What happens when the country’s stance on marijuana use begins to liberalize but a company facing a driver squeeze doesn’t go along?
That will be the test at J.B. Hunt, and it was one of the more intriguing topics brought up by Cowen transportation analyst Jason Seidl at the company’s transportation conference in Boston Thursday.
Seidl discussed the fact that J.B. Hunt has long tested for marijuana by using hair samples, a method that the Trucking Alliance, a group of large companies that includes J.B. Hunt, continues to lobby for use of hair testing as the preferred method to test for the presence of marijuana.
But regardless of the method of testing, the question Seidl posed ultimately boils down to whether such a strict no-tolerance policy for hiring drivers who have marijuana in their systems continues to make sense if the basic activity–smoking pot—continues to lose its illegal status.
Brad Hicks, the executive vice president of dedicated for J.B. Hunt, made clear the company wasn’t backing down. “I think it will continue to reduce the applicant pool,” he said. Hicks said he has not seen evidence that what might be assumed to be greater use of marijuana because of its changing status is increasing the number of failed tests at J.B. Hunt, “but I think that could be that applicants know we’ve done this for so long that they don’t apply.”
Instead, Hicks said, “they seek out a carrier where users understand they don’t test that way.”
“I think it will be a continuing impact point,” Hicks added. There will be an effect on driver supply, at least to companies with such a zero-tolerance policy. “As more states legalize, it will take applicants out of the pool,” he said.
Driver availability was a major portion of the discussion at the Cowen conference. Eric McGee, Hunt’s executive vice president of highway services–which includes its truckload operations–said retention of existing drivers has been made easier by the fact that they’re making more money.
Hunt has not had an across-the-board increase in driver pay, McGee said. They have increased pay “at various times…in some places, three times, other places, just once.” The increases have been done on a regional or fleet basis. “What we have seen is that drivers are staying and the turnover is doing really well,” McGee said. “They’re happy making more money, their paychecks are more stable, so they are taking full advantage of running inside this market.”
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. Attracting new drivers has been a challenge, he said, and it’s been at the company’s dedicated division as well as its truckload activities.
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