Study: Deregulation bad for port trucking industry
The public policy think tank Demos has released a report on the effect of deregulation on the port trucking industry since the Federal Motor Carrier Act of 1980 was passed.
The report found that deregulation has, on the whole, had dangerous effects on trucking safety, protection for workers and the environment.
“Port trucking carries 80 percent of shipping containers between ports, warehouses and distribution centers,' said David Bensman, professor of labor studies and employer relations at Rutgers University and author of the report. 'It is an essential cog in the global trade system that, because of deregulation, now suffers from excessive and destructive competition that has taken its toll.
“Because of deregulation, the national freight moving industry is broken: Highway travel is more hazardous, contributes to our environmental crisis, degrades the quality of port truck driver jobs, shifts enormous costs onto the public, and creates, overall, a highly inefficient logistics and goods movement system.”
The report specifically found that highway safety has become worse since deregulation and that the port trucking industry has not kept pace with clean truck technologies, while driver hours have increased and benefits outside of pay have been virtually non-existent.
The report, Port Trucking Down the Low Road: A Sad Story of Deregulation, is available for download.