Odd Lots - This Is the Teamster Effort To Organize the Truckers at the Ports

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Some truckers make good money and have a high degree of control of their schedule. Others work for low pay under exceptionally difficult conditions. Port truckers, in particular, have dealt with poor pay, high debts, wage theft, and other difficult conditions. But an effort is being made to organize for a better situation. On this episode, we speak with Ron Herrera, Director of the Teamsters Port Division, on the union's efforts, as well as how it fits into broader supply chain stress.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks for listening to Odd Lots. Follow the show on Amazon Music for more future episodes or just ask Alexa play the podcast, Odd Lots on Amazon Music. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthal. And I'm Tracy Allaway. So Tracy, obviously we've done plenty on logistics and supply chains and the ports this year. But there's a pretty important perspective on all this that we still haven't hit directly. I feel like we have done quite a few angles on ports and logistics and supply chain issues. But you're right. There is actually a big one that we haven't done in detail, although we've touched on it at various times. And that is what exactly is going on with the labor market. The truckers, you know, be they over the road truckers or drage truckers, what exactly is going on there?

Right. So we know, like, for example, that, you know, there's stress on all aspects of the human, or the human aspect of the supply chain has been put under stress. I know we did an episode last year with Craig Fuller of freight waves talking about the sort of the two different trucker market. And there's the sort of over the road, long haul truckers that people most often probably associate in their minds with truckers. And a lot of them, at least some of them do pretty well. However, the pay and conditions for the port truckers. is essentially the workers who line up at the ports to take the goods from a port to a more inland warehouse, not as well paid and very different conditions. And there's been stories about long wait times this year, long wait time is where they're not technically getting paid for it. And so the sort of actual working conditions wages for the various people at the ports is something we need to dive into further. Yeah. And I feel like there's a lot going on specifically. at the ports, obviously. And we've been speaking about that quite a lot. This idea of people, you know, showing up, they're supposed to be earning money, but then they have to wait for

10 hours or whatever until they actually get something to load and take somewhere else. And in the meantime, they're not actually earning anything. But that said, there is this sort of broader trend that this fits into, which is the idea of, I guess, a shift in power or a swing back in the balance of power from capital to labor. And is it workers who have a lot of the bargaining advantage at the moment versus companies? And everyone, I guess everyone just seems to have been sort of stressed out by COVID, by the pandemic over the past two years. A lot of people in certain industries seem to be working very hard and under stressful conditions. And does that start to impact working conditions? Exactly. Right. So we are going to get the sort of the laborer slash

organized labor perspective. You know, we're going to talk about the port truckers and other people who work within the ports complex. But the port truckers in particular, there have been for years stories about wage theft, poor conditions. There's an amazing USA Today investigative piece in 2017 about the labor status of the port truckers. So without further ado, let's jump right into it. We're going to be speaking with Ron Herrera. He is the Teamsters national port director. And he is part of an effort to organize the port truckers. So Ron, thank you so much for coming on an odd lots. Thank you, Joe.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Tracy. And thank you for, you know, helping expose a entity in labor that definitely needs exposing. So before we even get into some of the specifics you're working on, what do you talk to us a little bit about what your division of the Teamsters does? generally and who within the port complex is and isn't organized or isn't part of unionized labor? Give us a feel for what you do and just the overall conditions there. Actually, it's pretty simple.

So I oversee the ports in the country. And the main focus is Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors because of the state of California and trying to affect change in one state to spread to others. But we're a national division with staff that puts out fires throughout the country. We also monitor cross-border trucking and imports a product through the utilization of old tractor trailer drivers. the entry from Oatai Mesa into the United States from Mexico. It's very critical in this. So one of the things that we do is we oversee cross-border trucking.

As far as the drivers go, in the ports of Long Beach, I'll just talk specifically about Los Angeles and Long Beach. Sure. You have two basic categories of drivers. You have one that gets all the benefits of an employee. and then you have others that are misclassified and owner operators and receive no benefits for, you know, the work that they do from the trucking companies that they haul for. That's the basis of what we do. It's complicated in a sense that there are so many laws that are attached to this. And so we're constantly trying to create policies that, you know, help these drivers.

