Yesterday I posted a Sneak Peek of a video I’ll be posting on harassment in the trucking industry.  It featured an interview with Ellen Voie, President & CEO of Women In Trucking.  Today I received this comment from her brother and I wanted to address his concerns formally:

Beverly,

I am Ellen Voie’s brother. I don’t know what impression Ellen made on you, or what you wish to do, but I think you are missing Ellen’s goal to help start a forum for women drivers to speak out against abuses and to join together in a network that helps the profession. The Dan Rather expose’ doesn’t tell the whole story about the women who do feel well trained and equipped to drive semi’s. I hope you will interview those who are happy in their profession as well as those who feel they have been harmed and harrassed.

My Response:

First, thank you so much for posting! I am grateful that you have opened up this discussion and that your sister allowed me to interview her on this topic and I sincerely hope others join in.  I do realize and deeply appreciate that women truckers love their jobs.  That’s precisely why it’s so tragic when a co-worker who feels comfortable treating them in a lewd or sexually explicit manner jeopardizes any one of these women’s careers.

Your sister represents one approach to affecting change in the trucking industry.   And, I did speak with a woman involved in the class action suit.  She didn’t hate her job.  She LOVED it. There are powerful lawyers and well financed lobbyists representing the trucking industry.  So, the critical question becomes, who is advocating for the victim?   Because while it’s easy to see it from the side of the employer that these are the rumblings of a disgruntled employee, or the women asked for it, or want a quick payday, it’s far harder to risk speaking out for the innocent victim whose only offense was that she was a woman in a job that is traditionally male.

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