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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.

Mr Khan’s is one of a growing chorus of Indian trucking songs, the soundtrack to a shift in the freight industry. Gurinder Singh Khalsa, the chairman of Sikhs PAC, a Sikh political organisation, says there are approximately 150,000 Sikhs in trucking, 90% of whom are drivers. Those numbers are growing rapidly, with 18,000 Sikhs entering the industry in 2017 alone. The North American Punjabi Trucking Association (NAPTA) estimates that Sikhs control about 40% of trucking in California (Sikhism is closely associated with Punjab, a region that straddles India and Pakistan).

This is an extension of a trend that began farther north; Sikhs already play an outsize part in Canadian trucking. NAPTA, which is based in California but seeks to represent Sikh truckers in both America and Canada, was formed this year. Last October, Sikhs PAC joined other organisations to protest against new trucking regulations. This is not the only way Sikh truckers are making their presence felt. A network of Indian truck stops is spreading along the main routes, serving some fine daal and naan bread.

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 gruelling, 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. In February, for the first time, Overdrive magazine, the self-described “Voice of The American Trucker”, featured a Sikh driver on its cover.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Sikhs in semis"

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Dem bannas move from roach motels to Trucking!  I met a few who moved from Roach Motel to Hilton five Star.  They also own an Augment Reality company and working with the US military on target enhancement!

You can't keep coolie people down!  Abie guh rule the world and rule Guyana!!

FM

Nearly half of the motels in the U.S. are owned by Indian Americans.

Six years ago, Pawan Dhingra, a newly-appointed sociology professor at Tufts University, set out to examine why such an ubiquitous and distinctly American roadside fixture became so popular among this community, focusing on a surge of Gujarati motel keepers who contributed to the "Patel motel" phenomenon.

Mr. Dhingra chronicled the findings in his new book, “Life Behind The Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream.”

https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarea...-u-s-motel-industry/


Sunil
Baseman posted:

Dem bannas move from roach motels to Trucking!  I met a few who moved from Roach Motel to Hilton five Star.  They also own an Augment Reality company and working with the US military on target enhancement!

You can't keep coolie people down!  Abie guh rule the world and rule Guyana!!

Well bhai sorry to burst the bubble, Sikhs aren't  Coolie people.

Django
Django posted:
Baseman posted:

Dem bannas move from roach motels to Trucking!  I met a few who moved from Roach Motel to Hilton five Star.  They also own an Augment Reality company and working with the US military on target enhancement!

You can't keep coolie people down!  Abie guh rule the world and rule Guyana!!

Well bhai sorry to burst the bubble, Sikhs aren't  Coolie people.

I hate to bust yuh bubble, the people I was referring to were not Sikhs, they were coolies, the type you like to put down and talk down to!!

FM
Baseman posted:
Django posted:
Baseman posted:

Dem bannas move from roach motels to Trucking!  I met a few who moved from Roach Motel to Hilton five Star.  They also own an Augment Reality company and working with the US military on target enhancement!

You can't keep coolie people down!  Abie guh rule the world and rule Guyana!!

Well bhai sorry to burst the bubble, Sikhs aren't  Coolie people.

I hate to bust yuh bubble, the people I was referring to were not Sikhs, they were coolies, the type you like to put down and talk down to!!

I am puzzled with the coolie description,  what you saying the sheeple are describes as such ?

Django
Django posted:
Baseman posted:
Django posted:
Baseman posted:

Dem bannas move from roach motels to Trucking!  I met a few who moved from Roach Motel to Hilton five Star.  They also own an Augment Reality company and working with the US military on target enhancement!

You can't keep coolie people down!  Abie guh rule the world and rule Guyana!!

Well bhai sorry to burst the bubble, Sikhs aren't  Coolie people.

I hate to bust yuh bubble, the people I was referring to were not Sikhs, they were coolies, the type you like to put down and talk down to!!

I am puzzled with the coolie description,  what you saying the sheeple are describes as such ?

You seem puzzled a lot these days!!  Maybe you are just messed up!!

FM
Baseman posted:
Django posted:
Baseman posted:
Django posted:
Baseman posted:

Dem bannas move from roach motels to Trucking!  I met a few who moved from Roach Motel to Hilton five Star.  They also own an Augment Reality company and working with the US military on target enhancement!

You can't keep coolie people down!  Abie guh rule the world and rule Guyana!!

Well bhai sorry to burst the bubble, Sikhs aren't  Coolie people.

I hate to bust yuh bubble, the people I was referring to were not Sikhs, they were coolies, the type you like to put down and talk down to!!

I am puzzled with the coolie description,  what you saying the sheeple are describes as such ?

You seem puzzled a lot these days!!  Maybe you are just messed up!!

Nah man ,sometimes you all doan mek sense with the centrist leanings.

Django
Django posted:
Baseman posted:
Django posted:
Baseman posted:
Django posted:
Baseman posted:

Dem bannas move from roach motels to Trucking!  I met a few who moved from Roach Motel to Hilton five Star.  They also own an Augment Reality company and working with the US military on target enhancement!

You can't keep coolie people down!  Abie guh rule the world and rule Guyana!!

Well bhai sorry to burst the bubble, Sikhs aren't  Coolie people.

I hate to bust yuh bubble, the people I was referring to were not Sikhs, they were coolies, the type you like to put down and talk down to!!

I am puzzled with the coolie description,  what you saying the sheeple are describes as such ?

You seem puzzled a lot these days!!  Maybe you are just messed up!!

Nah man ,sometimes you all doan mek sense with the centrist leanings.

Nah, you are confused, lost, adrift!!

FM

Not surprising, America is the land of opportunity yet people like cribby, ronan et al blame Indos for the chafe of Afros.  Cribby et al should take this as a lesson in how to drag yourself up by the bootstrap. 

FM

One sikh truck driver overran the stop sign, killed and maimed the entire bus load of young hockey players. Another sikh, forgot to lower his truck dumpster, drove into the fabrications of an overpass bridge, millions of dollars were involved. 

White trucking company that I deal wth complain about how the sikhs are lowering the prices for freight forwarding which is an expensive part of manufacturing costs. 

S
seignet posted:

One sikh truck driver overran the stop sign, killed and maimed the entire bus load of young hockey players. Another sikh, forgot to lower his truck dumpster, drove into the fabrications of an overpass bridge, millions of dollars were involved. 

White trucking company that I deal wth complain about how the sikhs are lowering the prices for freight forwarding which is an expensive part of manufacturing costs. 

This is good for business like ours. We mostly use UPS and ABF for shipments and we use OEC and Alba for freight from overseas. Our freight is massive but that we can deal with. Thanks to that skont, Trump, it is the tariffs which we have been paying lately that worries us as we cannot pass all of it through. Thankfully, we are still a very profitable company but would be much more profitable if it wasn't for Trump's tariffs.

FM

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