When has it worked out for workers? Genuine question. If its not offshoring manufacturing (China before, South East Asia today) and services (India primarily), its importing labor to depress wages and keep workers in peril (there are approximately 720,000 to 750,000 foreign-born truck drivers in the United States, representing about 18% to 20% of the total commercial driving workforce, as of this comment) to encourage compliance with the status quo [1] [2].

If you work with workers so that they will have a safe landing through a just transition, such that longshoreman experienced when the cargo container revolutionized shipping [3] [4], you might get worker buy in. If you say you will with no evidence you will follow through, you will not get buy in, and whatever is the downstream impact of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of workers becoming redundant rapidly without a safety net.

Despite hope not being a strategy, as an observer, I hope that policymakers make a choice that leads to a net favorable outcome. If they do not, that is a choice.

[1] Is long-haul trucking really facing a driver shortage? - https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/11/20/is-long-haul-tr... - November 20th, 2024

[2] Impacts of Alternative Compensation Methods on Truck Driver Retention and Safety Performance - https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/TRB-CAAS-22-01 - 2024

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Box_(Levinson_book)

[4] Arthur Donovan (1999) Longshoremen and mechanization, Journal for Maritime Research, 1:1, 66-75, DOI: 10.1080/21533369.1999.9668300 https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.1999.9668300

Uber, Lyft drivers in Massachusetts form first US ride-share union