A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction, with a cabin that is independent of the payload portion of the vehicle. Smaller varieties may be mechanically similar to some automobiles. Commercial trucks can be very large and powerful and may be configured to be mounted with specialized equipment, such as in the case of refuse trucks, fire trucks, concrete mixers, and suction excavators. In American English, a commercial vehicle without a trailer or other articulation is formally a "straight truck" while one designed specifically to pull a trailer is not a truck but a "tractor".
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor or illegal working conditions, including little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting and ventilation, or uncomfortably or dangerously high or low temperatures. The work may be difficult, tiresome, dangerous, climatically challenging, or underpaid. Employees in sweatshops may work long hours with unfair wages, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. Women make up 85 to 90% of sweatshop workers and may be forced by employers to take birth control and routine pregnancy tests to avoid supporting maternity leave or providing health benefits.
Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of new trends in economic thinking about the inefficiencies of government regulation, and the risk that regulatory agencies would be controlled by the regulated industry to its benefit, and thereby hurt consumers and the wider economy. Economic regulations were promoted during the Gilded Age, in which progressive reforms were claimed as necessary to limit externalities like corporate abuse, unsafe child labor, monopolization, and pollution, and to mitigate boom and bust cycles. Around the late 1970s, such reforms were deemed burdensome on economic growth and many politicians espousing neoliberalism started promoting deregulation.
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. A collective agreement reached by these negotiations functions as a labour contract between an employer and one or more unions, and typically establishes terms regarding wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs. Such agreements can also include 'productivity bargaining' in which workers agree to changes to working practices in return for higher pay or greater job security.
A truck driver is a person who earns a living as the driver of a truck, which is commonly defined as a large goods vehicle (LGV) or heavy goods vehicle (HGV).
Frank Edward Fitzsimmons was an American labor leader. He was acting president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1967 to 1971, and president from 1971 to 1981.
The Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act, more commonly known as the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 (MCA) is a United States federal law which deregulated the trucking industry.
Roy Lee Williams was an American labor leader who was president of the Teamsters from May 15, 1981, to April 14, 1983.
Hours of service (HOS) regulations are issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and govern the working hours of anyone operating a commercial motor vehicle (CMV) in the United States. These regulations apply to truck drivers, commercial and intercity bus drivers, and school bus drivers who operate CMVs. These rules limit the number of daily and weekly hours spent driving and working, and regulate the minimum amount of time drivers must spend resting between driving shifts. For intrastate commerce, the respective state's regulations apply.
A whipsaw strike is a strike by a trade union against only one or a few employers in an industry or a multi-employer association at a time. The strike is often of a short duration, and usually recurs during the labor dispute or contract negotiations—hence the name "whipsaw".
NLRB v. Truck Drivers Local 449 , 353 U.S. 87 (1957), is an 8-0 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that a temporary lockout by a multi-employer bargaining group threatened by a whipsaw strike was lawful under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act.
The trucking industry serves the American economy by transporting large quantities of raw materials, works in process, and finished goods over land—typically from manufacturing plants to retail distribution centers. Trucks are also used in the construction industry, two of which require dump trucks and portable concrete mixers to move the large amounts of rocks, dirt, concrete, and other building materials used in construction. Trucks in America are responsible for the majority of freight movement over land and are tools in the manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing industries.
The American Trucking Associations (ATA), founded in 1933, is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. ATA represents more than 37,000 members covering every type of motor carrier in the United States through a federation of other trucking groups, industry-related conferences, and its 50 affiliated state trucking associations. Former Governor of Kansas Bill Graves was replaced by Chris Spear as the ATA's president and CEO in July 2016.
The trucking industry in the United States has affected the political and economic history of the United States in the 20th century. Before the invention of automobiles, most freight was moved by train or horse-drawn vehicle.
Truck-driving country or trucker country is a subgenre of country and western music. It is characterized by lyrical content about trucks, truck drivers or truckers, and the trucking industry experience. This includes, for example, references to truck stops, CB radio, trucker jokes, attractive women, romance, heartbreak, loneliness, stimulants and eugeroics, teamsters, roads and highways, billboards, inclement weather, traffic, ICC, DOT, car accidents, washrooms, etc. In truck-driving country, references to "truck" include the following truck types: 10 wheeler, straight truck, 18 wheeler, tractor (bobtail), semi, tractor-trailer, semi tractor trailer, big rig, and some others. Truck-driving country musicians include Dave Dudley, Red Sovine, Terry Fell, Dick Curless, Red Simpson, Del Reeves, the Willis Brothers, Jerry Reed, Commander Cody, C. W. McCall, Mac Wiseman, and Cledus Maggard. Terry Fell released "Truck Drivin' Man" in 1954.
The Transportation Trades Department, AFL–CIO (TTD) is a constitutionally mandated department of the AFL–CIO. It was founded in February 1990 to provide AFL–CIO-affiliated unions whose members work in the transportation industry or who build transportation infrastructure a unified policy-making voice on transportation issues. TTD has 37 member unions as of October 2022.
LME, Inc. was a less than truckload (LTL) carrier located in Minnesota which served ten states in the Midwestern US. LME, Inc. was founded in the early 2010s as a successor to Lakeville Motor Express to take over Lakeville's non-union regional freight business when its owners split this segment from their unionized business The unionized business remained with Lakeville which became a cartage agent for LME.
People who are driving as part of their work duties are an important road user category. First, workers themselves are at risk of road traffic injury. Contributing factors include fatigue and long work hours, delivery pressures, distractions from mobile phones and other devices, lack of training to operate the assigned vehicle, vehicle defects, use of prescription and non-prescription medications, medical conditions, and poor journey planning. Death, disability, or injury of a family wage earner due to road traffic injury, in addition to causing emotional pain and suffering, creates economic hardship for the injured worker and family members that may persist well beyond the event itself.
WTI Transport, Inc. is a for-hire carrier based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with terminals in Birmingham, Mobile and Whites Creek, TN. A flatbed company of approximately 370 tractors, WTI hauls freight throughout the Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and East Coast. WTI’s fleet is a mixture of company drivers and owner-operators. Shipments consist mainly of roofing, building materials, and all types of aluminum, iron and steel products. Currently, WTI was a subsidiary of Daseke, which is now owned by TFI International.
The New York City truckers' strike started on September 15, 1938, as an unsanctioned strike by some of NYC's Teamsters members, with union leadership initially opposing it. It was caused by a contract expiration, demanding lower hours at the same weekly pay and by its end somewhere between 30,000 and 35,000 strikers were directly involved.
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Michael H. Belzer
Alma mater
Cornell University (PhD)
Occupation
Professor of economics
Employer
Wayne State University
Known for
Internationally-recognized expertise on trucking industry and deregulation
Works
Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation (2000) Michael Belzer Headshot.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Michael_Belzer_Headshot.jpg/220px-Michael_Belzer_Headshot.jpg)
