@orlbucfan

look like a democratic socialist's dream. No surprise, unfortunately. Rec'd!!

@DonMidwest And all of us driving on the highways alongside an exhausted, sleepy trucker carrying flammable liquid feel great about people being able to work for themselves, of course.
I occasionally work for truckers who get a traffic ticket. Some of them have told me their company was supposed to pay their ticket, only to discover the company didn't, and the drivers wind up with a failure to appear, a high fine, surcharges, an arrest warrant, etc...as well as losing their commercial driving licenses.

TRUCKED UP The worst jobs in America are getting worse thanks to a loophole in US laws

Sounds like a loophole in regulations, like flammable material in cladding in UK

Who needs stinking regulations!

At ports in Los Angeles, short-haul truckers have jobs that look more like indentured servitude than employment.

In an in-depth investigation by USA Today, which relied on accounts from more than 300 drivers, reporter Brett Murphy described a horrific arrangement in which workers, even after putting in grueling hours, sometimes owe their employers money at the end of their pay periods.
That’s because employers force the truckers—who move more than half of the United States’ container imports out of LA ports—to finance their own trucks, buy their own gas, or even pay to use the company parking lot, and deduct those fees each week from drivers’ paychecks. Companies force drivers to work up to 20 hours a day by threatening to take away the trucks—and the money drivers have paid toward them.

This setup demonstrates the worst that can happen when companies falsely designate their workers as “independent contractors” in order to avoid labor protections. Because these workers are technically “mini businesses,” employers can require workers to pay for their own equipment, and they aren’t responsible for following worker protection laws that apply only to employees, such as minimum wage laws, overtime pay laws, and requirements to contribute to benefit programs.

@DonMidwest

Companies force drivers to work up to 20 hours a day by threatening to take away the trucks—and the money drivers have paid toward them.

One small point: usually, once a truck is paid off, it's also worn out -- which means that this is a never-ending vicious cycle.

We need over-the-road trucking (and most other transport for hire) to be re-regulated, the way they were before 1980. The small price increases at the consumer level would be far offset by safer highways and railways, and better and more secure union jobs for truck drivers and rail workers.

In fact, the "independent contractor" tax and responsibility dodge needs to go away entirely.

TRUCKED UP The worst jobs in America are getting worse thanks to a loophole in US laws

Sounds like a loophole in regulations, like flammable material in cladding in UK

Who needs stinking regulations!

At ports in Los Angeles, short-haul truckers have jobs that look more like indentured servitude than employment.

In an in-depth investigation by USA Today, which relied on accounts from more than 300 drivers, reporter Brett Murphy described a horrific arrangement in which workers, even after putting in grueling hours, sometimes owe their employers money at the end of their pay periods.
That’s because employers force the truckers—who move more than half of the United States’ container imports out of LA ports—to finance their own trucks, buy their own gas, or even pay to use the company parking lot, and deduct those fees each week from drivers’ paychecks. Companies force drivers to work up to 20 hours a day by threatening to take away the trucks—and the money drivers have paid toward them.

This setup demonstrates the worst that can happen when companies falsely designate their workers as “independent contractors” in order to avoid labor protections. Because these workers are technically “mini businesses,” employers can require workers to pay for their own equipment, and they aren’t responsible for following worker protection laws that apply only to employees, such as minimum wage laws, overtime pay laws, and requirements to contribute to benefit programs.

@gjohnsit
Wasn't Myanmar the country that Obama included in the TPP after he said it was okay for them to deal in human trafficking and slavery?
Imagine that. The first Black American president was okay with slavery. I don't remember seeing a diary on this on ToP, which used to be the first website to cover issues like this before the president was from their own party.
How the mighty have fallen.

Thanks again, gjohnsit for your essays here.

link

In a highly unusual intervention, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to remove Iraq and Myanmar from a U.S. list of the world's worst offenders in the use of child soldiers, disregarding the recommendations of State Department experts and senior U.S. diplomats, U.S. officials said.

The decision, confirmed by three U.S. officials, would break with longstanding protocol at the State Department over how to identify offending countries and could prompt accusations the Trump administration is prioritizing security and diplomatic interests ahead of human rights.

Tillerson overruled his own staff’s assessments on the use of child soldiers in both countries and rejected the recommendation of senior diplomats in Asia and the Middle East who wanted to keep Iraq and Myanmar on the list, said the officials, who have knowledge of the internal deliberations.

Tillerson also rejected an internal State Department proposal to add Afghanistan to the list, the three U.S. officials said.