Alvaro is one of dozens of American truck drivers I talked to and rode alongside over the last three years as part of a larger study on time pressure, stress, and busyness in the American workplace. Like many drivers I met, Alvaro has a unique knowledge of the limits of his body. I would argue that, because of this specialized knowledge, he has a “professionalized body.” Those two words do not often appear together when we talk about work today. A professional is more often thought of as a knowledge worker. He or she has specialized knowledge of concepts and procedures gained through formal training that instills a deep commitment to work as a “calling.”
My experiences with truck drivers, however, have shown me that what appears on the surface to be “unskilled” labor actually relies on a professional attitude toward the body that calls on workers to cultivate highly specialized forms of corporal expertise. To have success in the industry, drivers must develop an understanding of their body rhythms—sleep, attention, motivation, and adrenaline—and learn to manipulate these rhythms in order to facilitate the flow of freight. However, the very institutions within the industry that require the professionalization of drivers’ bodies—motor carrier firms, shipping and receiving departments within the nation’s companies, and the federal agencies that oversee driver safety—do not acknowledge drivers’ specialized knowledge and their corporal commitment to the job. Drivers’ professionalized bodies are thus an important but largely invisible foundation upon which the contemporary logistics system is built. To put a finer point on it—when you click the “Place Your Order” button at Amazon.com, for example, you are probably unaware that you have remotely clicked on a truck driver’s body. Because of this invisibility, many drivers I talked to feel misrecognized. They must find sources of dignity within a system that simultaneously relies on and denies their expertise.
Time and Space
The central dynamic that calls on drivers to professionalize their bodies is the relationship between time and space in their work environment. Most American truck drivers are paid by the mile but regulated by the hour. They are paid either a certain number of cents per mile driven or a percentage of the freight bill upon delivery. Either way, only a moving truck “pays the bills.” Time is money for truck drivers only insofar as it relates to space. In fact, it is probably more accurate to say that, for them, space is money. The commodification of distance encourages drivers to move freight quickly from origin to destination. However, if left unchecked, pay-by-the-mile also encourages drivers to drive more miles in a day than their bodies can safely handle. Thus, even though their livelihoods are geared more to space, drivers need some set of regulations on their time. If the industry is to be both productive and safe, drivers cannot work “on their own time.” Hence, the industry has developed the Hours of Service Regulations (HOS).
The HOS are drafted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Based on dozens of commissioned laboratory studies of driver fatigue and sleep, they set precise limits on the maximum number of hours drivers may work and the minimum number of hours they must sleep in order to prevent fatigue-related accidents. These rules are known as the “14-hour rule,” “11-hour rule,” “10-hour restart,” and “sleeper berth provision.”
by Benjamin H. Snyder, Hedgehog Review | Read more:
Image: Fred Roswold
