LOS ANGELES-The huge American publication USA Today with a daily print circulation of more than three million readers and a reported 23 million downloads from its mobile site, presented its readers with a starkly grim series of stories this week, after a year-long investigation, describing the lot of Los Angeles port truck drivers as “indentured servants”.

“You know how bad Uber is for drivers,” a headline reads. “Port truckers have it much worse. Much worse.”

The series title: “Rigged.”

One of the first drivers profiled  is Samuel Talavera Jr., who did, according to the investigation, “everything his bosses asked.”

“Most days, the trucker would drive more than 16 hours straight hauling LG dishwashers and Kumho tires to warehouses around Los Angeles, on their way to retail stores nationwide. He rarely went home to his family. At night, he crawled into the back of his cab and slept in the company parking lot.

“For all of that, he took home as little as 67 cents a week.”

The newspaper says most drivers are immigrants, many of whom signed contracts that were written in confusing language, and they wind up in deep debt to their employers.

“Starting in 2008, truckers say, they were pressured to take on $100,000 truck leases that put them into debt to their employers. Every week they pay hundreds of dollars toward the truck, hoping that seven years or so they will own it.  

“The trucks are so expensive that many drivers are forced to work 15 to 20 hours a day to make ends meet. Even then, some drivers wind up owing their employers money at the end of a full work week.”

The story quotes Stanford Law School professor William Gould, one of the U.S’s top labor experts and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board saying “This makes Uber seem relatively genteel.”

Read the story here.