Maybe before we get into exactly what it is you're trying to change, you could give us some color on what it's been like to be a trucker over the past couple of years. What are the problems or the issues? Obviously, you mentioned contractor status. But what is it exactly that is putting pressure on this particular workforce? Well, the pandemic exposed everything. It peeled back the onion. Things that have been going on for years were exposed. But we were in a national pandemic. And like all of us, we were susceptible to, you know, unfortunately getting sick.

And we had quarantine that we were supposed to abide by. if we did get infected by this virus. But what did that mean to a contracted poor driver? It meant that there was no minimum wage because they're not employees through EDD. It meant that they didn't have health care because they weren't an employee. It means that they weren't paying into Social Security. They didn't receive workers' compensation. They get injured or in this case would have been sick.

They didn't have the ability to, you know, join a union and other protections on their job. You know, practically during the last couple of years, it's been a fight to get, you know, PPE and the ability to create safety regulations. Obviously, in California, we are mayor and the county and the state governments all passed worker protections. and the drivers that are independent carriers, these were their only protections on the job, ones that had to be legislated. So I think that, like I said earlier, it was the peeling back of the onion

that exposed all the safety atrocities that go on if you're an independent carrier. So the employed, the people who are on staff full-time with benefits, those truck drivers, and then there's the essentially gig workers. How does one end up as the other? Why are there two sets? And why is it that one company could have their own workers on staff, but also employ gig workers?

Like, how does one, how did it shake out that way, I guess? I think it takes advantage of the current laws of misclassification. I think, you know, in recent settlements on XBO drivers won a $30 million settlement. from a federal judge, independent contractor rule were ruled as employees. And the basis of that suit was around wage staff that you both spoke earlier. But I think what it is, it's, you know, companies taking advantage of a system that for the most part is devastating to a worker. Obviously, there's choices that, you know, drivers make to own their own truck. but that should come with benefits also.

There's always the argument about, you know, okay, you have an independent contractor that specifically moves product for a certain trucking company but isn't entitled to benefits. So companies take advantage of it. You know, their overhead is lower, obviously, because the cost factor to do business is much lower because there isn't, you know, health care costs.

There isn't overtime. You spoke about wait time. There's, you know, no wait time differential. An employee, right, once he punches the clock and gets in his truck, gets paid for all-time work. So it's a definite business advantage that companies utilize to the detriment of workers. And it's something that the teamsters have fought for for many years is the dismantling of this. misclassification and trying to equal the playing field for both sectors, both independent contractors and employees.

Many court cases have been ruled upon where companies have utilized the independent contractor model and courts have ruled that they're actually not contractors, that they're being utilized as employees. And companies actually have changed. their status and gone to an employee model. I mean, I guess we understand why a company would want to use contracted drivers versus full-time employees. But just going back to Joe's question, maybe if we flip it, you know, why would companies want to have full-time employed drivers and how does someone become a full-time

employed driver versus staying as just a contractor? I think that depends on the model that a company chooses to you know, run with or operate with. I don't think it's anything that we decide as a union, unfortunately. If it was our decision, naturally we'd go to the employee model's cost. Everything's based on cost. If they can get away with the independent model and it's a, it's, you know, lesser overhead for them. What does that mean more profits? You know, I would concentrate on on the fact that the cost factors benefits, you know, these employers, unfortunately. But just to be clear, and to sort of follow up on Tracy's question,

a company like, say, XPO, it does have, it does have on-staff drivers, correct? Yes. So the big companies do have some, there must have some impulse where at least they don't want to go 100% contract labor. in my work, right, as a union official. Sure. It's a deterrent. It's also a deterrent to unionize. The model, the independent model also restricts, you know, there's law restrictions as far as being a worker, you know, is right to organize.

