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The Big Rig
trucking and the decline
of the american dream
All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law.
Steve Viscelli
Copyright 2016. University of California Press.
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The Big Rig
trucking and the decline
of the american dream
Steve Viscelli
university of california press
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university
presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by
advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural
sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by
philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more
information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press

Oakland, California
© 2016 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Viscelli, Steve, 1974- author.

Title: The big rig : trucking and the decline of the American dream /
Steve Viscelli.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press,
[2016] | “2016 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2015035773 | isbn 9780520278110 (cloth : alk. paper) |
isbn 0520278119 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780520278127 (pbk. : alk.
paper) | isbn 0520278127 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780520962712
(e-edition) | isbn 0520962710 (e-edition)
Subjects: lcsh: Independent truck drivers—United States. |
Trucking—United States.
Classification: lcc hd8039.m7952 u573 2016 | ddc 388.3/
240973—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035773
[Manufactured in the United States of America / Printed in China]
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible

and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on
Natures Natural, a fiber that contains 30% post-consumer waste and
meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r 1997)
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction. Where Did All These Bad

Jobs Come From? 1
1. The CDL Mill: Training the Professional

Steering-Wheel Holder 28
2. Cheap Freight, Cheap Drivers: Work as a

Long-Haul Trucker 58
3. The Big Rig: Running the Contractor Confidence

Game 105
4. Working for the Truck: The Harsh Reality of

Contracting 140
5. Someone to Turn To: Managing Contractors

from an Arm’s Length Away 168
6. “No More Jimmy Hoffas”: Desperate
Drivers and Divided Labor 190
Appendix A. Data and Methods 209

Notes 233
Glossary 245
Bibliography 247
Index 257
Preface
The sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959) argued that sociology is valuable

because it helps us to understand the relationships between the individual
and society and between biography and history. The sociological imagina-
tion, Mills claimed, allows us to see how the beliefs, decisions, and actions
of individuals are shaped by—and then in turn reproduce or change—our
social world. The sociological imagination explains how society changes
by examining the changing nature of these relationships over time. And,
when needed, it is the sociological imagination that allows us to under-
stand personal troubles in a way that can reveal underlying social prob-
lems. This book applies the sociological imagination to the trucking
industry, one of the largest and most vital industries in the United States.
It thus moves back and forth from examining the details of the actual
work of truckers and how they think about it to looking at the larger his-
torical transformation of class power in the trucking industry, and then
attempting to explain the relationships that connect these two realms.
The book covers both the micro and the macro, from individual ambi-
tions, fears, economic opportunities, constraints, and decisions that truck-
ers told me about, to the rise and fall of worker power, the onset, retreat,
vii
viii preface
and reformulation of state regulation, and the transformation of employ-

ment relations and the work of moving freight itself.
This book is the outcome of ten years of research. I began by reading a
few books on the trucking industry. I then took a job as a long-haul driver,
immersing myself in the daily routines, goals, and difficulties of the work
for almost six months. Though I ended my career as little more than a
rookie, I came to understand personally the sense of pride truckers feel in
their skills and the care they take to ensure safety despite the enormous
demands of their work. I also came to understand the kinds of sacrifices
they make and the indignities they suffer. I then looked at the bigger pic-
ture of labor markets. I interviewed drivers with experiences both similar
to and different from my own. Many were new to the industry and figur-
ing it out just like me. Others, with a little more experience, were wrestling
with the question of whether to buy or lease a truck and become an owner-
operator (i.e., an independent contractor). However critical this book may
be of independent contracting across much of the trucking industry, I
came to deeply respect the ambitions and efforts of many of the drivers
who choose to become independent contractors. Unfortunately, I also
came to agree with the most experienced truckers I interviewed, that the
dreams of these less-experienced drivers were played upon by employers
and others who have rigged independent contracting to their advantage.
Are there any opportunities for drivers to be independent contractors
that aren’t bad? I’ll let the voices of the most experienced drivers, includ-
ing the most experienced contractors, answer that question in the pages
that follow. In fact, drivers with the most experience often pointed me in
the direction of the bigger structural and historical issues at play. Much of
what value may be contained in this book resulted from me trying to
understand in sociological terms the insights shared by these truckers. On
many points I have been a research assistant to them.
I have benefited from conversations with hundreds of truckers and oth-
ers working in or studying the industry. At every step in the process of
writing this book, I have had those people mind. The most basic goal that
has guided me throughout is the desire that all those individuals, espe-
cially the drivers, would agree that I have accurately represented their
experience. At my most hopeful I have imagined my most experienced
interviewees reading this book and concluding that not only did I get it
preface ix
right as they see it, but that by putting their experiences together with
those of other drivers, the perspectives of carrier managers and owners,
and in the context of statistics and historical facts, they can now under-
stand their own experiences in a new way. Even more importantly, I hope
that this book may allow the knowledge and advice of those veteran insid-
ers (for better and worse organized and narrated by a sociologist) to be
passed on to those new to the industry.
Relative to the academic literature, my goal is to draw the reader’s
attention to the critical links between ideology, discourse, state policy, and
individual workplaces, as well as the decisions of workers as they invest in
their work lives. It’s there, in that interaction, that we find the labor mar-
ket, a woefully understudied arena of class power and class action. It is at
the level of the labor market that key parts of the disturbing story of rising
inequality and bad jobs in the United States need to be investigated.
For readers interested in public policy my goal is to show why the trans-
formation of employment relations in trucking that produced the troubles
of the drivers described in this book should be understood as a pressing
issue to be addressed, regardless of whether their ultimate concern is
workers and their families, highway safety, traffic congestion, economic
efficiency, the social safety net, or environmental sustainability. Indeed,
the story told in this book is important to all of us as consumers, workers,
the motoring public, taxpayers, and citizens. The workplace of truckers is
a public space that we share with them as they follow the laws of the road,
comply with the direction of employers, and meet the demands of custom-
ers. While the public may see truckers primarily as a problem or a danger,
the importance of the work they do and how it is regulated by government
cannot be overstated. It is their work that moves our economy, bringing us
the goods that sustain and entertain us, whether those goods come from a
hundred miles away or halfway around the world. How truckers are
trained, how they work, how they are treated by their employers, and what
social safety net programs they have access to—these issues affect all of us.
In the end I cannot escape the conclusion that we would all be better off
if truckers had greater control over how they work and what they earn. We
would be better off if truckers had greater power in the labor market, both
individually and collectively. The reader might suspect that these conclu-
sions were preordained, that regardless of what I was told or experienced,
x preface
I must be a liberal, left-leaning academic who wants independent con-

tracting, and the freedom of workers to choose it, to be restricted. Or that
I was just interested in finding evidence to support arguments suggesting
that unions are the answer. Unions, or collective action of some other sort,
may indeed be a key part of the answer to truckers’ problems. Ultimately
that’s a question truckers would have to decide and act on themselves—
though the rest of us may have a role to play in ensuring that they, and
millions of workers like them, are free to make those kinds of decisions.
In fact I began this project with little knowledge, and even less of an
opinion, on the role of independent contracting in trucking. It was truck-
ers themselves who initially pointed me to its importance. And it was
truckers who first suggested some of the most disturbing aspects of the
industry’s labor markets. They argued that truckers were underpaid, over-
worked, disrespected, and lied to. The most experienced all saw these
problems as systemic and tied to labor turnover, cutthroat competition,
and ultimately deregulation of the industry. They argued that the system
was causing truckers to work themselves to death—sometimes literally.
They saw independent contracting as a scam meant to pay truckers less
while getting them to work harder. They argued that the government sub-
sidized the whole thing by paying part of the cost to train hordes of new
workers who had no idea what they were getting into and who wouldn’t
last a year behind the wheel.
It did not take me long to find strong evidence supporting some of the
most critical opinions I had encountered. But as a sociologist I knew that
I had to understand these perspectives in the context of larger industry
structures, through the experiences, goals, and constraints of managers
and owners, and historically. I did that by gathering every kind of data I
thought might be relevant (see the methodological appendix to learn more
about this process). In the end, not only did I come to agree with some of
the most strident critics, I learned that few in the industry would disagree.
Truckers are overworked and underpaid. Just about everyone in the
industry knows that’s true.
Many also wouldn’t be surprised by my conclusion that the industry sys-
tematically mistreats and misleads drivers, transferring to them much of
the cost and risk of the industry’s inefficiencies. What was for me one of the
most shocking findings of my research—that employers keep wages low
preface xi
and encourage workers to take on the risk of owning trucks by supporting

