honestly about
Speaker 1: these uh then mostly speak anonymously. But there is definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, a a sector of the trucking community right
Speaker 1: now that is you know that does want more regulations.
Speaker 1: The other thing to know is that there is uh
Speaker 1: definitely some misinformation in terms of like what being an
Speaker 1: employee can do for you. Um, you know, there is
Speaker 1: some misunderstandings around Okay, actually, like if you are a
Speaker 1: class by as his employee, like you can get health insurance,
Speaker 1: you can you know, take time off when you want
Speaker 1: to take time off. Um. I think the other the
Speaker 1: others were of like larger complication here is how how
Speaker 1: much will this law be enforced? Because we have seen
Speaker 1: other sort of court decisions, you know, ruling on how
Speaker 1: you know, certain ways of the trucking industry needs to operate.
Speaker 1: Maybe they have to pay the fine, they have to
Speaker 1: pay out the class action fine, but it doesn't really
Speaker 1: change how the industry works. So I think there is
Speaker 1: kind of some opinions around, you know, is this even
Speaker 1: gonna happen? Like will this even help me? Rachel PRIMEC
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on odd lots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having Yeah that was fun. Thank you. You
Speaker 1: know what I was thinking about Tracy with foreign in particular.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, like at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the Biden administration and it was like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: neo liberalism dead episode, Yeah, and Mike Console was on.
Speaker 1: But one of the things, or one of the points
Speaker 1: that he made was like this idea of like, okay,
Speaker 1: neo liberalism setting some rules and then in casing it,
Speaker 1: you can't change the rules. And I didn't know about
Speaker 1: for a before, but thinking about like the Clinton years
Speaker 1: and this of this like part of the law itself
Speaker 1: is that states can't come up with their own laws
Speaker 1: like this sort of like self reinforcing law. It's like
Speaker 1: it's very it's very Clinton, it's very clean. Maybe what
Speaker 1: we need is a European Union for for America, for
Speaker 1: for the free movement of goods and people, so that
Speaker 1: we don't end up with forty eight countries. Well right, like,
Speaker 1: I mean that's like, right what Britain is dealing with
Speaker 1: right now. I mean, there are probably some really good
Speaker 1: arguments in favor of not having a patchwork of forty
Speaker 1: eight different transportation regulations. Yeah, I mean you can see,
Speaker 1: you can see someone arguing that this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is an industry that is basically cross states, and
Speaker 1: therefore maybe someone wants to coordinate a little bit. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sort of amazed the number of times
Speaker 1: that this like patchwork of state rules actually comes up
Speaker 1: in our conversations. Yeah. No, it's it's kind of striking
Speaker 1: that anything gets done. But right, like, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to imagine how you could have cross state transportation if
Speaker 1: each date can come up with its own rules. It's
Speaker 1: also just interesting and I was really struck. But I
Speaker 1: like hearing Rachel talk about like how much deregulation was
Speaker 1: in response to a past period of inflation, which is
Speaker 1: the theme that's been coming up lately, and how like
Speaker 1: we're kind of like taking very different approaches now to
Speaker 1: like this period of inflation. Yeah, I think that's a
Speaker 1: really interesting theme to pull out. The other interesting thing
Speaker 1: to me is just that that trucker culture, which we've
Speaker 1: kind of spoken about a number of times now, in
Speaker 1: this idea that you have an industry that values their
Speaker 1: independence that seems to be de facto against stricter rules,
Speaker 1: even if some of them might ostensibly help them out.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting to sort of like observe that. And
Speaker 1: I guess it's hard to Rachel's point um at the
Speaker 1: very end of the conversation, it's hard to get a
Speaker 1: read on people who maybe feel differently to the consensus,
Speaker 1: because no one really wants to speak out right, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that there's like who can speak out
Speaker 1: over the operators over the road, who like they make
Speaker 1: movies about of out of and sort of glamorized, like
Speaker 1: presumably they could speak out, but also I don't know.
Speaker 1: My assumption would be that if you are a least
Speaker 1: donor operator uh you're an immigrant with tenuous uh networks here,
Speaker 1: limited English, that you're just easy. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about like this culture of trucker, I
Speaker 1: keep culture of truck drivers, you know, I keep wondering,
Speaker 1: is there a culture of truck drivers that doesn't break
Speaker 1: through to the meeting another culture of truck drivers. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that this reminded me of, and this
Speaker 1: was what we spoke about at the Freight Waves conference,
Speaker 1: was the future of the freight brokerage. Right. So here
Speaker 1: you have essentially a middleman role matching you know, people
Speaker 1: who want to ship goods with actual drivers, and it
Speaker 1: just seems like with that liability issue, that could be
Speaker 1: a burden on I think an industry that's already facing
Speaker 1: some pressures. Yeah, that seems like it's going to be
Speaker 1: its own. But at the same time, if their only
Speaker 1: job is to match customers with safe drivers and then
Speaker 1: that driver has an accident, and then you're kind of
Speaker 1: asking what are they The question is how well did
Speaker 1: they scream? Right? Like that would be presumably that's the
Speaker 1: question is how to what degree did the ostensible driver's safety. Actually, like,
Speaker 1: how did they screen that? Well? I suppose they would
Speaker 1: argue that drivers are regulated, like they have to pass
Speaker 1: a commercial driver's license, and so it's the government's fault
Speaker 1: if if the driver isn't very good. But anyway, okay,
Speaker 1: we can argue to speculate about other other companies legal
Speaker 1: strategies that we really have no idea. Shall we leave
Speaker 1: it there? Let's leave it there. Okay. This has been
Speaker 1: another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway, and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisntal. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: the Stalwark. Be sure to follow our guest Rachel Premax.
Speaker 1: She's at r R p r E and check out
Speaker 1: her newsletter modes. Follow our producer Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Arman,
Speaker 1: and check out all of our podcasts as Bloomberg under
Speaker 1: the handle at podcasts. Thanks for things to