The union carriers fell by the wayside because of all the non-union companies that started operating and undercutting wages and benefits that the union carriers were paying their workers. It's not rocket science. It's the same reason manufacturing has moved to the Far East where companies pay minuscule wages compared to operating here in the US.Short answer….deregulation in 1980. Industry was almost entirely unionized in the regulated environment. One by one , union carriers started to fall by the wayside once it became a deregulated free market. For whatever reason they had a hard time being competitive
Why do you think drivers today make nowhere near what we made decades ago relatively speaking? When most of ltl trucking was union, pay and benefit increases were applied equally across all union companies so it didn't pit one company against another. Today workers at any one company have a difficult time getting increases since increased labor costs for that company put them at a disadvantage compared to other companies. It amazes me that these days when there are big driver shortages workers don't see the power we would have over the whole industry if we were organized. What a wasted opportunity. If all of us at all the major ltl companies would just band together and insist on better wages or else we would shut down the whole industry what power we would have. And in that way we would get increases since ALL the carriers would be in the same boat and would all have to raise their rates to compensate for the higher labor costs. Like I said, these times will be a huge missed opportunity if we foolishly let it pass.