“And what happens if you didn’t have a good night’s sleep? Doesn’t matter. “Drivers are micromanaged, but anything can happen at the border during COVID, with that stress passed down to us,” he said. border as well, but found himself and his peers being blamed for that. “As if somehow too much music or a safe call to pass the time will delay our work,” said the 52-year-old from Edmonton. Sergio Machado said some of his peers have even been placed in situations where their vehicles are camera-monitored to make sure they don’t use hands-free devices, or do anything else that managers believe will delay deliveries. “All anyone cares about is whether you get the delivery done on time. “Even if some companies did give you decent times with your family when you aren’t working on the road, all of that went out the window when the pandemic happened,” he said. Phillip Adler, a trucker in his 20s who lives in rural Manitoba, scoffs at the idea of any work-life balance. “An average day could look like 14 hours at least… Just imagine yourself basically living in a truck.

“You’re put through a horrible ringer even without all those pandemic circumstances attached,” he said. But Degenstein now spends more days wondering whether all those extra hours without any breaks and dire conditions are worth it anymore. “I got into this career after being a trained and registered nurse for nearly 15 years,” Degenstein said in an interview, while on a rare night off after what seemed like an eternity.Īt the time he made the switch, it was better money than his nursing shifts. No wonder, many of them said, there is an unprecedented labour shortage for truckers in Canada.īNN Bloomberg is waiting on comment from the federal government, several departments from which have not yet responded after multiple requests. These are the voices from the frontlines of the supply chain concerns that have spiralled globally - causing breakneck deadlines in an already frenzied sector, with expectations that keep rising for transporters despite stalled wages and declining work conditions. And for others, it's been worse, among a sea of problems they believe are only getting more dire - without governments, managements or any such authorities paying attention, they said. In recent interviews with BNN Bloomberg, more than a dozen truckers and transportation workers across Canada said they’ve been through the same.įor some, it's an occurrence that continues to happen. (Submitted)ĭegenstein’s memory of that time is not an isolated incident. Maybe, just maybe.” Dwayne Degenstein is seen. He can get his shower when he’s done delivering this product. “It’s like, sure, this guy’s been living on the road for five days now but that doesn’t matter. In those moments, all he could do was try to get used to it, calling it a “new normal” or anything as such to keep doing his job so he could keep paying his bills. There were no washrooms, no showers, no open places to eat a hot meal and maybe, perhaps if we’re lucky after more than 12 hours at work, a porta-potty was on the side of the road for us.” “All the stops you could think of weren’t accommodating us anymore. “I remember feeling stranded,” Degenstein said.

It was the early days of the pandemic and the 42-year-old trucker from Calgary was on the road. So, recalling it now is a memory that hurts Dwayne Degenstein all over again - like a debilitating wound he never healed from, but rather learnt to live with. He’s shoved it under a rug just tightly enough not to remember it.

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