Just trucking along

I'm still looking for work and the outlook isn't too good. We just had another mill close and the last 450 people are now out of work. I am in the process of finding some computer courses to take and get into working on computers and networks. At this time it seems to be the way to go. As much as I love trucking, I feel that it will be hard to make a living in a truck in the near future. The low paid Mexican drivers will make sure of that. Especially since many of the trucking companies down there are owned by US interests. It won't be long before wages start going down. With all the jobs leaving the US for other countries, there will be a large number of people needing jobs and will start driving. With a large amount of people needing jobs, they will be willing to take whatever is offered. Drivers pay had gone up because of the lack of people willing to do the work. Now the demand is going to start dropping and so will the pay.
With the changes being made on the railroad, they will be hauling even more of our freight and make matters even worse for us. There will be allot more short haul and less long haul. I recently seen a story on one of the news shows about the railroad working on building nonstop rails to expedite loads that needs to get someplace in a hurry. Then the trucks only need to run from rail yards to customers. With the way jobs are leaving for other countries there won't be much plant to plant hauls. Just rail yards to warehouses and car dealerships.
Personally I'm afraid that if something doesn't change soon we will see another depression and with the number of people in the US it could get worse than the first one! There isn't any one group of people to blame for this. Companies became greedy after the depression and were not worried about the employee. People were working in extremely unsafe places and unable to get medical help for on the job injuries. Companies wouldn't pay for medical care. Just hire someone else to do the job.
Then the unions came along and started to get changes made for people. They got the government to start setting safety measures and getting benefits and better pay for their members. Like anyone else,people started to get greedy and wanted even more money. Now many of these union workers are going the way of the steel mill workers. No job and empty buildings. The auto workers are finding themselves taking huge pay cuts just to keep jobs in the area. If it weren't for the unions many of us wouldn't have the safe work sites, decent pay and some benefits. Now the unions are having a hard time getting into new places and staying in others that had been unionized for decades. I think the unions are going to be more like OOIDA. They will not have much to do with pay or benefits for members anymore. They will police companies and go to bat for members that are not getting what they should.
I'm extremely worried about what is going to happen to this country. By the time the politicians get their act together we won't be able to buy anything because we won't be able to pay for anything.

Category: General