Truckers Are Working Countless Hours That They're Not Getting Paid For

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:16)

Tracy, you know, we've done a lot of truck driving episodes on the show by now, but it is kind of crazy that we haven't actually spoken to a truck driver.

Tracy Alloway (0:25)

All trucking all the time, except with the drivers themselves, apparently.

Joe Weisenthal (0:29)

Yeah, it's kind of bad. We really, you know, because essentially people talk about poor conditions, they talk about poor pay, they talk about certain way, you know, there's a lot of talk in the industry about a so-called truck driver shortage, which is this talking point media has reported for a long time.

But how can you discuss these things, you know, without actually hearing from a truck driver, why perhaps the industry has had trouble hiring and retaining drivers?

Tracy Alloway (0:53)

Right, but also just talking about some of the supply chain issues as we have been for the past two years or so, and all the talk about, you know, things being stuck at the ports or things being stuck at rail yards and truck drivers getting caught up in those and having to wait hours and hours and hours to pick up or drop off a load. But we haven't actually spoken to the people who are living that very experience.

Joe Weisenthal (1:18)

Right, so one dynamic, and we talked about it on a recent episode with Rachel Premack, is this fact that truck drivers are paid by the mile, right? And you even see it on the back of trucks often when they're trying to recruit drivers. They talk about how much you can get paid per mile, which has the drawback potentially of, you don't get paid for time, and therefore, if you're at a warehouse and you're depositing a load or picking up some goods, you can wait around for a really long time, potentially hours, if the warehouse is inefficient or blocked or just sort of very crowded, which a lot of infrastructure has been over the last couple of years, and you're not getting paid for that time. It's detention, as they call it in the industry. And if it's really bad, if it's inefficient, that's just hours of your life wasted because it's not a mile.

Tracy Alloway (2:05)

Right, and so the supply chain crisis has kind of shone a light on this practice. And the question now is whether or not it starts to change, because clearly, if you're talking about how difficult it is to get stuff from point A to point B, and a big part of the choke point is, well, people are just waiting all day to pick that stuff up at a particular port or a railyard or depot or whatever, then you could see people maybe want to start to alleviate some of that wait time.

Joe Weisenthal (2:35)

And this is what happens, I think, in a so-called supply chain crisis, is you notice various choke points or inefficiencies that maybe you tolerated previously, or that weren't a big deal. And so, okay, we have this problem where people are wasting their time at the warehouses waiting for load or unload, but whatever, it's okay, because things are still moving smoothly.

When you get the real Cs up, and you're like, oh, these are dramatic inefficiencies, and the cost of adjustment falls on the truck drivers themselves because they're the ones that have to essentially eat the cost by wasting time.

Tracy Alloway (3:08)

Yeah, exactly. So, when you get these choke points, as you mentioned, it seems like a good time to sort of evaluate the process on a whole.

Joe Weisenthal (3:16)

And what can be done to alleviate them? And some people are like, oh, it's apps, and we need algorithms like Uber and stuff like that and make everything more efficient.

But at that point, it's just speculation. So, let's talk to a driver, and let's find out what really is going on and how much time and waste and if there are any potential solutions to this issue of truck driver detention.

Tracy Alloway (3:37)

Let's do it.

Joe Weisenthal (3:38)

All right, I'm really excited about our guest. We're going to be speaking to a truck driver and also the author of the Autonomous Truckers Substack, Gord Magill.

Gord, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.

Gord Magill (3:49)

Well, hello, Odd Lots. Hi, Tracy. Hi, Joe. Thank you for having me on.

Joe Weisenthal (3:53)

Thanks for coming on. What do you sort of give your summary? How does a truck driver get paid and what is detention?