Something is wrong with the industry if people are forced to work that much.”
I presume you’ve never been self employed or had your own business. You would understand the plight of the independent trucker if you did. There is no one bank rolling them. They drive and haul or they don’t have any money to pay the license, taxes, insurance, fees, gas, oil and maintenance for their trucks. Then on top of that most of them have a family they are trying to support.
You would not believe the fees some states charge truckers. Large companies can absorb them or add to their rates, independents can’t do that.
But I consider my work easy. I only need to sit in front of several computers, move the mouse, and press keys on keyboards. I cannot compare that to the work of a trucker. In my job I can stop and relax at any time, and then continue. A trucker needs far more time to stop and to start again. He cannot even take a random exit - it may be not safe for his truck. If I make a mistake, it's not a big deal, I press Backspace and correct the problem right away. If a trucker makes a mistake, it may be hard to extricate his remains. Our jobs are not even comparable.
I'm not against people being free to work as much as they want. However it becomes a problem when an industry requires a worker to work 82 hours to just make ends meet. It's just not healthy for the worker and his family. He shouldn't have to work more than 40-45 hours per week simply to survive. If that's the case, the trucker's labor is undervalued. Are there too many truckers? Are there companies who charge far below the average, thus dragging the average down?