A similar dynamic is driving workers away in the European Union.
“This job is not attractive,” said Panteleimon Octavian Tetiliano, a long-haul truck driver from Romania. “You can’t be with your family. There’s no time for lunch, no time for breakfast, or dinner. You go to bed sweating because we don’t shower on the highway every day. And you don’t wash your clothes. You’re mostly dirty, and you smell bad.”
Security issues also make the work dangerous, he added, citing attacks by migrants trying to reach Britain and theft as major concerns.
Titiano, a former teacher, has been driving a truck for the past decade. He is now counting down the days until he can quit trading. “I’m going to do this job for another two years, goodbye to this industry, goodbye. This is not where I want to grow old.”
Christina Tilling, political secretary of the Transport Workers’ Federation ETF, said the only people willing to put up with deteriorating conditions were increasingly drivers from outside the EU, including Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
She said the problem begins with the prices charged by land freight companies for their services, which are not high enough to cover the “cost of legal labor,” including salaries and accommodation for drivers.