third-party companies that are allied with them—probably would not sur-
prise the most experienced truckers either. But I suspect that even those
drivers would be surprised by how sophisticated this coordination is.
Throughout this project I consistently played the role of detached ana-
lyst. I formulated, tested, and retested my hypotheses and conclusions as
open-mindedly and thoroughly as I could. But ultimately this book is
about the experiences of hundreds of thousands of workers. As I write
this, many of them are out on the road in the middle of a fourteen-hour
(or longer) workday, hundreds of miles from loved ones they may not see
weeks or months at a time. Many are working under a form of debt peon-
age to pay for their training. Many others are on the edge of destroying
their credit and working for far less than they are worth to buy a truck,
become an independent contractor, and get their piece of the American
Dream. This book is my attempt to tell their story to the best of my
ability.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the contributions and
support of many. Most obviously it would not exist without the hours
given by hundreds of truckers and others involved in the trucking industry
who gave their time and knowledge freely to me. My heartfelt thanks go
out to all of them.
I would like to thank my dissertation committee at Indiana University:
Pam Walters, (chair), Art Alderson, Bill Corsaro, and Ethan Michelson.
My dissertation advisers provided a wonderful mix of tough criticism,
constructive insight, and generous support as I pursued what was for me
an intimidating research agenda. During that time I also benefited from a
departmental fellowship from IU’s Department of Sociology. My fellow
graduate students at IU provided willing ears and were a frequent source
of vital feedback. As the dissertation evolved, and then developed into
additional research, and eventually into this book, I was the beneficiary of
conversations and comments from many, including Elizabeth Armstrong,
David Bensman, Michael Belzer, Issac Martin, Monica Prasad, Ann
Swidler, Mike Hout, Howie Becker, and Andrew Abbott.
In 2010 I was awarded a two-year American Sociological Association/
National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in economic
xiii
xiv acknowledgments
sociology at the University of Wisconsin. That fellowship provided me

with great opportunities, allowing me to continue my research on the
effects of the Great Recession and to write the first draft of this book. The
W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and the Center on
Wisconsin Strategy provided research funds to cover the cost of this addi-
tional research. More importantly, during this time it was my good for-
tune to have the mentorship of Joel Rogers and Erik Wright. Joel chal-
lenged me to see trucking within the bigger picture of economic change,
showed me the potential of my research to address public policy, and then
generously supported its development in that direction. Erik spurred me
to think more deeply about the historical and structural explanations of
the inequalities involved and the potential of alternative ways of organiz-
ing the trucking industry. Having Joel and Erik as guides as the book
emerged, and as my research expanded in directions I never foresaw, was
the intellectual opportunity of a lifetime. While at Wisconsin, the staff of
the Center on Wisconsin Strategy welcomed me and provided essential
support. Daniel Cox wrestled my files into order. Matthew Wyndham and
the incomparable Michelle Bright provided all manner of support and
good humor, making my time in Madison both more productive and more
enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.
The book as it actually exists really began with the involvement of
Naomi Schneider at University of California Press. In her very first email,
responding to my book proposal and sample chapters, she contributed the
vision that turned a dense and sprawling dissertation into this book. Her
contributions have been critical. At key decision points in the writing of
the manuscript, I have been lucky and grateful to have Naomi’s patient
and sage guidance. I also received excellent suggestions from an anony-
mous reviewer of the manuscript. Thanks go to the staff at UC Press for
guiding this first-time author through the production process. Thanks
also to Meg Wallace for helping to reorganize the structure of chapters
and to Thomas Frick for copyediting.
There are several individuals who have contributed so much to the
development of this book that it is hard for me to imagine what it would
look like without them. Christine Williams provided many useful contri-
butions over the years, beginning with her comments during an ASA pres-
entation before the manuscript even existed. Her assistance has been
acknowledgments xv
invaluable and continued right up to the last draft. Annette Lareau has
read multiple drafts and provided some of the toughest and most valuable
feedback. Beyond her comments, her faith in and support of this book
have been humbling to me. It is my hope that at some point in my career
I will be able to contribute to the work of another as generously as Annette
has to mine. Finally, my wife, Melissa Wilde, has helped and supported me
throughout the entirety of this project, from the initial idea for the dis-
sertation to the lengthy absences during fieldwork to the final editing. She
has spent more hours reading drafts and discussing the project than can
be counted. To her I owe more than I can ever express in words.
Introduction
where did all these bad jobs come from?
Several months into my work as a trucker, I recorded the following notes

in my audio journal:
5/18, 8:30 p.m.: I am stuck at a railroad yard in New Jersey just across the
Hudson River from Manhattan. I got here around 6:30 after fighting rush
hour traffic all the way from Long Island through New York City. When I
arrived, the clerk said my company needed to fax my name, driver’s license
number, and company codes for the load I am picking up before he could
process it. It took more than an hour and half for the evening shift dispatcher
to fax the information. Why can’t they have that stuff ready? Now I’m really
screwed. According to government regulations I can only work one more
hour today before I have to take a ten-hour break. The load is headed to
Rhode Island and I was planning to make it to Connecticut tonight, and I
still don’t have the load. I don’t think I will be able to find parking north of
the city now, which means I’ve got to find a place near here tonight. And I’ll
have to fight traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway tomorrow morning. That
will cost me a lot of time, not to mention stress. I hate that damn road. Once
again, the only one who isn’t getting paid is me. My company’s dispatchers
are getting paid. The guy in the guard shack is getting paid.
2 introduction
5/18, 10:00 p.m.: My load is still not ready. I just backed my tractor
between a couple of trailers in the yard. I am not allowed to stay here once
I get the load, but I’m hoping the security guards won’t give me any trou-
ble for spending the night. Maybe they won’t notice the truck or will lose
track of how long I am here after the next shift change. I can’t legally
drive, and the only place I’ll find to park now is on a nearby street. But
that would be like putting out a “please hijack this truck” sign.1
These notes are from one of the many bad days I spent working as a long-
haul trucker in the early stages of research for this book. That night I slept
in a railroad yard without food or access to a bathroom. By the time I
recorded the second note, I was dead tired and frustrated. Having started
my workday at 6:00 a.m., I had spent sixteen hours driving through traf-
fic, delivering and picking up freight, and waiting, but I would only be
paid for the 215 miles I drove. At twenty-six cents per mile, I had earned a
grand total of fifty-six dollars, or three-fifty per hour.
Hundreds of thousands of truckers experience days like this regularly,
because they absorb the inefficiencies of the system that moves virtually
all of the goods you and I consume. They crisscross the country for weeks
at a time, living out of their trucks and working extremely long hours,
often for little more than minimum wage. Why would truckers want that
kind of job? The answer is that they don’t. They want better working con-
ditions and better pay.
This book explains why trucking jobs are so bad, why workers take
them anyway, and why, when workers become dissatisfied, there is little
they can do to solve the problem except find another line of work. It
explains how companies can continue to get workers to do jobs—at least
temporarily—on terms that they don’t really want to accept. Of course,
trucking is not the only industry in which American workers are finding it
increasingly difficult to get a decent job or improve the one they have.
What has happened to the trucking industry over the last few decades can
tell us a lot about the dramatic rise in inequality in the US.
Truckers’ working conditions and problems today have a precedent. In
the early days of trucking, truckers often toiled long hours for low pay. But
by the 1950s they had organized across much of the nation. Those collec-
tive efforts, along with government regulation of the industry, which
where did all these bad jobs come from? 3
began during the New Deal, made trucking good, well-compensated work.
From the 1950s to the late 1970s, when the industry was deregulated,
truckers were the best-paid and most powerful segment of the US work-
ing class.
In light of this history, and how bad things have become for so many
truckers, I wondered: Why do today’s truckers accept such conditions and
pay? Why can’t they achieve through collective action the situation truck-
ers had in the past? So, in the winter of 2005, I left my low-paid but rela-
tively comfortable life as a graduate student in sociology and became a
long-haul trucker to begin answering those questions. I wanted to know
how trucking went from being one of the best blue-collar jobs in the US to
one of the worst, and what that transformation could tell us about the way
labor markets work in the contemporary economy. I spent about two
months training to learn how to drive a tractor-trailer and then almost
four months working for a leading long-haul trucking company. I drove
tens of thousands of miles across the eastern half of the United States
hauling what is known as “general freight”—almost anything that could be
put into a cardboard box or on a pallet and loaded into a fifty-three-foot-
long “box” or “dry van” trailer. I worked, lived, and slept in my truck for
weeks at a time, rarely leaving it for more than the time required to uncou-
ple a trailer, take a shower, or grab the occasional hot meal. I typically
worked either twelve or nineteen days at a time and averaged almost four-
teen hours of work per day, for which I earned on average about nine-fifty
per hour. On the worst days I worked as many as eighteen hours and made
far less than minimum wage.
The harsh reality of working as a trucker taught me a lot. I learned how
the work was done and began to understand a little about how the work-
ers I encountered in my training, on the job, and at truck stops thought
about it. I quickly learned that my fellow truckers pretty much agreed with
my own take on things: the work was bad and the pay was worse. They
wanted something better. Knowing in broad strokes the industry’s history,
I assumed that workers would consider unions a possible answer to their
problems. But when workers commiserated—as we often did during the
brief moments of human contact at loading docks and truck stops that
randomly punctuate the long, lonely hours on the road—the topic of
unions almost never came up. No, unions were not the solution on these
4 introduction
workers’ minds. Instead, many talked about the possibility of becoming an