That's being challenged right now in Southern California, the right of an independent contractor to become union. So it's pretty, it's really. complicated as far as why a company would, you know, utilize independent contracting, costing, and it blocks the unionization of their employees. The news doesn't stop on the weekends. Context changes constantly. And now Bloomberg is the place to stay on top of it all. Hi, I'm David Gurra.

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right out of the box. The fear of being infected. Because these workers aren't, they're not workers that could work remotely. They have to come into work every day of the pandemic. They had to come into work every day of the pandemic in order to make a living. So their exposure to the virus was, you know,

a hundred times, you know, more than obviously someone that could work remotely. the fact that legislation policy had it be passed in order to acquire PPE. You report to a trucking company every day and you provide a service for that trucking company, but that trucking company wasn't mandated to give out PPE. But the utilization of your skill was for the profit of that trucking company. And let's say a driver unfortunately did get. attracted or had to go under quarantine. Independent drivers are paid by the load. They don't get

paid, you know, sick time. And that was a big issue because the drivers who were exposed had to go in quarantine. So a driver had to make a choice. Do I continue working? Do I do the right thing in quarantine? But what do you do when you have no income coming in? I mean, people don't realize myself, included, right, you know, what a decision that had to be on a family. I'm sure there were drivers that, you know, were infected, but still had to go out there and drive their truck because, you know, they weren't entitled to stick time. They don't have health insurance provided to them. So that was a major factor that we were fighting for on the unemployment. side, right? If a driver had an extended time off because, you know, he was sick, he wasn't entitled to

unemployment automatically that had to be applied for and then, you know, a special accommodation was given later on that that independent contractors could receive some kind of benefit. So you have to remember that these drivers pay for maintenance. They pay for fuel, right? They pay for their truck payment. They possibly could lease trucks from, you know, their trucking companies. So there's always debt attached to an independent contractor. And then you add everything that we just talked about.

It was devastating to them to have to go through the last two years of this pandemic. We touched on it briefly. but and there have been many stories about it. How have you mentioned that the truckers get paid by the load. And so in theory, if there's really long wait times at the ports, that's fewer loads per day that they can, or fewer loads per week, that they can move in longer hours. How has that been a factor in this? And just in general, you know, it's like we hear so much about the labor shortage and the crunch at the ports. Have workers, whether independent contractors or staff workers, been able to secure?

meaningfully higher wages and better benefits due to the imbalance? You know, it's interesting because everyone talks about the supply chain. We've all been involved with it. Our international union has been as far up as our general president, Mr. Hoffa, making commitments to the White House and President Biden, that the teachers would do their part to help out in the supply team. and, you know, what has been going on at the port. As far as shortages, right, because that's what you're hearing, driver shortages,

driver shortages, right? Yeah. But you're looking at an operation that needs to be dove into a little bit better for efficiency, number one. We have relationships with the port directors, both in Los Angeles and Long Beach, and both of them know that the operation has to change. But I don't, we're getting back to the driver shortage. Is there actually a driver shortage,

or is there a shortage of good paying union jobs? Is there an attraction to young people, right, to pursue a career in trucking? Are the paying benefits equal to some worker that can achieve the middle class? I think that the industry or the fact that, you know, low wages are paid and drivers, you know, are expected to wait in line is definitely a factor here, you know, that you don't get paid. So every conversation that we have as a union to, you know, officials that are looking at a more efficient port, we always talk about. you know, high road jobs.

If there were high road trucking jobs at the ports, you know, there would be more interest in being a driver, and we wouldn't be in the situation that we're in now. Who are the types of people who are becoming drivers now? Because, you know, again, presumably with all this cargo going through the ports, all this demand for truckers, presumably the companies have been trying to find new ones. So who is actually coming into the industry?

at the moment. That's a good question currently. The dominant worker there is basically all immigrant. So you have that factor involved as well. I wouldn't think that there's a rush, right, of incoming prospects to come into an industry that needs a lot of work, right? needs a lot of attention and needs immunization.

