Why not just stop discriminating against women?
Wrangling big rigs across the
country is difficult and dangerous work, and the corporate giants that dominate
the industry have long been wailing that they can’t find people willing to do
the job.
Their lobbyists have even pleaded
with regulators to lower the age requirement so they can hire teenagers to
drive these 18-wheel behemoths! What could go wrong with that?
Is there no better solution than
child labor? How about us, asks the non-profit group Real Women in Trucking?
A little known fact: Less than 5
percent of America’s long-haul drivers are women. And a lesser known fact:
Thousands of women are eager to do the job, are fully qualified, and hold
commercial licenses to drive the rigs. But they’re constantly rejected when
they apply for openings at trucking companies.
This is because most of the industry
imposes a discriminatory standard to reject qualified female applicants. The
gimmick is an unwritten, unlawful corporate rule, mandating that female job
candidates can only be trained by female driving
instructors.
Obviously, since there are so few women drivers, very few female trainers are available, so women can’t get hired.
This is tooth-achingly stupid.
Major corporations are loudly crying
“labor shortage” while the answer to the shortage is literally knocking on
their doors. These are often well paying jobs, one of the few available to
people without college degrees. So trucking corporations are literally slamming
the door to the middle class in the face of enterprising women.
My words to the industry: Stop crying, answer the knock, and hire the women! To learn more about this story, go to RealWomenInTrucking.org.
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator,
writer, and public speaker. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.