owner-operator, a self-employed trucker who owns their own truck.
At the outset of the project, I was aware that owner-operators existed,
but I didn’t immediately realize that many were working right alongside
me. Other truckers hauling “dry vans” for large, long-haul companies like
mine were doing exactly the same work I was, and I assumed that they
were all employees. Owner-operators, I thought, wouldn’t look like
employees. I sometimes imagined them as popularly portrayed in movies:
modern-day cowboys, complete with boots, oversized belt buckle, and hat,
and driving trucks gleaming with chrome. As a sociologist, I suspected
owner-operators would be mostly older, white men from rural areas where
they were “born into trucking.” I knew the cultural stereotypes were likely
a caricature, but the academic literature on trucking gave little reason to
doubt my demographic hunches. Furthermore, while I had some uncer-
tainty about who owner-operators were, I had none about what they
would do. On this the literature seemed to universally agree. Owner-
operators had greater control over what work they did and how they did
it, they were small business owners independent from companies, and
they valued that independence. So I expected to see owner-operators on
the phone dealing with freight brokers, cold-calling customers to find the
best loads, haggling over prices and negotiating delivery times, and
focused on hauling good-paying niche freight that rewarded the special-
ized skills, experience, and equipment that they supposedly possessed.
After just a few weeks of driving and meeting fellow truckers, however,
I realized that owner-operators surrounded me, but could not be distin-
guished by how they looked, who they were, or what they did. Unlike inde-
pendent owner-operators, who deal directly with customers or brokers to
find loads, the owner-operators I was working alongside were contractors.
These owner-operators owned or leased their own truck but then leased
their services for a year or more at a time to a larger firm that provided
them with freight to haul.
Though I could not initially find any significant differences between
what contractors and employees did, as I talked with them at loading
docks and truck stops I began to notice differences in how they thought
about what they did. Some contractors seemed convinced that contracting
was far better than being an employee, and it didn’t take much to get them
to say so. Experienced employees and contractors voiced the opposite

view, but only when pressed on the issue. While I had no intention of
studying contractors when I began this project, by the time I finished
working as a driver I knew that I had stumbled upon a remarkable puzzle:
here were workers with similar labor-market opportunities doing the
same kind of work, often for the same company, but some wanted to be
employees while others wanted to be self-employed. Why? Did contract-
ing return more pay and control over work, as some claimed? If so, why
weren’t all truckers contractors, particularly the most experienced? Were
different values and/or personal backgrounds the answer? Was it simply a
matter of who had the financial means to buy a truck?
Immediately after my experience working as a trucker, I began visiting
trucking firms and interviewing company owners and managers that used
contractors. I started gathering statistical data on contractor and employee
compensation and productivity, seeking to first determine why firms
wanted to hire contractors. Then, to find out what workers wanted and
got out of contracting, I began regularly visiting a large truck stop near the
junction of two major interstate highways in the Midwest. There, from
2005 to 2007, I conducted in-depth interviews with an initial sample of
seventy-five truckers. Of these, twenty-eight were working as contractors
and another nine had done so in the past. In 2008, in the midst of fuel
price spikes and labor unrest among trucking contractors, I conducted
another twenty-five in-depth interviews with contractors and had infor-
mal conversations with several dozen more. (The reader interested in
learning more about how I conducted my fieldwork, and who I inter-
viewed and how, can find more information in the methodological appen-
dix at the end of the book.) After the fieldwork and interviews I collected
a wide range of other data from trucking Web sites, magazines, industry
publications, and academic studies.
Altogether these data tell an important story about the rise of inequal-
ity in the US, and how deregulated labor markets disadvantage workers
and benefit employers by allowing employers to shape the way that work-
ers understand the costs and benefits of different employment relation-
ships. In order to understand that story, we need to start with a bit of
background about the trucking industry and its labor and regulatory
history.
6 introduction
the long -haul trucking industry
On any given day the US economy depends on the movement of more

than 54 million tons of freight worth more than $48 billion. That’s about
350 pounds of freight for every American every day.2 Though rail, barge,
and pipeline play key roles, at some point nearly all of the goods you and I
consume are moved by truck. As you can imagine, given the variety of
goods being moved, the types of truck transportation vary widely. Some
manufacturers and retailers own their own trucks and haul the goods they
make or sell. These are known as private carriers. But for-hire carriers
move the vast majority of freight.
For-hire carriers can be defined by the types of goods they haul, the
quantities they typically carry, and how far and fast they move the freight,
all of which determine the kind of equipment they use and how they
organize the services they provide. Typically trucking companies special-
ize in freight that requires just one or a few of the dozens of kinds of trail-
ers out there—regular box trailers, refrigerated trailers, flatbeds, tank
trailers, and so on.
The distance the goods are moving is also important. Carriers that typi-
cally haul loads less than 150 miles are considered local, and those that
travel greater distances are considered long-haul or over-the-road (OTR).
The vast majority of long-haul carriers are truckload (TL) carriers, mov-
ing shipments that fill their trailers to capacity or approach the maximum
weight of trucks allowed on most highways without a special permit
(eighty thousand pounds).
This book focuses on the largest and most important kind of trucking in
today’s economy, long-haul TL trucking—particularly its general freight
segment. General freight is anything that can be put in a box or on a pallet
and loaded into an unrefrigerated trailer. For the most part, general freight
truckload companies do little more than move a trailer full of freight from
one loading dock to another; they rarely handle or process freight that
requires special care or attention.3 But the range and volume of goods—
from steel coils to consumer electronics to beverages—that can be moved in
this way is enormous. General freight carriers play a critical role, moving the
majority of goods to and from nearly all of the ports, railroad yards, facto-
ries, warehouses, distribution centers, and large retail stores in the US.
Of the some 1.7 million tractor-trailer drivers in the US, roughly eight
hundred thousand work for long-haul truckload carriers and six hundred
thousand of those are employed by general freight carriers.4 There are
more than one thousand long-haul general freight TL firms that make
more than $3 million dollars in revenue annually, and tens of thousands
of additional carriers with one or just a few trucks that might compete in
the for-hire segment. The high level of competition means low profits for
most of these companies. In some years even medium and large general
freight carriers have had average profits of less than 1 percent.5 Very large
companies, however, benefit from economies of scale in purchasing equip-
ment and fuel, and in the ability to handle high-volume customers, and
some of these do significantly better in terms of profit. Several dozen of
these large companies, each of which employs thousands of the lowest-
paid drivers, set rates that are the competitive standard for the entire gen-
eral freight segment, while earning substantial profit.
Low carrier rates are the fruit of low wages and bad working conditions
for drivers. The typical general freight driver lives out of a truck and is
away from home for almost two weeks at a time. Though many of them
put in hours equivalent to two full-time jobs or more, a new driver might
earn $35,000 annually, while the average driver might earn around
$45,000. If we count the total time they are required to be on the road,
many of these drivers are earning less than minimum wage.
The combination of low wages and bad working conditions results in
extraordinarily high turnover, typically averaging over 100 percent a year
at large companies.6 The best recent studies of turnover have focused on a
unique set of data collected at a large firm similar to the one I worked for.
I will call this firm “Federal.” Steven Burks and his colleagues looked at the
retention rates for more than five thousand drivers hired by Federal from
September 2001 to the end of March 2005. Ninety-two percent of the
drivers hired by Federal were inexperienced—that is, new to the industry.
Within about ten weeks of being hired, 25 percent of the drivers had left
the company. Half of those hired were gone by twenty-nine weeks. The
authors suggest that these turnover rates are consistent with other indus-
try data, a fact which indicates that “several hundred thousand people
train for and try out this job each year, only to leave it within a few months,
probably having incurred debt for training that most have little hope of
8 introduction
repaying.”7 It appears that having enough inexperienced drivers available