So the way you reframe the question is like, is there a truck driver shortage or is there a shortage of good paying jobs that would attract workers, I think was a good reframing. But have we seen specific examples of companies, either with their staff or trying to attract contract workers, essentially meaningfully change how the job is compensated? or done such that it does become more appealing? Like, what have we seen,

have we seen shifts on the employer side to sort of address the shortage as you see it? I think companies have raised wages to try to accommodate it, but, you know, when a driver's paid by the load, the revenue that he receives from that load by having heard, you know, that side of it. On the employee side, definitely I've heard companies that have risen wages.

So here's a very dumb question, but why don't they just start paying people who are waiting to take on loads? And I mean, the reason. Good question. But the reason I ask it is we know this is an issue. We know that people are waiting for far longer than they used to have to. We know that the Biden administration has made noises about increasing pay and benefits for this particular area of the workforce. And we've heard from the companies that they want to try to fix things. And it seems like incentivizing more drivers into this market by actually paying them for, you know, all the hours that they are devoting to picking up and loading and unloading a container.

it seems like that would be an obvious thing to do to help. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, we hear stories of drivers waiting two, three, four, five, six hours for a load, sometimes even more. So that's definitely something that, you know, has to be looked at. And it's not every load. Both our poor directors, you know, under this, under, you know, tough conditions, right? do a want to do a great job but i have to you know applaud the bide administration for attempting to make things better uh i know that he's gotten the stakeholders together um we've had numerous meetings

with both port directors here in long beach and los angeles we formed a collaborative we meet regularly uh i meet with you know the different unions that have a stake here here in the port. So we're moving in the right direction, but the fact that companies are still being sued by workers for wage that, you know, companies are still taking advantage of an industry because you can't have it both ways, right?

You can't pay low wages and then expect lines of workers to be at your door trying to, you know, become a truck driver. It just doesn't work that way. there has to be incentives for people to choose a career in driving a truck. I was a truck driver. I'm one of them, right? I raised a family on the wages and benefits that were unionized trucking company, delivery company.

I did, you know, very well for myself because of collective bargaining and the union that I belong to. So I'm trying to take what was benefited by myself and my family and expose that to these drivers to give them a chance, to give working families a chance to create a better work environment form that definitely has safety requirements. and folks can work without the fear of exposing themselves to, in this case, a virus that could literally kill you. There's a lot of churn. People are quitting their jobs at high levels. Do you think any companies are or will come around to see essentially having a unionized workforce as essentially a benefit? that it's like if you come here, you are part of a union and that that is a certain like, you know, much like say 401Ks or health cares, that that is an attractive thing about working

for a company that would make a worker less likely to quit and create a just sort of more stable, less churned workforce without as much, you know, efforts at constantly recruiting and training people. I don't want to be, you know, an idealist, but I sure hope so. I think that there's having a unionized workforce creates a stable workforce for a company. Look at some of the big companies like UPS. Their brand is efficiency and production, yet they're very productive when it comes to their business model and their profits. Compare that to Amazon, to FedEx.

where part-time drivers are prominent. I raised, as I said earlier, I raised the family on the benefits of UPS and the partnership with the Teamsters. So I look at that as the model, and I hope that owners of these trucking companies and these employers know that their workers actually means something. I mean, the word essential was coined over the past two years. And I think

that economically, that word needs to be utilized as far as finances of a worker is dependent on. So what I'm saying is if workers are essential, then they have to be compensated as such. So why don't you walk us through what it is that you're trying to do right now for the drivers and why now feels like, I mean, presumably it feels like an urgent issue. We've sort of discussed why. But why is it a good time to try to push through these changes? I think, you know, the pandemic is also given workers a different attitude, right? They were these workers, right? Like I said earlier, you know, they had to come to work. There was no remote working. And they put a value on themselves.

