Sikh and ye shall drive?

As far as I can tell, every manicurist/pedicurist in Boston is from Vietnam. At least everyone I’ve ever gone to is. I did a quick google and the estimate is that 50% of the nail technicians in the US are first or second generation Vietnamese. Vietnamese women, on average, are tiny – again to the google: average height 5 ft. – and, as far as I can tell, have pretty small feet. So I often sit there wondering what they make of my foot size (11 2A).

A lot of the folks who work in Boston’s parking garages are from East Africa. The numbers may be going down as the next generation moves on up, but for a while, most of the corner stores in midtown Manhattan were owned by Koreans.

And so it has always been: think coal miners from Eastern Europa and Italian cobblers, said the granddaughter of the German butcher and the Irish barkeep, a granddaughter who grew up in a neighborhood with bars named Hennessy’s, Mulcahy’s, and Breen’s.

Still, I was a bit surprised to see an article in The Economist on the presence of Sikhs in trucking. Turns out there are an estimated 135K Sikh truckers, and their numbers are growing, with 17,000 added to their ranks last year. There’s even a trade group – the North American Punjabi Trucking Association – devoted to Sikhs. (The Punjab is the region most closely associated with Sikhs.)

If you’re like me, your mental image of a truck driver is a middle-aged white guy in jeans and a MAGA cap. Yet here was the February cover-boy of industry mag, Overdrive:

Who needs to MAGA, when you need to look no further than this example of what has long made America great: the ability to assimilate people from so many diverse cultures. Sigh… Sikhs in trucking is also an example of “outsiders” taking over professions that are no longer so attractive to natives. (Think picking crops, working in chicken factories, and pedicuring the size 11 2A feet of folks like me.)

Before deregulation in the 1980s, trucking was a blue-collar route to the middle class. Since then, pay has stagnated, and the job has lost much of its appeal. The Bureau of Labour Statistics reports median earnings of $42,000, or about $20 an hour, a sum that may dwindle after expenses. Annual turnover rates within firms hover around 90%. The American Trucking Associations warned of a shortage of 50,000 drivers by the end of 2017, rising to 174,000 by 2026. The median age of the private-fleet driver is 52; many younger would-be drivers refuse to take on a job with a grueling, erratic schedule and long stretches away from home.

Yet, though most Americans may not think highly of trucking, Sikhs regard it as a prestigious career. Many Sikh drivers come from trucking families in India, where Sikhs are also prominent in the industry. (Source: The Economist)

Interesting that trucking is facing an aging workforce and driver shortages. You’d think that, given this, that the wages wouldn’t be stagnating: they’d be going up, no? At least that’s what we used to learn in good old Economics 101, with the good old supply and demand curve. But apparently – and weirdly – not.

Also interesting is that shortages are expected to keep growing over the next decade.By 2026, I’m guessing that there will be plenty of autonomous vehicles on the road, 10-4 good buddy-ing while barreling down the highway. So there will be fewer truckers needed. But that’s still a few miles down the road, so for now, Sikh and ye shall drive.

When I think about trucking, of course, popular culture pops into mind.

First off, there’s the made-for-TV movie (when made-for-TV movie was a big deal, in the way back of 1971) Duel, in which poor Dennis Weaver is chased down the highway by a psycho truck driver.

Then there are all sorts of – earworm alert – trucker songs.

Who can forget “Six Days on the Road.” “I’ve Been Everywhere.” And, of course, “Convoy”(we got a convoy goin’). Not to mention the ultimate earworm alert for non-Dead fans: “Truckin” (like the doodah man). There are actually a few truckish songs that I like: “On the Road Again,” “Me and Bobby McGee”, and – my fav – “Willin” (as sung by Linda Rondstadt).

Trucking has been romanticized like few other professions, second only to cowboy. Thus all those songs.

But wait, there’s more. The Sikh’s are getting in on the act, bringing a bit of Bollywood style to the genre:

Surjit Khan’s “Truck Union” is part of a new crop of trucker songs hitting America’s highways. Like the 1970s classics, Mr Khan’s ditty is all blue jeans, work boots and American-dream fulfilment. Unlike those classics, though, the music video features turbaned dancers in flashy kurtas belting out Punjabi lyrics while gyrating to bhangra beats, before a stage-set of lorries.

Here’s the link. Enjoy, good buddy.