to fill TL carriers’ eight hundred thousand or so seats requires training
somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 to two hundred thousand
drivers per year.8
Turnover is expensive. The cost of replacing a single driver varies by
segment and carrier, but industry figures and academic studies suggest
that turnover costs the industry as a whole several billion dollars annu-
ally.9 In fact, carriers and their industry associations are almost constantly
claiming that the industry is facing an imminent labor shortage. So why
don’t they fix the turnover problem by improving wages and working con-
ditions? Because it is more profitable to manage the problem than to fix it.
Carriers know that being a long-haul trucker is so tough that wages
would have to be much higher to retain drivers. In a 2011 survey, an indus-
try consultancy asked trucking executives what drivers’ wages would need
to be to retain them more effectively. Almost 95 percent said that wages
needed to rise above $50,000 a year. Sixty-five percent said that they would
need to top $60,000. And almost a third said that they needed to be over
$70,000.10 In other words, these executives believe that they would need to
nearly double the pay of drivers in order to solve their turnover problem.11
Instead of paying such high wages, companies employ a number of
strategies to reduce problems related to turnover or shift the problems
and costs to others. First, rather than operating training programs at their
own expense, most carriers bring in a steady stream of drivers through
public and private truck driving schools that charge workers for their
training. A few of the largest carriers operate their own trucking schools
and charge students around $4,000 to learn to drive a truck. If then hired,
most of these workers sign a contract with a carrier stating that this debt
will be forgiven if they work for the company for a year or so. If they quit
before that time, they usually must repay the cost of training to the carrier,
which most likely charges high interest on the debt. In other words, these
workers work under a form debt peonage.
Once workers can leave without penalty, carriers prevent them from
bidding up wages by using benchmarking companies to track wages and
avoid paying above the market rate that others in the sector are paying.
As workers gain more experience—even just one or two years can make
a huge difference—options at local, niche, or private carriers with better
work routines and pay begin to open up. To retain these more experienced
drivers, TL carriers and trucking media convince workers to become inde-
pendent contractors, promising that contracting will be financially
rewarding and give workers additional control over working conditions.
But contracting ends up being even worse for most truckers than being an
employee. Simply put, it allows carriers to pay the most productive drivers
far less than they are worth for their labor and to shift much of the cost
and risk of owning and operating a truck to them.
Without a doubt, these practices hurt the workers who are unfortunate
enough to pass through the industry’s revolving door. But we all pay the
costs of trucking’s dysfunctional labor market. Our tax dollars subsidize
the costs of training the constantly needed stream of new drivers through
worker training grants. And inexperienced drivers operate less safely and
efficiently than experienced drivers, so the public pays the price by way of
more highway accidents, higher insurance costs, and increased oil con-
sumption and air pollution.
The industry and its advocates claim there is little they can do about
their labor troubles. If they raise pay and improve working conditions,
they say, they will be priced out of the market. They insist that their pay
rates are simply the outcome of natural market processes of supply and
demand, particularly as they compete for the business of increasingly
large and powerful customers, like Wal-Mart.
But it’s not that simple. Trucking companies have collectively devel-
oped a number of widespread and sophisticated labor supply and man-
agement strategies to ensure profit. These strategies keep wages artifi-
cially low, coerce workers to stay in the job longer than they want to, and
shift risks and costs onto workers and the public. To begin to understand
why, we need to look at the history of these jobs and how the current sys-
tem of labor relations in the industry developed.
wh at went w r on g f or truck e r s ?
Trucking jobs weren’t always so bad. Hauling general freight, in particu-

lar, used to be one of the best blue-collar jobs in the US—until the late
1970s. That’s when trucking’s highly unionized labor force began losing
10 introduction
control of trucking’s labor markets, and the federal government began

deregulating the industry. Deregulation led to complete deunionization of
much of the industry, as employers responded to hypercompetitive condi-
tions. Many companies went belly-up, and wages plummeted and work-
ing conditions deteriorated among those that remained, as new, low-cost
firms emerged.
The history of trucking can be divided into three periods according to
the way the state regulated the industry over time. The first, the preregu-
latory period, extended from the advent of motorized trucks in the early
1900s to 1935. The second, the regulatory period, began with the Motor
Carrier Act of 1935, which authorized federal economic regulation of the
industry under the auspices of the Interstate Commerce Commission
(ICC). The third period began after a series of executive and legislative
efforts, most notably the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, removed federal eco-
nomic regulation.
These three periods represent fundamentally different state approaches
to the industry’s central tendency toward destructive competition—
competition so severe that it undermines profitability to the point that it
causes underinvestment by firms, industry-wide inefficiency, market
instability, and poor service quality. According to economists, two factors
cause this tendency. First, trucking lacks asset specificity: the capital
investments required for trucking are not generally tailored to narrow or
specific product markets, and trucks are, for the most part, cheap and
interchangeable. This means that the barriers to entry into the industry
are low, so when trucking is profitable new firms are able to enter the mar-
ket and existing firms can increase capacity quickly.
Second, trucking is a derived-demand industry. That is, what trucking
produces is entirely dependent on the immediate demand for its services
from customers. Trucking firms cannot store what they produce for later
sale. When demand slackens, some portion of their equipment, facilities,
and labor will be immediately underutilized. When that happens firms
may have strong incentives to keep the wheels rolling by cutting the rates
they charge customers, even taking a loss on individual loads to maintain
market share or generate revenue to cover fixed expenses and survive
slack periods.
These two characteristics of the industry have always presented signifi-