And they know that their value was being taken advantage of. So what would I like to see in the future unionization? I believe in collective bargaining. Because with a union contract, benefits are raised automatically through the contract bargaining. and representation by a union is essential to, you know, help create a middle class that is rotten, is deteriorated. We all know that. We are trying to definitely attack misclassification. I think it's a system that was taken advantage of by companies to the unfortunate exploitation of workers.

So we're currently organizing a company in Southern California, both in Los Angeles and San Diego. And it's going to be a real challenge. 250 drivers combined. And they're quote-unquote allegedly misclassified drivers, but yet they signed petition cards to join the Teamsters. The board and the courts are, I'm sure going to be busy on determining whether the workers can actually join the Teamsters or not. First, they have to determine whether these independent contractors actually employees. But recently the Teamsters, these workers and the Teamsters want to, not the Teamsters, but these workers won a $30 million settlement where the

courts ruled that they were employees. So we are in the Cups right now of creating a precedence that workers, in this case, poor truck drivers will definitely benefit. And they'll be able to join their union and enjoy benefits that they wouldn't normally enjoy as an independent contractor. Could you explain that a little bit further? What will happen?

So who are the 250 drivers who have signed this intent? And what will happen if they are recognized as being properly considered? characterized as employees. Just like walk through the sort of like specifics of where we're talking about and what the ramifications of it would be. Yeah, there are XPO drivers in the city of commerce and in San Diego. And they've joined together in a petition to, you know, be represented by the Teamsters. We are currently in litigation and through a board filing to determine that. We hopefully

will get a ruling, you know, obviously in favor of the workers. But, you know, right now, it's just a wait and see. We're in a wait and see position right now. But it's going to create precedents and

we're very excited about the possibility that this be ruled and the workers favored. You know, these drivers will be a part of our union. This is Tom King. inviting you to join us for the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. It's about making you smarter every business day.

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On the East Coast, listen at lunch. And on the West Coast, listen as soon as you wake up. That's the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast with Tom Keene, Paul Sweeney, and me, Alexis Christophores. Subscribe today, wherever you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Surveillance, Essential Listening, each and every business day. I realized there's one thing about the current working conditions that I wanted to ask you and we didn't touch on it yet. But the move to 24-7 at the port of Los Angeles, how is that actually going from the driver perspective? And what are the challenges in shifting to that model?

Efficiency-wise, right? Unloading and loading the cargo, obviously it benefited from it. But when you have a certain amount of drivers and those drivers have restricted hours per the Department of Transportation and no new drivers are coming in, I don't think that mathematically, you know, that was something that that actually benefited it from it. You know, the 24-7 project definitely something that was a good thing. Driver-wise, possibly didn't work out mathematically. Yeah, I guess that's kind of tough. If you're already facing a challenge of getting enough drivers, how do you expand it to 24-7?

I don't know, you know, like one way of thinking about the last two years, obviously, as you put forward, is these jobs need to be better. And they need to pay more and they need to have more benefits. you need to have more health benefits so that they can attract a more stable and a larger workforce. And then there are other people, of course, who look at this and say, oh, we should just automate everything and we need more robots. And the reason why we have this bottleneck at the ports is because it's not sufficiently high tech. What do you say? I mean, you must encounter this a lot, this argument that human workers at the ports are part of the problem and that we need more automation.

What's your view on that? And I assume, I'm guessing you disagree, but I'm not sure. What's your perspective on what it would take to make the ports run better? Obviously, it's a complicated issue. And other unions that operate down there, the principal unions, are definitely, they understand automation, but they also don't understand the loss of jobs. I can only speak on how that affects truck driving and logistics. Sure.

