What Truckers Already Know About the Future of Electronic Worker Surveillance

Tracy Alloway (0:10)

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

Joe Weisenthal (0:14)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:16)

Joe, do you remember when we had Gord McGill on to talk about trucking?

Joe Weisenthal (0:20)

Yeah, that's like an iconic, I mean, it was recent, but that's like a Odd Lots classic already, and a bunch of people have read, that was a great episode.

Tracy Alloway (0:29)

It was. And he said, I mean, he said a bunch of things that were very interesting, but he said something in particular where he was talking about an upcoming book by a Cornell University professor called Data Driven. And the idea was to explore the role of technology in the trucking industry.

Joe Weisenthal (0:49)

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think this is a really important area to explore because of course, as we've discussed with Gord, but also other episodes that we've done on trucking. Truckers are monitored increasingly. There are these ELDs, electronic logging devices, the track hours, things like that.

And, you know, obviously this affects truckers, but you know, we may all be tracked by ELDs as workers.

Tracy Alloway (1:13)

Right, so there's two interesting things here. So one, you would expect that monitoring technology, like the ELDs that they're using, would be sort of like, anathema to a lot of the truck driving industry. Like a lot of truckers go into it thinking they're gonna be independent, they have the freedom of the road. And then it turns out that there are like eye movements and brain waves are gonna be tracked and monitored.

So that's interesting. And then secondly, given the shift towards work from home for a wide variety of workers, it does seem like surveillance technology in general could become more of a thing.

Joe Weisenthal (1:51)

Well, and the other really important thing that I think maybe, I don't know, something profound about how business works or capitalism works, et cetera, is like, there is this core problem, right? Like why does ELD exist in the first place, attempt to solve problems, truckers on the road for too long, that creates fatigue, that creates accidents? Like some sort of impulse behind these rules that curtail how long someone could be on the road, but rather than address, well, why are they on the road so long? Why is there trucker fatigue? Why has fatigue been part of trucking forever?

Rather than figuring out different ways to do that, let's just come up with a monitor system, rather than addressing the core issue that creates the need for these time constraints What are the strengths and monitoring systems in the first place?

Tracy Alloway (2:34)

Right, so the question is also whether or not technology is the right solution to the problem it's trying to solve. Okay, well, I am very happy to say we have the perfect guest, because we are going to be speaking with the author of the book that was referenced by Gord. We are going to be speaking with Karen Levy. She is an associate professor at Cornell University, and also the author of Data Driven, Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance, which just came out.

So, Karen, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.

Karen Levy (3:04)

Thanks so much for having me.

Tracy Alloway (3:05)

This is a really interesting topic, and I'm glad we have the chance to dive into it further. Maybe just to begin with, Joe kind of alluded to this in the intro, but what exactly is the problem that this workplace surveillance technology that's been mandatory in the trucking industry, I think since 2017, what exactly is it trying to solve?

Karen Levy (3:25)

Yeah, I mean, the way you guys talked about it kind of in the lead up, I feel like perfectly encapsulates it. So the ELD, the Electronic Logging Device, as you mentioned, is federally mandated in the trucking industry. All long haul truckers have to buy and install and use them.

And ostensibly, the goal is related to safety, right? As you alluded to, we know that truckers are really tired. We know they're incredibly overworked and underslept. And obviously that's high stakes, right? There are thousands of truck related accidents a year and fatalities from those accidents. It's really, they cost billions of dollars every year.

So like nobody wants that, right? Including truckers. Nobody wants the roads to be unsafe. I don't want to be next to a tired trucker on the road.

We're all aligned on that.

But what's interesting, as you point out, is not like, the way that we have sort of chosen to address that in this case is via technology. So the electronic logging device is sort of the centerpiece of this effort to make truckers comply with the timekeeping regulations that they're subject to. I think this is something Gordon talked about too in the episode he was on, right? Like truckers since the 30s have been bound to work no more than a certain number of hours every day and every week, and that's for safety reasons. The problem, as I know y'all have discussed on Gorge Show and on other shows, is that the way truckers are paid does not align with those incentives, right? They're paid by the mile. Truckers have the saying, If the wheel ain't turning, you ain't earning. Right, like they're only paid for the time that they're actually moving down the highway, not to sit around resting, right? Or not to do all the other things that are an important essential part of being a trucker, but aren't compensated. So the result is that truckers just want to stay on the road as much as they can because that's how they make a living. They're in pretty dire economic straits to begin with. Like it's not a mystery why they end up doing these things. And so the ELD is sort of seen as like an answer to this, right, a way to sort of police this behavior by making it ostensibly harder, although not impossible, for truckers to tamper with the log books that they used to keep. So they used to do this using paper and pencil.