cant challenges. In the preregulatory period, collusive arrangements
between trucking firms to limit entry and prevent rate-cutting, often
enforced by strong worker organizations, occasionally allowed firms to
overcome these problems. In the regulatory period, government regulation
through the ICC restricted entry into markets by issuing a limited number
of hauling authorities that gave certain firms the right to haul specific kinds
of freight to and from particular geographic locations. Regulation also
exempted firms from antitrust regulation and encouraged firms with the
same hauling authority to collectively set rates by freight type and route to
ensure a profitable environment for investment. However, just as in the
preregulatory period, strong worker organizations were critical for firms to
maximize profit during regulation, as I’ll explain below.
Regulation had other important effects for labor as well. The terminal
systems that existed during the regulatory period strengthened the posi-
tion of labor relative to carriers. Because retailers were smaller and haul-
ing authorities limited the types of freight and geographic reach of specific
carriers, much regulated freight was shipped in less-than-truckload (LTL)
size shipments, and the biggest carriers found it advantageous to develop
terminals where small shipments could be combined and broken down.
These facilities and the relationships between carriers they created pro-
vided an expanding set of interconnected leverage points for union organ-
izing.12 Quite simply, terminal systems gave unions the opportunity to
disrupt shipments throughout whole companies and the firms they part-
nered with, once the union had control of one or more important termi-
nals. At the same time, regulation gave carriers the means to pass addi-
tional costs of unionized labor on to customers through higher rates. But
they could only do that if carriers with similar authorities were also
unionized.
Throughout the preregulatory period, truckers struggled collectively to
improve their pay and working conditions, and often enjoyed significant
success in major cities. Under regulation, unionized truckers gained con-
trol throughout the US in every sector but the hauling of agricultural
goods, which was always exempt from regulation. In the process they built
the largest and most powerful union in American history, the International
12 introduction
Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). By the 1950s, the IBT had achieved bet-
ter working conditions and pay for most truckers across much of the US.
And by the 1970s IBT members were among the best paid blue-collar
workers in the country, earning as much as 20 percent more than even
unionized auto and steel workers.13
Much of the IBT’s progress came between 1957 and 1967, when Jimmy
Hoffa was the union’s president. Without doubt Hoffa deserves much of
the credit, but what he did was bring to fruition a set of strategies
Teamsters had been using for more than half a century. What successful
IBT leaders had almost always done was try to improve wages by increas-
ing the profitability of the firms they worked for. They did this by reducing
competition. As one academic study published the year Hoffa became IBT
president concluded, “The IBT is unusually alert to the needs of the indus-
try and has striven to strengthen the competitive position of trucking vis-
à-vis other forms of transportation.”14
Hoffa was important and innovative not so much in terms of strategy,
but in terms of the magnitude of his goals. He wanted to gain national
control over trucking’s labor market, and in 1964 he did, when he success-
fully negotiated the first National Master Freight Agreement (NMFA).
The NMFA set the wages and working conditions for 450,000 long-haul
and local drivers working for hundreds of companies, including all of the
most important companies in general freight trucking, the industry’s most
profitable and important sector at the time.15 The agreement raised wages
substantially for most truckers, particularly those in South and in low-
paying areas of the Midwest. The 1964 NMFA was the outcome of years of
careful planning and organizing by Hoffa to tame both labor and employ-
ers and create a centralized bargaining process that would set the stand-
ard for truckers’ wages and working conditions across the nation until the
1980s.
Once Hoffa had organized the industry’s employers within a national
centralized bargaining system, he used his power to benefit both employ-
ers and workers. By reducing competition among trucking firms and dis-
ciplining labor, he was able to ensure both profitability and high wages,
while protecting the industry from outside competition.
In the first major attempt at nationwide bargaining negotiation, in
1960–1961, the employers and union had started far apart. The employers
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Over these pillars, which at present lean to one side, is laid
another enormous stone about 6 ft. 6½ in. long, and of the same
width as the pillars, so that the whole structure bears a surprising
resemblance to the most conspicuous part of Stonehenge and other
ruins in Malabar. But besides these, there are other very curious
stones of different workmanship, and destined evidently for different
purposes; some of them are large, flat, and quadrangular, very
peculiarly worked, and adapted, probably, to sacrifices. One of them
is 3 ft. in length and breadth, but with a projection on one side, as is
represented in the woodcut, and 1 ft. 2 in. high. On the surface of
this stone, and parallel to its sides, is carved a channel 4⁸⁄₁₀ in.
broad, forming a quadrangle; and from this a small channel branches
along the projecting part. Several stones of similar workmanship lie
about. There is also the remnant of an enormous stone 3 ft. 7½ in. at
the back and across, but rounded off at the corners, looking like a
solid throne, excepting that on the upper side there is an excavation
measuring 1 ft. 3²⁄₁₀ in. at the back, 9⁶⁄₁₀ in. on the front, and 1 ft.
1²⁄₁₀ in. across, and about 10 in. deep, with a small opening. This
stone looks very peculiar, and probably formed an altar. These ruins
are certainly very remarkable. Any one who looks at them without
prejudice or preconceived opinion, will be impressed with the belief
that they belonged to a place of worship; though how this peculiar
structure could be adapted to religious purposes, I will not undertake
to decide. I will only say that my distinct impression on the spot was,
that the structure was a rude kind of sundial, combining the vertical
with the horizontal principle. That it could not be intended as a
common doorway, even if it were connected with another building, is
evident from the narrowness of the passage; but it may have had the
purpose of serving as a sort of penitential or purgatory passage in
consecrating and preparing the worshippers, previous to their
offering sacrifices, by obliging them to squeeze themselves through
this narrow passage, the inconvenience of which was increased by
the awful character attributed to this cromlech. The religious
character of the whole structure can scarcely be doubtful, from the
nature of the flat stone, the channel in which was certainly intended
to carry off the blood of the victim.
It must strike the observer, in regarding these ruins, that while they
are so rude in principle, their style of execution evidently bears
traces of art; and I think it not improbable that the art may be
ascribed to Roman influence. We shall further on see another
specimen of these curious pillars combined with the ground-plan of
an almost regular Roman temple. But from whatever quarter this
artistic influence may have proceeded, there cannot be the least
doubt that the character of the structure is, on the whole, not Roman,
but indicates quite another race; and if we take into regard what I
have just said about the influence of art visible in this structure, and
that such influence could scarcely proceed from any other quarter
than that of the Carthaginians or the Romans, we must attribute
these remains to the Berber race, who, during the historical period,
were the exclusive possessors of these inland regions. Analogous
structures have been found, however, not only in England and
Ireland on the one side, and in several parts of India, principally in
the Nilgherries, on the other, but also in Circassia, Southern Russia,
on the South Arabian coast, and in the Somali country.
These remarkable ruins are at a short distance from the foot of a
fortified hill, which is crowned with ancient fortifications of hewn
stone, to which are added later works of small stones. Other ruins of
cut-stone buildings lie about; and on an eminence at a little distance
eastward is a small castle belonging to the earlier times of the Arabs,
while on the highest top of the hilly chain behind the Arab
encampment, and which is called Gábes, are likewise ruins. The
ruins of a whole village, partly built of regularly cut stone, and even
exhibiting the ornament of a column, were found the next morning
near our encampment, which our people had placed on the slope of
the hills bordering the plain towards the north-east. All these ruins
are evident proofs that the fertile plain Elkeb, and the adjoining one,
called Madher, were once well cultivated and thickly inhabited. Their
situation is very favourable, as the direct road from Tripoli to Beni
Ulíd and Sokna, by way of the valley Melgha, passes close by. We
had here descended to an average height of about one thousand
feet above the level of the sea.
During the night there was heavy rain, which lasted till morning,
and delayed our starting till rather late. After about a mile and a half’s
march, we ascended a little from the plain to the undulating pastures
of the Dháhar Tarhóna, which soon became enlivened by the tents
and herds of the Megaigera, and where I was glad to see at length a
few cows. The ground, though scantily covered with herbage, was
dotted with lilies, which my companion called balúdt, though this
name is generally understood to signify the ash-tree. Our guide from
Meruán informed me here that the water of this district takes its
course not towards the north, as might be expected, but towards the
south-east, running from hence to Temásla, on this side of Beni Ulíd,
thence into the Wady Merdúm, and thence into Wady Sofejín, which,
as is well known, descends towards Tawárgha. A little further on we
left, on a small eminence to the left, another hanshír surrounded by
cultivated ground. It had been an inconsiderable place, built chiefly
of small stones; but even here two enormous pillars or slabs were to
be seen standing in the midst of the rubbish. There were two holes in
each of these pillars, going quite through, and widening on one side.
At half-past nine o’clock, when passing the Hanshír Bu-Trehébe,
at a distance of more than two miles on our left, we had a fine
retrospective view of the various peaks of the Ghurián range, while
on our left a lower range approached more and more, with two
summits rising from it to a greater elevation. About noon we passed
another site, called Hanshír Suán, where are the remains of a large
castle, with an inner and outer fortification, built of small stones, but
in a very neat and regular style. The country, chiefly owing to the
murkiness of the sky, had begun to assume a very sombre character,
and was crossed by stripes of red sand, which, however, affords the
best soil for the growth of the pumpkin; but in the afternoon it
improved greatly, showing fine pasture-ground and ample corn-fields
and, among the ruins of ancient times, the rare example of a well-
proportioned and neatly worked Ionic capital, which I found at the
border of a ravine. Further on, upon a detached low rock, which had
been hewn into rectangular walls, and surrounded with a ditch, were
seen ruins of cut stone, very similar in appearance to those of Kasr
Jahalíyeh, near Gargash. We at length found traces of living beings,
in an Arab encampment situated in a green hollow, where we learnt
that the Kaïd or governor of Tarhóna, whose residence we were in
search of, was at present encamped near the spring called ʿAin
Shershára.
The country gradually assumes a more diversified aspect,
agreeably succeeding its former monotony. A considerable
mountain-range, with manifold crags, peaks, and ravines,
approaches from the south-south-west and, turning north-east,
presents an insurmountable barrier to an advance in that direction,
while the plain sweeps nicely in a concave towards its foot; but it is
quite bare and desolate, and only now and then is seen a poor
remnant of the large olive-grove, consisting, according to the
statement of our shoush, of 10,000 trees, which Bey ʿAbd Allah, in
Masráta, my host on my former journey, had ventured to plant here
five years ago. My people maintained, whether correctly or not I
cannot say, that the strong gales which prevail in this plain did not
allow the young olive-tree to thrive. I think the failure is due rather to
the character of the inhabitants, who, unaccustomed to this branch
of culture, have not paid the necessary attention to the young trees.
Having passed a small wady, we came in sight of the encampment
of the governor, which stretched out in front of us in a well-chosen
situation at the southern foot of a small cone. A Turkish officer’s
green tent, pitched a little in advance, was surrounded by several
smaller ones, while another group of twelve Bedouin tents, in a
higher position up the slope of the mount, contained the household.
The governor received us in a very friendly but rather affected
manner, which seemed peculiar to him, and might even be thought
becoming in a man who has assisted his country’s foes in
exterminating all the members of his family, formerly one of the
foremost in the country. His friends, who try to represent him as an
honest man, say that he was forced to the deed, after having once
entered into Turkish service. This man, Bel Kásem el Lohéshi
Mahmúdi, has since played a conspicuous part in the present
revolution; for he it was who led the Turkish force last year against
Ghóma, his near relative but most bitter enemy, who, having been a
prisoner in Trebizond for many years, suddenly made his escape
from thence during the Russian war, and, issuing from the Tunisian
frontier, appeared in Jebel Yefren. El Lohéshi was routed, and taken
prisoner, and, according to the first report, slain by the successful
rebel. When we visited el Lohéshi, he had occupied his new post
only for the last year, having been before governor of the Jebel.
During all the period he had been in Tarhóna, he assured us he had
not moved his encampment from this place; which I can well
understand, as it is a very pleasant spot. His principal business, of
course, consists in collecting the tithes, in registering which he was
busily employed. He knew very little of the province under his
government; and it was to other men that I had to look for
information.
Having pitched our tent near that of the governor, we proceeded to
make ourselves acquainted with the locality, and, a few paces north
from our encampment, stumbled upon the famous brook called ʿAin
Shersher, or ʿAin Shershára, which, proceeding from the junction of
three springs, forms here a cascade of about twenty-five feet over
the firm calcareous rock. Running west a short distance, it then turns
north and, breaking through the mountain-slope in a deep
picturesque glen, takes the direction of the Wady Ramle, which,
however, it only reaches during great floods.
It seems as if this pleasant spot had already been a favourite
residence in the Roman times, as is amply shown by the fine ruins of
a large building of hewn stone, which the torrent has rent asunder
and scattered on both sides. From this place, ascending the side of a
very wild ravine, we reached the height which overlooks the Bedouin
encampment, and on the morning of the following day made a more
distant excursion to the mount called Bu-tauwíl, about three miles
north, which was represented to us as affording a very distant
prospect, and the name of which seemed to promise more than
ordinary elevation.
As to the view we were rather disappointed; yet we were well
repaid for our trouble from the character of the country traversed,
and the unexpectedly pleasing aspect of the terrace spread out at
the western foot of the mountain, which must have formed a
favourite retirement in the times of the Romans, so literally strewn is
it with the ruins of buildings of hewn stone. In descending it, about
three hundred feet below the summit, we first came to a Roman
tomb, 8 ft. 7 in. long, and 7 ft. 9 in. broad, rising in two stories, the
lower being about 10 ft. high from the base to the moulding, and
ornamented with pilasters at the corners. A little further on, to the
west, was another tomb, just on the brink of the slope into the valley
below; but it has been destroyed, and at present the chief interest
attaches to a monumental stone, which most probably stood upright
on its top, and fell down when the monument went to pieces, so that
it now lies in a merely casual position on the floor of the sepulchre,
which has been repeatedly rifled by greedy hands. This stone is 7 ft.
2 in. long, and has on one side, in high relief, the figure of a man, of
natural size, clothed in a toga. The workmanship is good, and
certainly not much later than the time of Severus. Close at hand are
other ruins lying about; and further west are several groups of
buildings. Three olive-trees and a palm-tree adorned this beautiful
retired spot.
Having returned to our encampment, I and my companion
resolved to separate for a few days, Overweg wishing to examine
the neighbourhood of the ʿAin Shershára for geological purposes,
while I was rather bent upon executing the original plan of our route
all round the mountain-range. We agreed to meet again at the castle
called Kasr el Jefára in the plain near the sea-shore. We borrowed
another tent from the governor for Mr. Overweg during his stay at
this place, while I procured a horseman, with whom, together with
Ibrahím, our shoush, and one of the camel-drivers, I was ready for
starting an hour before noon; for the heat of the sun was not much to
be dreaded at this season of the year. Overweg accompanied me as
far as Kasr Dóga.
Winding along narrow ravines, after about one mile’s march we
passed, on an eminence to our right, another specimen of large
pilasters with an impost, and ruins of buildings of large square
stones close by. After much winding, we cleared the narrow channel
ascending the hills, which were covered with halfa; but here too
there was not a single tree to be seen, and my guide said that there
were no olive-trees in the Tarhóna except in Máta, a place situated
between Mount Bu-tauwíl and Kasr Jefára, from which the tribe Máta
