Um, Sir… why is everything terrible, radioactive, and somehow still about bathrooms?

Emily and Samie are joined by Ryan Johnson, a veteran truck driver and Teamster, to unpack how trucking, labor rights, and basic human dignity collide. Ryan breaks down how trucking is structured to reward long hours, unpaid waiting time, and “pay by the mile” systems that leave workers absorbing all the risk — including the fight to secure something as basic as bathroom access.

The conversation escalates (quickly) into fracking, radioactive wastewater, and how hazardous materials are moved and dumped with little enforcement, putting workers and communities at risk. It’s bleak, sharp, and painfully funny — a reminder that everything is connected, and none of it works without labor.

CHECK OUT
Snohomish Podcast Network
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
General Teamsters Local Union No. 38
HB 1706, Concerning truck drivers ability to access restroom facilities (2022) WA State Legislature
Trucker Resource, Port of Everett

LISTEN
From Pitch To Puget Sound - upcoming new show!
Good Time Girls in Bellingham - Bellingham History

WATCH

Ice Road Truckers, The History Channel
Poisoned Waters (full documentary), PBS Frontline
Geochemistry of produced waters sourced from the Marcellus Shale, Justin Makey, PhD, YouTube

READ

America’s Radioactive Secret, By Justin Nobel (2020), Rolling Stone

I’m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End, By Ryan Johnson, Medium
I Am A Twenty Year Truck Driver, Part 2: How Truckers Are Paid, By Ryan Johnson, Medium

Radioactive Shadow Workers: The treatment of oil and gas field waste is a dirty industry’s dirtiest secret, By Justin Nobel, Sierra Club Magazine

Truckers Petition Feds to Enforce HAZMAT Rules on Oil and Gas Waste, By Dustin Renaud, Earth Justice

Orphan Well Explosion in Wayne National Forest Injures 6, Including 5 Critically, The Intelligencer

SUPPORT
Worker-led labor organizations and strike funds supporting drivers, warehouse workers, and port labor.

Environmental justice groups fighting toxic dumping and injection wells, especially in Appalachia.

Local and national efforts pushing for enforcement of existing hazmat and labor laws (not just new bills).

BUY. IF YOU MUST

Union-made goods
Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret by Catherine Coleman Flowers (2020)

Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster by Abrahm Lustgarten (2012)

Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation by Candy J. Cooper and Marcina Wheeler (2020)

Not radioactive road salt. Ever. Just… don’t.

LEARN MORE
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Basics of hazardous materials law, bills of lading, National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA)
How to read rail and truck placards