It's one train after another. Typically they're well over a hundred cars. A lot of the cars are container cars. Each rail car keeps at least two, three, or four trucks off the road. Every train that goes by means several hundred trucks aren't on the highway. The trains are coming through at three or four per hour. That's a lot of trucks.
Containers. Just one thing Jimmy Hoffa didn't see coming. Hoffa was one of the greatest labour leaders of the post WW II era. A lot of your so-called labour scholars would dispute this. All mobbed up, they say. So what, I say. He came from a tough time. The trucking companies were all mobbed up. Half the state governments were all mobbed up. Most of the other unions were at least somewhat mobbed up. He inherited a mobbed up union. When he disappeared he was working on demobbing it. The 1964 Teamsters National Master Freight agreement still stands as the high-water mark in terms of the relative standard of living of rank and file workers, with a few localized exceptions.
There was a rumour going around Guelph back in the day that one of the local salami factories disposed of the evidence. Hoffa arrived in town in the trunk of that Lincoln and left in a delivery van. I assume it was a joke. I hope so. I ate a lot of calabrese salami from the local shops over the years. Does have some plausibility, though. Guelph is just a few minutes off the 401. You set the cruise control at 85 mph, set your rum and coke on the dash, and you're in Detroit in about three hours. It'd be about the same going the other way.
Yesterday I did a few miles on the Trans-Canada. Went as far as Rossport. Exquisitely pretty place. Chatted with the young fellow at the local museum. Rossport used to have the biggest fishing derby in the world. No more. On the road I was following a skinny old biker with a long white beard on a great big Harley. Traded how-ya-doin's when we both stopped for gas. Nice guy. Had to be in his eighties. He was leaning that Road King into the turns like it was a cafe racer. May he live a thousand years.
So I think Hoffa's biggest mistake, other than thinking he was going to take on the Kennedys, who, while not necessarily all mobbed up by that point, certainly came from all mobbed up, was a decision he made, and made on principle, with respect to the phenomenon of owner-operators. An owner-operator is a guy who buys his own truck and then contracts with some shipper, or even better, a manufacturer or grower, to truck goods independently. It's the iconic "independent trucker" of folklore. Stalone made a movie about them. It's a great gig when it works. Not so great most of the time. Over the long term, it's a race to the bottom for the guys in the game. Say you have a load of turnips in south Ontario. You want to take them to Ohio, where they become rutabagas and are worth more money. The local Teamsters carrier will do it for a thousand bucks. Along comes Mr. Independent Trucker, who just went 120 grand into debt to buy a new Peterbilt. He offers to do it for $900. Great! You just saved a hundred bucks! That's just dandy. Then, out of the blue, here comes another independent who went 120 grand into hock three years ago, and he's a few payments behind; he'll do it for $800. Greater yet! Sooner or later some poor schmuck with a 20 year old Mack held together with duct tape and baler twine is gonna offer to move those rutabagas for just enough to cover his gas and maybe feed his kids for a few days.
The independents are well aware that they're in a race to the bottom, and they were well aware of it back in the sixties. Every time they try to organize, half of them park their rigs, and the other half have twice as much work. So the independents went to the Teamsters looking for support. Hoffa declined. His reason? As a union leader he didn't believe that it was his job to negotiate a return on capital. And these independents, when you get right down to it, are capitalists, are they not? Marx would have been proud of Jimmy. Today there are more independents driving trucks across America than there are Teamsters, and it's never been cheaper to get your rutabagas from Ontario to Ohio. Sometimes your principles can be your undoing.
The eighty year old biker reminds me of the last time I did this trip. Stopped at a little campground at Montreal River, so close to Superior that you could stand at the edge of your campsite and piss in the water. I'm there pitching my tent, getting the lawn chair out, starting the camp fire, getting settled. Gonna be a good night. Got the whole place to myself. Oops, here comes Mr. Biker, the full nine yards of Road King hard bags, trunk, the Mrs. in the queen seat.... surely to God he's not gonna... no...no..please...PLEASE DON'T TAKE THE CAMPSITE 2O FUCKING FEET AWAY WHEN THE WHOLE PLACE IS EMPTY!!! But he did. I hate when people do that. Anyway, it worked out. He was a real biker, real as in when people talk about gangs and stuff. From Montreal. Heading back after a business meeting in Winnipeg. His english was a little rough, but helluva decent chap. So he pitches his tent. It's twice the size of mine. He got a cooler out from somewhere. Next time I look he's walking around with a tackle box and a fishing rod. Oh look, they're starting a campfire too... they got firewood in the saddlebags? They've got nicer lawn chairs than me. How the hell does that happen? They're on a bike for God's sake! I was half expecting him to pull a canoe out of one of those saddle bags.
One of the localized exceptions were the building trades in New York City. Building trades unions everywhere in North America have done a pretty good job for their members, but these guys were doing way better than that. They had contracts for the shop stewards - I guess they call them business agents in the building trades, that had them paid their hourly wage anytime any of their members were on the site. Excuse me? That would be pretty much 24-7. It was. Good for them. And while I don't have a lot of fondness for Donald Trump, I was very impressed that he went out of his way to give credit to the building trade union guys in New York City when he wrote The Art of the Deal. A lot of people, when they get to where Mr. Trump got, seem to forget who did the actual sweat and blood labour that got them there.
Another localized exception to the Teamsters high water mark was what happened on the west coast when the IWA and the coastal logging companies went from piece-work to an hourly wage for the guys who cut the trees down. The main plank of the changeover was that nobody was going to be paid less than they'd made under piece-work, so overnight every bucker and faller was making an hourly wage equivalent to what the most productive among them had made under the old regime. That wage scale of course trickled down to the IWA members who had never been on piece-work in the first place. There are welders in southern Ontario today working for the same hourly wage that I made in my little IWA shop in Victoria over thirty years ago. That was a good gig. Good enough that Peter C. Newman had a shit hemorage about it in print; he was utterly aghast at the thought that mere forestry workers were doing the grand tour of Europe with their families, just like their betters in the front offices. I suppose he's breathing easier now.
I've been enjoying the clean air and the trains and the view and walking paths my POW grandaddy walked. But I miss Falling Downs. I'll be heading back soon. The grass is probably a foot high by now.
I wonder what's in all those containers? I'm guessing the eastbound containers are mostly plastic shit from China and the westbound containers are mostly empty.
The trains just keep on coming.
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