derives its name. I have noticed before, as remarkable, the three
olive-trees near Bu-tauwíl. It was about one o’clock in the afternoon
when we came in sight of the Roman monument called Kasr Dóga;
and its brown colour almost induced us to conclude that it was of
brick; but on approaching nearer, we found that it was built of hewn
stone. We were astonished at the grand dimensions of the
monument, as it appeared evident that it was originally a mere
sepulchre, though in after times blocked up by the Arabs, and
converted into a castle.
The front of the monument faces the south with ten degrees of
deviation towards the west. The whole body of the building, rising
upon a base of three steps, measures 47 ft. 6 in. in length, and 31 ft.
4 in. in breadth. The entrance or portal, equidistant from both
corners, was 12 ft. 6 in. wide; but it has been entirely blocked up with
hewn stone, so that it is now impossible to get into the interior of the
monument without great labour, and only a glimpse can be obtained
of a kind of entrance-hall of small dimensions. Of the interior
arrangement, therefore, nothing meets the view; but on the top of the
solid mass of building, rising to a height of 28 ft. 10 in., the ground-
plan of the third story, which has been demolished to obtain
materials for closing the entrance is distinctly visible. Here the
vestibule measures 10 ft. 10 in., the wall of the interior chamber or
cell being adorned with two columns, which are no less than 3 ft. 10
in. apart: the inner room itself measures 22 ft. 4 in. in length within
the walls. The monument, although more massive than beautiful, is a
fair proof of the wealth of this district in ancient times. Opposite to it,
on a limestone hill of considerable elevation, is another specimen of
the cromlech kind in good preservation, besides other ruins. In the
hollow at the south-east side of the sepulchre there are six deep and
spacious wells sunk in the rock.
Here my companion left me, and I continued my route alone,
passing through a well-cultivated tract, till I reached an encampment
of the Welád Bu-Séllem, where we pitched our tent. Here I met a
cousin of Haj ʿAbd el Hádi el Meráyet, who had once been master of
half the Tarhóna district, but was made prisoner by the Turks, and
sent to Constantinople. This man also reappeared on the stage last
year.
We set out early in the morning, the country continuing flat as far
as the chapel of Sidi ʿAli ben Salah, which, standing on a hill, is a
conspicuous object for many miles round. At a short distance from
this chapel, I observed the ruins of a castle built of large square
stones taken from older buildings; it measures 42 ft. in every
direction, and exhibits a few bad but curious sculptures, among
others an ass in relief. Around are the ruins of a small village, and
flat stones of immense size, similar in workmanship to those
described above, but no upright pillars.
Beyond the chapel of the saint the country became more hilly, and
after some time we entered a ravine joining the Wady Gedaera,
which exhibited the remains of three broad and firmly constructed
dykes, crossing the ravine at the distance of about eight hundred
yards from each other. They were built of small stones, and were
evidently intended to exclude the water from the lower part of the
valley. Another eight hundred yards below the innermost dyke, the
ravine widens out into a fine verdant hollow, stretching from west to
east, and provided with several wells. On a detached hill rising in the
midst of this basin, is situated the Kasr Dawán, built partly of older
materials of hewn stone, partly of small stones, and probably of the
same age as the dykes. The whole floor of the basin is strewn with
ruins; and a considerable village seems to have extended round the
castle: where the ground was free from stones, it was covered with
ranunculuses. Altogether, this spot was interesting—the stronghold
of a chieftain who appears to have had energy and foresight, but
whose deeds are left without a record.
As soon as we emerged from this ravine the whole character of
the country changed, and through a pleasant valley we entered a
wider plain, bordered in the distance by a high range of mountains,
among which the Jebel Msíd, crowned with a zawíya or convent, is
distinguished by its height and its form.
The fine pasturage which this plain affords to the cows of the
Mehaedi enabled their masters to regale us with fine fresh sourmilk,
which interrupted our march very pleasantly. On the site of an
ancient village, near the margin of a small torrent, I found the above
curious specimens of upright pilasters, together with the impost,
remarkable for their height as well as for the rough sculpture of a
dog, or some other animal, which is seen on the higher part of one of
them. About seven hundred yards beyond the torrent called Ksaea,
we had on our right a large building of hewn stone about 140 yards
square, besides six pairs of pilasters together with their imposts; but
some of them are lying at present on the ground. These structures
could never have been intended as doors or passages; for the space
between the upright stones is so narrow, that a man of ordinary size
could hardly squeeze his way through them. Other ruins are on the
left.
Here we entered the mountain-chain which forms the natural
boundary between the district of Tarhóna and that of Meselláta, and
at the present time separates scenes of nomadic life from fixed
settlements. The highest part of the chain round the Jebel Msíd
remained on our left, while the height on the right decreased in
elevation. The chain has little breadth; and we hardly reached its
crest when the country that presented itself to our view had quite a
different appearance from that just left behind, presenting among
other objects the castle of Meselláta, surrounded by an olive-grove.
In this spot ancient sites and modern villages with stone houses are
intermixed, while thick olive-groves enliven the whole, and constitute
the wealth of the inhabitants.
Having passed a village called Fatír, lying in a ravine that runs
south-west, we soon descried, in a hollow at the southern foot of the
Kasr Sʿaade (a small ancient fortress), the first olive-plantation and
the first orchards belonging to Meselláta. From this place onward
they succeed each other at short intervals. Having passed a small
eminence, with a fine olive-grove in the hollow at its foot, we entered
the beautiful and well-inhabited plain of Meselláta. Here a great deal
of industry was evinced by the planting of young cuttings between
the venerable old olive-trees, or ghúrs Faraón as the Arabs call
them. My shoush affirmed that the inhabitants of Meselláta are the
most industrious and diligent people in the whole regency, taking
good care of their plantations, and watering them whenever they
need it The whole country has here a different character from that of
Tarhóna, the naked calcareous rock protruding everywhere, while in
Tarhóna the plains generally consist of a clayey soil. This district is
only about one thousand feet above the sea, while the average
height of the Jebel (Yefren) and the Ghurián is about two thousand
feet. Here the olives had been collected a month ago; in the former
districts they remained still on the tree.
Cheered by the spectacle of life and industry around us, we
continued our pleasant march, and having crossed an open space of
rough rocky ground filled with cisterns, we reached the castle of
Meselláta, an edifice of little merit, built with square stones from old
ruins, and lying at the northern end of the village Kúsabát, which
properly means “the Castles.” While my people were pitching my tent
behind the castle, on the only spot which would allow of the pegs
being driven into the ground, I went to pay a visit to Khalíl Aghá, who
resided in the castle; but I found it to be so desolate and comfortless
that I left it immediately, taking with me the sheikh Mesáud and a
shoush named Ibrahím Tubbát, in order to view the Kalʿa or Gellʿah,
a very conspicuous object, visible even from the sea. Keeping along
the western side of the village, which consists of from three hundred
to four hundred cottages built of stone, and occupies a gentle slope
towards the south, the highest point of which, near the mosque, is
1,250 feet above the level of the sea, we reached a pleasant little
hollow adorned with gardens, which being fenced with hedges of the
Indian fig-tree, rendered the spot extremely picturesque. From hence
we ascended the naked calcareous eminence, from the top of which
the fortress overlooks a great extent of country. Going round its
demolished walls, from east to west, I was able to descry and to take
the bearings of a great number of villages belonging to the district of
Meselláta, some of them peeping out of olive-groves, others
distinguishable only by the smoke rising up from them.
The fortress itself is evidently a work not of Mohammedans, but of
Europeans, and was most probably constructed by the Spaniards in
the first half of the sixteenth century. It is built in the form of a
triangle, one side of which, running north-west and south-east,
measures about 108 yards; another, running east-north-east and
west-south-west, measures 78½ yards, and the third, S. 5 W. and N.
5 E., 106½ yards. At the corner between the first and the second
wall, is a polygonal bastion; between the second and third a round
bastion, and a small one also between the third and the first wall.
Descending from the fortress, I went with Mesáud through the
village, the dwellings of which are built in a much better style than is
usual in the regency. It is also stated that, in comparison with the rest
of the country, its inhabitants enjoy some degree of wealth, and that
the market is well supplied.
I rose at an early hour, in order to continue my route, and entered
a very pleasant country, rendered more agreeable in appearance by
the fineness of the morning. Winding along through hilly slopes
covered with luxuriant corn-fields and wide-spreading olive-trees, we
reached at half-past eight o’clock an interesting group of ruins
consisting of immense blocks, and amongst them one like the flat
quadrangular stones represented above, but having on its surface,
besides the little channel, a large hole; also a block of extraordinary
dimensions, representing a double altar of the curious massive sort
described above. Close to these remarkable ruins, in a fine corn-
field, is a small castle, situated upon a natural base of rock, in which
subterranean vaults have been excavated in a very regular way.
Towards the south, at the distance of about half an hour’s march, the
large castle of Amámre rises into view. We then reached the fine
plantation of Rumíyeh, while on a hill to the left lie other scattered
ruins.
We met a good many people going to the Thursday market at
Kúsabát. Further on, near another little grove, we found a small
encampment of the Jehawát, a tribe which claims the possession of
this whole district. We then passed a castle irregularly built of large
square stones about twelve yards square. Having crossed a hollow,
we obtained a good view over the country, in which the “Merkeb
Sʿaid n ʿAli” (the most advanced spur of this chain towards the
coast) formed a distinguished point, while we had already reached
the last low breaks of the mountain-country towards the east.
Meanwhile the greater dimensions of the ruins remind the traveller
that he is approaching the famous remains of Leptis. I found here, a
little to the right of our path, near a Bedouin encampment, the ruins
of a temple of large proportions, called Sanem ben Hamedán, and of
rather curious arrangement, the front, which faces the north and
recedes several feet from the side-walls, being formed by double
ranges of enormous stones standing upright—they can scarcely be
called pilasters,—while the inner part is ornamented with columns of
the Ionic order. The whole building is about forty paces long, and
thirty-six broad; but the architectural merit of its details is not
sufficient to repay the trouble of exact measurements. About a
thousand yards further on, to the east, are the ruins of another still
larger monument, measuring about seventy-seven paces in every
direction, and called by the Arabs Kasr Kérker. It has several
compartments in the interior—three chambers lying opposite to the
entrance, and two other larger ones on the east side. Nearly in the
middle of the whole building, there is a large square stone like those
mentioned above, but having on one of its narrow sides a curious
sculpture in relief.
The camels having been allowed to go on, I hastened after them
with my shoush as fast as my donkey could trot, and passed several
sites of ancient villages or castles, and numerous fine hollows with
luxuriant olive-trees. I scarcely ever remember to have seen such
beautiful trees. The country continues undulating, with fertile hollows
or depressions. We reached the camels at Wady Lebda, which I
found perfectly dry.
Close to our left we had cultivated ground and ruins. Near the sea-
shore, the spacious and pleasant site of Leptis spread out on the
meadow-land, while a little further, on rose a small ridge, on the top
of which is situated the village Khurbet Hammám. After we had
passed a pleasant little hollow, the plain became for a while
overgrown with thick clusters of bushes; but on reaching the
plantation of Swail, an almost uninterrupted line of villages stretched
along the sahel (sea-shore) amid corn-fields and groves of olive and
date-trees. According to my shoush, a great deal of corn is cultivated
also in the valleys behind this plain; and numerous well-trodden
paths were seen leading from the sahel into the hilly country on its
southern side. After plentiful rains, this part of the plain is inundated
by the waters of the Wady Bondári, which is called after the general
name of the low range bordering the plain. Having passed several
little villages of the sahel, and paid my due tribute of veneration to “el
Dekhaele” (the oldest and tallest palm-tree in the whole district), a
little before five o’clock in the afternoon I reached the village called
Zawíya Ferjáni, where we pitched our tent in the stubble-field near a
date-grove, and rested from our pleasant day’s march, experiencing
hospitable treatment from our hosts.
The country hereabouts is regarded as tolerably healthy, but ʿAbd
eʾ Saʿade, a village a little further eastward, has suffered greatly
from malignant fevers, which are attributed to the unwholesomeness
of the waters of the Wady Kʿaám, as I noticed on my former journey;
hence the population has become rather thin, and industry has
declined. At some distance from the wady, cultivation ceases
entirely, and, instead of groves and gardens, a wide and wild field of
disorder and destruction meets the eye. This rivulet, which is
identical with the Cinyps, was in great vogue with the ancients, who
knew how to control and regulate its occasional impetuosity.
Immense walls, which they constructed as barriers against
destructive inundations, remain to testify to their activity and energy.
Of these one group, forming a whole system of dykes, some
transverse, some built in the form of a semi-circle, is seen near the
spot, where a beautiful subterranean aqueduct which supplied Leptis
issues from the wady; another enormous wall, 650 yards long, and
from 4 to 4½ yards thick, stands about three quarters of a mile
higher up the valley.
Having started in the afternoon from the mouth of the wady, I re-
entered Zawíya ʿAbd el Ferjáni from the rear, but finding that my
people had gone on to Leptis, I followed them, after a little delay, by
the way of Wady Súk, where every Thursday a market is held (“Súk
el khamís,” a name applied by Captain, now Rear-Admiral, Smyth to
the neighbouring village), and then over the open meadow-plain,
having the blue sea on my right, and came up with my people just as
they were about to pitch my tent at the foot of an enormous staircase
leading to some undefined monument in the eastern part of the
ancient city of Leptis. During the forenoon I was busily employed in a
second investigation of some of the ruins of Leptis, which have been
so well described and illustrated by Admiral Smyth. Near the small
creek called Mirsá Legátah, and a little east of the chapel of the
Merábet ben Shehá, a small castle has been lately built by the Turks,
about a hundred paces square. It has quite a handsome look with its
pinnacles and small bastions.
Leaving the site of this celebrated city, we proceeded, early in the
afternoon, through a diversified hilly country, till we reached the high
hill or mount of Mérkeb Sʿaid-n-ʿAli, which is visible from a great
distance. This I ascended in order to correct some of my positions,
particularly that of el Gellʿah in Meselláta, but found the wind too
violent. Passing an undulating country, overgrown with the freshest
green, and affording ample pastures to the herds of numerous Arab
encampments, I pitched my tent near a small dowar of the Beni
Jéhem, who treated us hospitably with sour milk and bazín.
The country continued varied, hill and dale succeeding each other;
but beyond Kasr Aláhum (an irregular building of a late age), it
became more rough and difficult, especially near the steep descent
called Negási. Soon after this we descended into the plain, not far
from the sea-shore, where we crossed several flat valleys. From the
Wady Bú Jefára, where a small caravan going from Zlíten to the
town overtook us, a monotonous plain, called Gwaea mtʿa
Gummáta, extends to the very foot of the slope of Meselláta. Having
traversed the desolate zone called el Míta mtʿa Terúggurt, whence
may be descried the “úglah” near the shore, the residence of my old
friend the sheikh Khalífa bú-Ruffa, we reached the broad and rock-
bound valley Terúggurt itself, probably the most perfect wady which
this part of the coast exhibits. To my great satisfaction, I met
Overweg at the Kasr Jefára.
K. Jefára is also called Karabúli, from the name of a Mamlúk who,
in the time of Yusuf Basha, built here a sort of convent or chapel. It is
rather a “funduk,” or caravanserai, than a “kasr,” or castle, and the
gates are always left open; but its situation is important, and it is the
residence of a judge or kaíd. A battle between Ghóma and the Turks
was fought in 1855 at no great distance from it. The country around
is a monotonous plain, enlivened only by three small clusters of
palm-trees towards the north. The following morning we proceeded,
and encamped on the eastern side of Wady Raml. On Tuesday we
returned to Tripoli well satisfied with our little excursion, and
convinced that the Regency of Tripoli is not by any means so poor
and miserable as it is generally believed to be.
CHAPTER IV.
DEPARTURE FOR THE INTERIOR.—ARRIVAL AT
MIZDA.—REMAINS OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
Meanwhile the instruments provided by Government had arrived,