I don't know if you want to be with your family next to an automated vehicle traveling down the highway. I certainly wouldn't. In the truck driving aspect of it, you have to have a physical being inside that truck making determinations of safety. You don't want a computer doing it. What if there's something that affects the technology? there's a lot of talk right now about automated trucks right driverless trucks platooning where trucks follow in tandem one another you know through a Bluetooth type technology right I think that's pretty space age right now for our highways and

I'd hate to see that you know ever come to something that's that's reality but obviously the automation piece of it is a big concern down at the ports, but, you know, I'm not the person that did speak on the loading and unloading of cargo. Got it. I know we've been focused on labor issues, but again, from your perspective of talking to people day in, day out about the challenges that they face as port drivers at the moment. Is there anything else that could be done to make their lives easier or to make the ports more efficient overall? I think one of the things that we agree on with the port directors is technology. Companies like UPS have electronic dispatching with loads that enter into their facilities.

And I think it's something that can be utilized at the ports. But, I mean, consider this, right? So all three of us own our own trucks, does that mean that we have to invest in technology within that truck, you know, network a server that, you know, allows us to be dispatched electronically? Or is that something that the porch is going to pay for? Is that your trucking company going to pay for? But that's your truck. So right now you pay for tires. Right now you pay for oil changes.

Right now you pay for fuel. So this is one of the things that we've been bringing to light that, you know, in order to have a more efficient ports, you have to utilize technology to, you know, track loads coming in and out more efficiently. And it definitely has to be monitored within that, you know, the individual trucks. And if not, you're going to continue, you know, with the current system. but then again, let me bring back the fact that you're an independent contractor, is that another expense for you? So the idea is there is potential for technology to greatly improve the operation of the ports, but that it's sort of an impediment if you have a fragmented truck driver model,

independent truckers who would theoretically have to make the investment on their own, as opposed to something more centralized and broad-based. Take the question mark off, and that's a statement. Got it. That is perfectly said. That is perfectly set. You can use that. You can use that one for free.

Thank you. Actually, I guess I have one last question, and it's just a little bit more short term. So obviously, like, technology, and as you describe it, has the potential to presumably make the ports more efficient. Is there anything like acute in the short term like that? That's not, you know, a big investment of technology. Probably going to take a while to have an effect. But right now, you know, the U.S., we're still talking about slowness at the ports and a long wait time, et cetera. Is there anything like in the short term from your perspective that could make things move faster?

I think the collaborators that have been formed as a result of the Biden administration, you know, exposing this and asking stakeholders to get involved, get involved. you know, the fact that government has taken an interest in this, but the collaborators or the local collaborators, it's working. Stakeholders are actually talking. Stakeholders are at the table. Different unions are at the table. Companies are at the table. We just got visited here in Osse,

by the Secretary of Transportation. We were visited by the Secretary of Labor and the deputy, Secretary of Labor. We were visited by the Secretary Labor of California. So we have to continue to do that. I meet constantly with the port directors with Longshore. It's paying dividends without a doubt.

We know that we're in a tough time. The product is because of the pandemic, right? Online shopping and internet shopping is just exploded, right? delivery is just off the charge. Volume of merchandise has risen to where we don't have capacity. But I think that we keep doing that. That's a definite vehicle to better the situation at the ports because we all have, when we sit down, we all have different ideas, but, you know, they're good ideas.

Well, Ron Herrera, thank you so much for coming on. And this is a sorely needed perspective on the show. So thank you for coming on Nodlots. Scott, I believe the thank you is go to you, Joe, and Tracy. Because I think it's very important that our opinions, right, what we think, you know, as far as organized labor goes, it's very important. And thank you for allowing me to come on and sharing my views. It was our pleasure.

