Truck drivers from India to take U.S. jobs?
Union
protests plan as attempt to undercut 'hard-working Americans'
Posted:
July 21, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
An American company is recruiting
long-haul truck drivers from India with the goal of placing them
with U.S. trucking firms.
The Teamsters Union strongly
opposes the plan by Gagan
Global LLC of Garnerville, N.Y.
Teamsters Union spokesman Galen
Munroe told WND the plan "is yet another example of
corporations exploiting a visa program to replace highly trained,
hard-working Americans with cheap labor from overseas."
Gagan Global has contracted
with the Indian state government of Andra Pradesh and its Overseas
Manpower Consultancy to run a training school in the Asian
country.
Gagan Global CEO Philip Gagan
told WND a first batch of 200 Indian truck drivers has been
recruited to attend the school in preparation for work in the U.S.
"We are recruiting Indian
truck drivers," Gagan confirmed to WND. "We are very
demanding on our requirements to get into the school. The
requirements are that you have to have five years of heavy driving
experience on tractor-trailer trucks, you have to be HIV-negative,
have a clean police record, verifiable references that the
government in India can verify."
What about the ability to speak
English?
"The Indian truck drivers
have to be able to read and understand English," Gagan
explained. "We like them to speak English. They all speak
pigeon-English, mostly what they learned in schools."
How does Gagan Global know that
the Indian drivers will be able to read road signs or communicate
with other drivers on the road?
"We know that if they can
read English and understand what they are reading," Gagan
told WND, "then we think they can learn enough English in the
four-months training program to be able to be productive in the
U.S."
Gagan argued that the reason he
created the company was to address the growing shortage in the
U.S. for long-haul drivers.
"There's a massive
shortage of long-haul truck drivers in the U.S.," Gagan said.
"Long-haul truck drivers get home four days a month. There
just aren't enough Americans who want to do that kind of
work."
A May
2005 study conducted for the American Trucking Association
argues that there is "already a shortage of long-haul
heavy-duty truck drivers equal to about 1.5 percent of the
over-the-road workforce, or about 20,000 drivers."
The driver shortfall is
projected to reach 114,000 by 2014. Another 219,000 new truck
drivers "must be found to replace drivers currently of ages
55 and older who will retire over the next 10 years and to replace
those in younger groups who will leave the occupation."
Teamster Union spokesman Munroe
strongly objected. In an e-mail to WND, he wrote:
While there is currently a
shortage of long-haul drivers, the problem lies with
corporations like Gagan Global that are championing the race to
the bottom for American workers. If corporations would treat
their employees fairly and offer competitive wages with decent
benefit packages, this shortage would disappear.
Gagan Global is in the process
of applying to the Department of Labor to get H-2B visas for the
Indian drivers. H-2B visas are designed to be issued only when
there are no qualified and willing U.S. workers available for the
job. Gagan acknowledges that no H-2B visas have yet been issued to
Indian truck drivers training in India with his company.
Regarding the issuance of H-2B
visas, Munroe wrote WND:
Gagan Global has twisted the
intent of the H-2B visa program to fit their desire for a fatter
bottom line. The assertion that there are no American workers
who are willing to take long-haul truck driving jobs is absurd.
It would be more accurate to say they do not want to be
exploited by taking poor-paying, long-haul jobs at nonunion
companies.
On the company website, Gagan
Global explains why Indian drivers are suitable to help address
the shortage in long-haul drivers:
We also found that while the
average long-haul truck driver makes between $50,000 and $90,000
a year, these truck drivers make far less, and work a whole lot
more. So what we have here are people who are never shy of work,
extremely friendly and cooperative, and most of all, tough guys
who are more than up to handling the American trucks.
Why is Gagan Global so sure the
Indian drivers will be able to be successful on U.S. highways? The
company website explains the Indian drivers "on an average,
have anywhere between 10 and 25 years of experience driving trucks
for a living. These drivers have driven long-haul trucks in
extreme conditions and terrain and on roads that are anything but
like the freeways in the U.S."
The economic incentive for the
Indian truck drivers is obvious. Gagan explains:
These [Indian truck drivers]
want to work. They want to get into their trucks and work every
hour that they are legally allowed to work. They only have a
one-year period, plus a one-year extension under their visa to
work here. Then they have to go home for six months and apply
for a new visa. The Indian truck driver can earn in a day in the
U.S. what it may take two months to earn in India. They don’t
have families here and they don't care about time-off. If the
Indian drivers come here work hard, they can go home with maybe
$100,000, which is five lifetimes of money back home in India.
Gagan explained to WND that his
company’s goal was not to undercut U.S. truck drivers:
We’re not here to take jobs
away from Americans. If they drive for a Teamster organization,
they will join the Teamsters. Our Indian drivers have to come
into a company and be paid exactly what the American drivers are
being paid in that company. They have to receive every benefit
and they have to be treated exactly the same. We want them to
get the highest paid jobs they can get. We have rejected as
clients a couple of companies that have approached us because
they want to hire them as trainees and pay them about half as
much per mile as they pay U.S. drivers.
The Teamsters' Munroe objected
to Gagan Global's program, concluding, "It is time for
American companies to invest in the American workforce.
Outsourcing will only quicken the demise of the middle
class."