and proved in general well adapted for their purposes.[6] But the
tents and arms had not yet reached us; and I thought it better to
provide a strong, spacious, and low tent, which, even after the
Government tents arrived, did not prove superfluous, although
perhaps rather too heavy. All tents intended for travellers in hot
climates should be well lined, and not high. Those which we received
were quite unfit for the country whither we were going, and while
they were so light that they could hardly withstand a strong blast of
wind, they scarcely excluded the sun, particularly after a little wear
and tear. All the tents ought also to have top-ropes, which can alone
secure them in a tornado such as are common in those climates. Mr.
Richardson was soon obliged to provide himself with another tent, so
that in the course of our journey we had altogether five tents, but
generally pitched only two, or, where we encamped for a greater
length of time, four.
Mr. Overweg and I sustained a heavy loss in the secession of our
black servant Ibrahím, who might have proved of great service to us
in the interior, as he spoke the Bórnu and Bagrímma languages, and
had himself wandered about a good deal in those little-known
districts between Mándara and Bagírmi. But he declared that he
could not remain in our service along with our servant Mohammed
ben Belál, the son of a liberated Góber slave, who was a very clever
but unscrupulous and haughty fellow, and bore the character of a
libertine. But another cause of detention was the protest of his wives,
who would not allow him to go unless he divorced them. We tried
every means of settling the matter, but without success; so that we
had only two servants, one of whom, Mohammed eʾ Zintáni, the lad I
have mentioned before, would certainly not go further than Fezzán.
At length all was ready for our outset, except the boat, which
caused Mr. Richardson a great deal of trouble, as it had been divided
in Malta into two pieces instead of four. I proposed that we should
pitch our tents for some days at ʿAin Zára, in order that we might be
duly seasoned for our long journey. I would advise every traveller,
who would calculate upon all the means of ensuring success, to
adopt a similar course. A few days’ stay in his tent will familiarize him
with the little store which is henceforward to form his principal, if not
his only resource, and will enable him to bear the heat of the sun
with ease.
It was late in the afternoon of the 24th of March, 1850, when
Overweg and I, seated in solemn state upon our camels, left the
town with our train, preceded by the consul, Mr. Crowe, in his
carriage, by Mr. Reade, and by Mr. Dickson and his family, of whom
we took a hearty leave under the olive-trees near Kasr el Haeni. We
then continued our route, and in fine moonlight pitched our tent on
the border of ʿAin Zára. This locality takes its name from a broad
swampy hollow or depression to the south, thickly overgrown with
reeds and rushes. At present no one lives in it; the wells are filled up
with earth, and the date-trees, cared for by nobody, are partly
overwhelmed by the sand which has accumulated in large mounds.
Still it is an attractive spot, having just a little of cultivation and a little
of sandy waste. A few olive-trees spread their fresh cool shade over
a green meadow, forming a very pleasant resting-place. It was at this
very spot that, in August 1855, on my joyful return, I again met Mr.
Reade the vice-consul, and passed a night there.
Here we remained encamped till Friday the 29th. In the afternoon
of the 27th, Mr. Frederic Warrington, who wished to escort us for a
few days, came out, accompanied by the American consul Mr.
Gaines, and brought us the satisfactory news, that on the following
Friday Mr. Richardson would move from the town, and that we
should meet him at Mejenín. I and my countryman required eight
camels for our luggage, besides the two which we rode ourselves,
and which were our own. I had been so fortunate as to procure an
excellent Arab camel of the renowned breed of the Bú-Saef, which
was my faithful companion as far as Kúkawa; and Mr. Warrington
had made me a present of a handsome Ghadamsi saddle or basúr,
with pillows and Stambúli carpet, so that I was comfortably mounted.
After a great deal of trouble (the camel-drivers and our men being
as yet unaccustomed to our unwieldy luggage), we at length
succeeded in making a start. After leaving the olive-trees and the
little palm-grove of ʿAin Zára, we very soon entered deep sand-hills,
which sheltered us from the strong wind; and after more than two
hours we came upon pasture-grounds, which furnished our camels
with a variety of herbs and gramineæ, such as the shʿade, the
shedíde, and various others unknown to me. The progress of an
Arab caravan (where the camels march each after its own
inclination, straying to the right and to the left, nipping here a straw,
and there browsing on a bush) must be rather slow in districts where
the stubborn animal finds abundance of food. This way of
proceeding is extremely tedious and fatiguing to the rider; and to
obviate it the Tuarek, the Téb, and the people in the interior fasten all
the camels one behind the other. Owing to our slow progress, the
sun was almost setting when we overtook Mr. Warrington, who had
pitched his tent on a fine pasture-ground near Bir Sbaea. The last
hour and a half’s ride from the well Jenáwa lay along well-cultivated
and flourishing corn-fields extending along the narrow wady of
Mejenín, and intermingled with a rich profusion of flowers, principally
the beautiful blue “khobbés.”
Having indulged for some hours in the quiet enjoyment of a fine
morning and an open green country, I went with the shoush to look
after Mr. Richardson’s party. After an hour’s ride through luxuriant
corn-fields, and pasture-grounds enlivened by the horses of the
Turkish cavalry, we found Mukni, the sailor, and all Mr. Richardson’s
baggage; but he himself had not yet come up. I could not persuade
the people to remove to our encampment; so I returned, after having
paid a visit to the binbásha of the cavalry, who had been stationed
here for the last seventeen years. He had contrived to procure
himself a cool retreat from the sultry hours, by forming a regular
tank, about two feet and a half square, in the midst of his tent, and

