Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation (2000)
Michael H. Belzer is an American academic and former
truck driver, known as an internationally recognized expert on the trucking industry, especially the institutional and economic impact of
deregulation.[1] He is a
professor in the economics department at
Wayne State University. He is the author of Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation (
Oxford University Press, 2000).[2] Along with Gregory M. Saltzman, he coauthored Truck Driver Occupational Safety and Health: 2003 Conference Report and Selective Literature Review,
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 2007. He has written many peer-reviewed articles on trucking industry economics, labor,
occupational safety and health, infrastructure, and operational issues.
Belzer received his
Ph.D. from
Cornell University in 1993. His thesis, "Collective Bargaining in the Trucking Industry: The Effects of Institutional and Economic Restructuring," focused on the transformational dynamic of changed regulation and institutional structure on industrial relations in the trucking industry.
Research
Belzer studies the industrial and labor relations of the trucking industry, including motor carrier safety, driver safety and health, and intermodal freight and logistics.[4] He is a proponent of “safe rates” and believes that that driver working conditions and compensation is a major determinant of motor vehicle driver safety and health.
His book Sweatshops on Wheels was critically well received. Low pay, bad working conditions and unsafe conditions have been a direct result of deregulation. "[This book] argues that trucking embodies the dark side of the new economy."[5] "Conditions are so poor and the pay system so unfair that long-haul companies compete with the fast-food industry for workers. Most long-haul carriers experience 100% annual driver
turnover."[6] As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote: "The cabs of 18-wheelers have become the
sweatshops of the new millennium, with some truckers toiling up to 95 hours per week for what amounts to barely more than the minimum wage. [This book] is eye-opening in its appraisal of what the trucking industry has become."[1]
"
Pay Incentives and Truck Driver Safety: Case Study." With co-authors Daniel A. Rodriguez and Felipe Targa. Abstract published in Compendium of Papers CD-ROM of the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, January 12–16, 2003, Washington, DC.
"Effects of Truck Driver Wages and Working Conditions on Highway Safety: Case Study." With Daniel Rodríguez, Marta Rocha, and Asad J. Khattak. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, no. 1833 (Freight Policy, Economics, and Logistics; Truck Transportation), pp. 95–102. 2003.
"Trucking: Collective Bargaining Takes a Rocky Road." in Collective Bargaining: Current Developments and Future Challenges, edited by Paul F. Clark, John T. Delaney, and Ann C. Frost. Champaign, IL: Industrial Relations Research Association 2002, pp. 311–342
"Deregulation and Decentralization: The Impact on Employment Relations." Twenty First Century Labor Studies International Academic Conference," Chinese Culture University. Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. October 12–13, 2000, pp. 1-45.
"Labor Law Reform: Taking a Lesson from the Trucking Industry." Proceedings of the Forty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the
Industrial Relations Research Association. Washington, DC. January 6–8, 1995. Madison, Wisconsin: Industrial Relations Research Association. 1995.