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