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The Big Rig Trucking and the Decline of

the American Dream 1st Edition Steve

The Big Rig Trucking and the Decline of the American

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Black American Refugee Escaping the Narcissism of the

Soccer and the American Dream 1st Edition Ian Lawrence

The Secrets of Early American Civilizations The Decline

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Quest for the American Dream 1st Edition Rajendra Mehta

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Names: Viscelli, Steve, 1974- author.

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In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible

Introduction. Where Did All These Bad

1. The CDL Mill: Training the Professional

2. Cheap Freight, Cheap Drivers: Work as a

3. The Big Rig: Running the Contractor Conﬁdence

4. Working for the Truck: The Harsh Reality of

5. Someone to Turn To: Managing Contractors

Appendix A. Data and Methods 209

The sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959) argued that sociology is valuable

and reformulation of state regulation, and the transformation of employ-

I must be a liberal, left-leaning academic who wants independent con-

and encourage workers to take on the risk of owning trucks by supporting

sociology at the University of Wisconsin. That fellowship provided me

Several months into my work as a trucker, I recorded the following notes

workers’ minds. Instead, many talked about the possibility of becoming an

to say so. Experienced employees and contractors voiced the opposite

the long -haul trucking industry

On any given day the US economy depends on the movement of more

repaying.”7 It appears that having enough inexperienced drivers available

Trucking jobs weren’t always so bad. Hauling general freight, in particu-

control of trucking’s labor markets, and the federal government began

These two characteristics of the industry have always presented signiﬁ-

Meanwhile the instruments provided by Government had arrived,

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