Editorial
Policies Should Match Rhetoric on Driver Importance to the Industry By Marek Krasuski
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t is bad news and we’ve all heard it before, but it bears repeating. The shortage of drivers, long a significant problem in the industry, will get still worse. By 2020 the gap between the supply and demand of drivers is expected to reach 25,000 and even peaking at 33,000, given a lower rate of productivity growth. These stats are provided by economists at the Conference Board of Canada in a report entitled “Understanding the Truck Driver Supply and Demand Gap and Its Implications for the Canadian Economy.” There are the usual suspects that account for the crisis. Aging population, congestion, more regulations including hours-ofservice rules, and the na-
tion’s growing appetite for more stuff to help make our lives comfortable and enjoyable. Worst still, the Conference Board report tells us, is that it’s not just trucking that suffers. Productivity gains for the trucking industry, brought about in large part by a talented workforce, flow down the supply chain in the form of lower prices for shippers and ultimately all us consumers. Significantly, one of the Board’s suggestions for improving the state of the industry is to address labour challenges through better working conditions and wages. One dimension to the better-wages debate is overtime pay. The Canadian Labour Code, Part III, specifically states that Commercial Vehicle Drivers are entitled to over-
time pay after 60 hours per week. This also applies to drivers on mileage rates, thanks to a calculation that converts miles to hour equivalents. But there is a catch. The Canadian Labour Code only applies to federally regulated carriers, meaning those that cross borders. Those that don’t, fall under various provincial authorities and are subject to a hodgepodge of differing regulations. In a report earlier this year, the Canadian Trucking Alliance, echoing a common refrain we hear throughout the industry, acknowledged that “drivers are our most important asset.” To give force to the rhetoric underscoring driver importance, the CTA in its study entitled Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Driver Shortage,
took the industry to task by recommending that compensation packages be competitive with other sectors, that driver time should not be wasted waiting at loading docks or for feedback by their carrier, and that they should be paid for all the work they do. Driving, too, should be considered a skilled trade with all the rights and responsibilities implied in that designation. If, as the Conference Board of Canada, the CTA, and other authorities on the subject say, drivers are indispensible to the trucking industry and key to the Canadian economy, then it’s high time to support the rhetoric with legislative teeth and get meaningful and wide ranging regulations in place. In Ontario, labour laws dic-
tate that employers must pay employees overtime rates of at least one and a half times (“time and a half”) the regular rate of pay after 44 hours of work. Commercial drivers, and only those subject to the Canadian Labour Code, are expected to toil
an additional 16 hours to receive the same compensation. Verbal expressions of gratitude, though gracious and heartfelt they may be, are small comfort for the lads and ladies that bring us the goods and services that support our prosperous lives.
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