Rising wages for blue-collar truckers are a threat to the nation’s economy, says Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post.
“The challenges facing the industry, including trucking companies rapidly raising prices as they raise wages, have special power to affect the entire economy,” writes Heather Long.
Her article, headlined, “America’s severe trucker shortage could undermine the prosperous economy,” continued:
delivery delays are common, and businesses such as Amazon, General Mills and Tyson Foods are raising prices as they pass higher transportation costs along to consumers. On a recent call with investors, a Walmart executive called rising transportation costs the company’s primary “head wind.”
The gains for truckers are a novel pain for the investors and employers who have been able to hold down wages for decades because the federal government is trying to grow the economy via cheap-labor legal immigration.
The unexpected rise in wages is also a problem for Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post whose Amazon retail empire depends on cheap truck transport. His business is already facing higher warehouse costs because the nation’s 800,000 warehouse workers have won a 9.4 percent pay increases since January 2017.
The Post‘s author admits that companies are being forced to compete for labor in a good economy, but hides the role played by President Donald Trump who has thwarted intense efforts by business lobbies and bipartisan alliances to import more foreign workers:
As the nation faces a historically low level of unemployment, trucking companies are doing what economists have said firms need to do to attract and retain workers: They’re hiking pay significantly, offering bonuses and even recruiting people they previously wouldn’t have considered …
The political fight over imported cheap-labor is a see-saw battle.