Forced into debt.Worked past exhaustion.Left with nothing.

[elleng]

'Samuel Talavera Jr. did everything his bosses asked.

Most days, the trucker would drive more than 16 hours straight hauling LG dishwashers and Kumho tires to warehouses around Los Angeles, on their way to retail stores nationwide.

He rarely went home to his family. At night, he crawled into the back of his cab and slept in the company parking lot.

For all of that, he took home as little as 67 cents a week.

Then, in October 2013, the truck he leased from his employer, QTS, broke down.

When Talavera could not afford repairs, the company fired him and seized the truck -- along with $78,000 he had paid towards owning it.

Talavera was a modern-day indentured servant. And there are hundreds, likely thousands more, still on the road, hauling containers for trucking companies that move goods for America’s most beloved retailers, from Costco to Target to Home Depot.

These port truckers -- many of them poor immigrants who speak little English -- are responsible for moving almost half of the nation’s container imports out of Los Angeles’ ports. They don't deliver goods to stores. Instead they drive them short distances to warehouses and rail yards, one small step on their journey to a store near you.

A yearlong investigation by the USA TODAY Network found that port trucking companies in southern California have spent the past decade forcing drivers to finance their own trucks by taking on debt they could not afford. Companies then used that debt as leverage to extract forced labor and trap drivers in jobs that left them destitute.'>>>

https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/

from Senator Sanders:

'Truck drivers are the backbone of the American economy. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, not like modern-day indentured servants. Yesterday I sent a letter to President Trump asking him to sign an executive order to end the exploitation and abuse of port truck drivers. The federal government should not be rewarding trucking companies that exploit and abuse their own workers. If the president is serious about his support for our nation’s truck drivers, he should sign an executive order to deny government contracts and subcontracts for trucking companies that misclassify workers as independent contractors, force workers to lease the trucks they drive and engage in other abusive labor practices.'

https://www.facebook.com/senatorsanders/?hc_ref=ARQeOA0eDxv1-LWBSzMmcsn51uQDYtwmu9iqIWYrdFx9Jfx5EwOi1ct6PJsKgTHJzl0

[TheDebbieDee]

1. This is another industry in which the workers would benefit from some REGULATION!

Government REGULATION!

[elleng]

2. Yes. It used to exist,

then the repugs (and 'economists') and big business intervened.

[OnlinePoker]

3. Don't worry...in 10-15 years there won't be any truck drivers

Robots are the future and even these types of jobs are going to disappear.

[elleng]

4. I won't bet on it.

[yuiyoshida]

6. Oh..I am not so sure...https://youtu.be/ztgMhIqrPv4

[Ukapau]

5. People have to have jobs and driving trucks is a major occupation.

We simply have to provide jobs to people, such as in infrastructure repair. Which the Republicans now hate because they hate Obama and the Democrats, this because of right-wing radio, FOX "news", etc.

We have to take names and kick butt.

Anyone disagree?

[Amimnoch]

11. Actually I do disagree.

It's true that advancement of civilization has always needed and been built upon the "everyone must work" enculturation.

This has been true through the ages, and really has become core to civilization through the industrial revolution.

However, this entire thought process needs to start changing. Technology is bringing about an entirely new paradigm. We need to start accepting and embracing it.

Infrastructure repair is taking fewer and fewer people to do the work with individual machines that can do it faster, more efficiently, and produce better product.

Manufacturing is the same.

With auto automation technology these jobs will also go by the wayside.

Even some service industries are reducing required work force (automated Kiosk's at airlines, McDonalds, self-check out at grocery stores)

Instead of continuing to embrace this damaging philosophy of people need to have jobs, we need to start restructuring our education system to support the jobs and types of jobs that will continue to exist. We need to expand government support programs that supports the reality paradigm. We need to accept that it's okay if segments of society don't work, and strive to make the segments that do work have better quality of life to reap the real benefits of this technological paradigm.

We should focus on education, and technology that brings the paradigm to a whole new level where many don't "have" to work, and those that do can do so with much fewer hours.

Imagine a world where back-breaking labor is no longer required.

Imagine a world where those who work do so for only 20-30 hours a week, and what they reap for working is additional luxury perks (the nicer cars, bigger homes, first class travel, etc..) instead of doing it simply to exist and scrape by, and where those who don't work still have access to everything they need for a normal living condition (housing, medical, dental, food, technology, etc..)

Technology is bringing us so much potential that we haven't begun to really tap or realize, and we won't until we can move past this industrial revolution mentality.

[questionseverything]

13. i agree with your general theory

but feel "everybody has to work" should change to "everybody needs to help"

volunteering in areas that interest them and contribute to the greater good

[iluvtennis]

7. UTTERLY DESPICABLE what the companies did to these men.

[littlebit]

8. This is a very common practice.

It's not just drivers at the ports. Some of the larger OTR companies pull this crap too. They get new drivers that don't know anything about the industry and sucker them into signing a lease. They make it sound like they can make tons of money. But in reality these drivers are lucky to make any.

[pbmus]

9. The title of this post could be for 50% of working population in USA

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. Costco?

[democratisphere]

12. All retailers are guilty as charged.

Slavery is alive and well in America.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

14. The solution here is to limit "independent contractor"

status, and to give most workers the employee rights that they should be getting, such as minimum wage and other workplace protections.

So no, we don't need a bunch of new regulations, we just need to designate workers appropriately.

Sure, the cost of goods and services would go up if employee exploitation were curtailed, but paying people a legal wage and providing other mandatory employee benefits isn't free.