After months of investigation, the Globe & Mail published part one of a series into Driver Inc, lawlessness and labour abuse in the trucking industry.
The report – which echoes many of the concerns raised for a decade by the Canadian Trucking Alliance and provincial associations, is exhaustive, damning, and a call to action for government enforcement agencies.
The Globe’s investigation charted the explosive growth of own-account self-employment, a precarious form of work that experts use as an indicator of misclassification. In some areas, such as in Windsor and Brantford, Ont., the total number of drivers in this category increased by more than 300 per cent over a decade.
“Today, this essential sector is riddled with accusations of wage theft, exploitation and safety lapses, despite persistent warnings from industry experts and drivers themselves,” the report states. “A fractured oversight system, poor information-sharing between governments and shoddy enforcement continue to allow bad actors to escape scrutiny.”
The report exposes a broken oversight system allowing bad actors to thrive. Some highlights.
- Many exploited drivers are paid 6 cents/mile instead of the standard 60 cents-plus.
- Misclassification/Driver Inc is up 300% in some areas, while median earnings in some cities dropped to the poverty line – part of what experts describe as a troubling race to the bottom in trucking.
- 85% of analyzed fleets in ON, BC, SK, and MB have never received a facility audit.
- Less than 20% of $6M in federal wage payment orders have been collected since 2022.
- Fleets with dozens of safety convictions and forced labour ties remain on the road.
The report includes quotes from CTA and OTA and is informed heavily by submissions from both organizations to government and news releases.
One focus of the report highlights how more than eight in 10 carriers are never inspected – a particular concern of the Ontario Trucking Association, which has called for mandatory audits of every carrier in the province.
“Every restaurant or food service business in this province gets inspected,” Stephen Laskowski of the OTA state sin the report. “But we can’t do it for companies that put 80,000-pound vehicles on the road with your families? It doesn’t make any sense.”
The full Globe & mail article is behind a paywall. Subscribers can access here.