Thank you so much. Thanks so much, Ron. Tracy, I thought that was a really helpful episode. I mean, it's interesting. There are a few themes that I like. One is his point about UPS multiple times, like this idea that maybe unions could be considered to be a benefit where a company actually sees it as a strategic asset. And it really feels like if churn remains high and if the quit rate remains high for a lot of industries, you could see companies essentially thinking or more companies. is essentially thinking of like unionization as like, hey, if you want to, you know, if you work here,

this is something that you can be part of as like a strategic selling point. Yeah. I mean, I could see that also just broadly more pay and benefits and maybe not being super stressed out, which is something that we spoke about with Stinson Dean, this idea that employers could start overhiring and providing more pay and benefits for their workers if they're really, struggling to to find people. That seems fairly obvious. But the other thing, the other thing that struck me was just how we got into a place where big logistics companies have this mix of full-time and contractors. But beyond that, they also have this weird mix of private versus outsourced

capital because the drivers, as Ron was mentioning, do have to own their own trucks, you know, often they borrow money at onerous terms in order to actually do that. And then it kind of begs the question of if there are any efficiency or tech improvements that you actually want to start implementing, who pays for that? And if the onus is going to be entirely on the workforce to upgrade its technology, it does feel like it's just going to take years and years to do if it's possible at all. Yeah, I thought that was incredibly interesting in a dynamic that I hadn't really thought of before. I mean, like, if you think of, you know, people think of gig workers, obviously these days, like, say a company like Uber comes to mind.

But that is essentially like it's a centralized, it's one company and all of their employees use the Uber technology stack of dispatch, etc. But it's obviously a lot more complicated when there's multiple companies and they're sort of true gig workers. and they really, there is not one company at the heart of it. And then it's like, yeah, okay, great. So we're going to have like some new technology dispatch thing and reduce the weight ties. But yeah, as you said, as Ron said, like, that's great. But are the drivers going to have to pay for it? Are they all going to go to the same system?

It seems in a sort of like true gig working environment, that seems a lot more difficult. Yeah. And it's something I hadn't considered before. I mean, I guess it gets back to the question. of who exactly is going to pay for and whether it's easier to roll these things out on a centralized or decentralized basis. But yeah, it's an interesting thought. And I guess the one other thing, and this is a very broad theme of a lot of things, is this idea, you know, is Ron put it in the beginning, peeling back the onion, the pandemic exposing a lot of

what was already there, just a really important point. And we see that with truck drivers. And we see that with people who work in meat plants, packing plants and other things like that. there has been like sort of like deeply problematic aspects of the labor force and wage that for port drivers is one of them. And it's the sort of stress imposed by the last two years that have really brought brought them to light and perhaps showing that's like this actually can't go back. Like this is like sort of deeply inequitable prior to the pandemic and now everyone sees playing this day. Yeah, that seems to be the big theme. And even just thinking about health insurance, I mean, how long have people pointed to health insurance in the U.S. as a big problem.

But there's nothing like a pandemic to really crystallize how much of a problem it is, especially for gig workers who don't have it at all. And going back to the outsourcing of capital, if you have to, if you borrowed money to acquire your truck and maintain it and so forth, like you really can't miss time. And you really do not have much leverage. And sure, maybe you want higher wages. But if you have to like make these like back pay because you're paying off your truck. can you just go to another industry? Like, that's maybe not. Like, this is a big cost burden.

And so it really does, like, potentially worsen worker leverage. Yeah. All right. Well, on that happy note, shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. Okay. This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Holloway. And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me on Twitter at the stalwart. Follow our guest on Twitter, Ron Herrera. He's at Ron Herrera underscore 396. Follow our producer, Laura Carlson. She's at Laura M. Carlson. Followed the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesca Levy,

and check out all of our podcasts at Bloomberg, under the handle, at podcasts. Thanks for listening. Hello, I'm Michelle Hussein. And for more than 20 years, I was at the BBC. But all the time I was delivering the headlines, I wanted to go further than the news of the day. to spend more time with the people shaping our world. And that's what I'm doing here on this podcast.

Speaking to people from Nigel Farage, Russia needs to be taught a lesson, to tech journalist Karaswisher. And the tech industry is running wild. You know, they've gotten what they wanted and they've seen a huge run-up in their stock prices. This will be a place where every weekend, you can count on one essential conversation

to help make sense of the world. So please join me, listen and subscribe to the Michelle Hussein show from Bloomberg Weekend, wherever you get your podcast. You certainly ask interesting questions.