Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
REGINA – The blinking lights commanding truckers to pull into the weigh station don’t exactly make the drivers’ day. But something very different happened on Wednesday, Sept. 4.
The lights were on, but the scales weren’t in operation. Instead, representatives of the Saskatchewan Trucking Association, as well as several companies active in the trucking industry, and the Ministry of Highways were handing out burgers and pop to each driver. Cummins, Inland and Kaltire were among those flipping burgers.
They even had veggie burgers available for those who follow a vegetarian diet.
As part of National Trucking Week, which ran Sept. 1-7, the event has taken place for several years now at the Highway 11 weigh station, brightening the days of the drivers passing by.
Susan Ewart, executive director, told Pipeline Online, “This week is National Trucking Week, and every year during this week, we do a barbecue to celebrate the men and women who work in the trucking industry as professional drivers. So we’ve been coordinating with Saskatchewan Highway Patrol and the Ministry of Highways for a number of years to put this on. They support us and help us do this. And it’s a thank you to those people that move our economy.”
She added, “It’s just a way to say thank you. Drive safely and keep going.”
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Asked about trucking issues, she said, “We represent the for-hire carrier sector, which there are for-hire carriers in that specific sector. I think if you would have seen a bit of a rail strike happen, some of those carriers might have had, definitely some business struggles. But overall, you know, a sense of like, what’s going on in the industry, I think one of the biggest things we’re tackling right now, regardless of what sector you haul goods for, is something we call ‘Driver, Inc.’
“It’s a misclassification of employees under the labour code, and what happens is then a trucking company no longer collects CPP, EI or pays any tax for those individuals, no WCB, typically, those employees are not treated very well, and it is creating a huge underground economy in the country. And we’re seeing it here in Saskatchewan as well. And you know, that’s one of the things that we’ve really been working with our provincial government on, to have regulation on the for-hire carrier sector here in the province to crack down on certain things.”
It’s an effort to take drivers off payrolls and categorize them as independent contractors, when the labour code specifically says, if you don’t own the tools to do your job, you’re considered and employee, not an independent contractor, Ewert explained.
Asked about the impact of the carbon tax on trucking, she said, “What’s happening is about one truck and trailer roughly about 20,000 extra dollars a year in fuel cost because of that.”
Asked who eats that, she replied, “Well, the end user really, so if it’s groceries, right? The shipper is paying for it at some point, and ultimately, we’re paying for it, right? You notice the cost of all of those things going up, and that’s as a result of the carbon tax.”
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