He explains how deregulation and collective action by employers transformed trucking's labor markets-once dominated by the largest and most powerful union in US history-into an important example of the costs of contemporary labor markets for workers and the general public. The author of The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream, he is currently researching the potential impacts of self-driving trucks on labor and the environment. He then shows how inexperienced workers are convinced to lease a truck and to work as independent contractors. JanuSteve Viscelli is a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania and a Faculty Fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Drawing on more than 100 in-depth interviews and years of extensive observation, including six months training and working as a long-haul trucker, Viscelli explains in detail how labor is recruited, trained, and used in the industry. The Big Rig explains how this massive degradation in the quality of work has occurred, and how companies achieve a compliant and dedicated workforce despite it. In particular, he took aim at lease purchase deals, arguing that they were distinctly bad deals for drivers. He had been a truck driver-turned-academic, and he wrote a firsthand look at the life of drivers on the road. Trucking used to be one of the best working-class jobs in the United States. Steve Viscelli popped up on the trucking sector’s radar several years ago when he wrote The Big Rig. The typical long-haul trucker works the equivalent of two full-time jobs, often for little more than minimum wage. Long-haul trucks have been described as sweatshops on wheels. /rebates/2f97805202781102fBig-Rig-Trucking-Decline-American-05202781192fplp&.

The Big Rig by Steve Viscelli