Download PDF of this full issue: v4n1.pdf (8 MB)

Keep On Truckin'???

By VVAW

The massive road blockades and work stoppages by long-haul truck drivers throughout December has brought much comment by government officials (read big business) and the mass media. In editorials, news comments and government statements the thousands of blockading truckers have been called ?childish? and said to be just having ?temper tantrums?. They have attacked the strikers in an all out campaign to isolate them from the rest of the American people by saying that the truckers have no right to block roads as opposed to other citizens, and that the burden of the ?fuel crisis? falls on all the peoples' shoulders. The truckers know this, but what has caused these people to put their life savings, a $35,000.00 truck, on the line and to violate the law?

The majority of trucking is done by company-owned trucks with hired drivers. These are the people who mostly make up the members of the Teamsters Union, and the largest part of their yearly road fees are paid by the company. The rest of the trucking industry is made up of independent owners who hire their rigs out for hauling, and taking the routes the companies find too expensive. They must pay all the highway taxes, fees, and fuel costs themselves. So they are the hardest hit by the fuel shortages and the lowered speed limits. Besides paying for all these costs, the independents pay anywhere from $500 to $900 per month in mortgage on their trucks. Then they must pay their own maintenance costs, such as $120 for a tire (18 to a truck).

A deisel truck is not like your car. The slower you run your car engine, the better gas mileage you get with little loss of engine pulling power. A deisel, however, must run at high RPMs to get good pulling power for their heavy shipments. So, a lower speed limit means that a truck will still use the same amount of fuel as at higher speeds since the engine will be going just as fast. Thus, a deisel will use more fuel at a slower speed for an equal distance. With deisel fuel running as high as 60( a gallon, the trip from New York to Chicago and back has risen from $200 to over $300 in just four weeks.

Each driver is required to rest 8 hours a day while driving, and with reduced speed limits, the amount of time to make a run has increased 25%. Since truckers make their money by the number of loads they haul, the quicker they get to one destination, the sooner they can start another haul. With all these increased burdens, the independents are being forced out of work, something that any person would fight against.

So what started as a spontaneous struggle by a few men has mushroomed into a fullscale struggle by workers to save their jobs.

The truckers have also learned a few things about the police, the same way anti-war demonstrators found themselves at the other end of a nightstick. As one trucker, who had trained in the military for riot duty against demonstrators, put it, ?Now I know why they call them pigs. I fought 18 months in Vietnam. For what? To get harassed? To get a little justice?? The strikers were just protesting an intolerable situation, but that did not deter the highway patrol from making the drivers and smashing the windows of their rigs.

The press would have us believe that the truckers have no right to fight this destruction of their livelihood, that they are hurting the other average guys in their blockades. If the fuel ?crisis? was due to a real lack of oil resources, that may be true. However, as explained in the article on the fuel situation in another part of this paper, this crisis is almost solely due to the wheelings and dealings of the major oil companies in their efforts to maxamize their profits. They are not in the business of making profits. Even though the companies knew well ahead of time of the impending lack of fuel from the Arab States, they cut back production of oil in this country. Only 6% of US oil is directly sent from the Mid-East, yet the government and oil companies spend thousands trying to convince the people that the Arabs caused this crisis.

The demands of the truckers are just. Many other workers are being layed off because of the crisis and many more will be out of work. Should the average worker be forced (as is happening) to bear all the burden of this well-orchestrated crisis? The truckers have shown that they and the rest of working Americans have real power against this blatant attempt to rip them off.... the shutting down of production, the cessation of work.

VVAW/WSO members in Ohio have been supporting the truckers. They have met them at the truck stops and have helped to organize defense funds for those people arrested from the blockades. Because we feel that the American people should not shoulder the terrible weight of this crisis, that it must fall on the profits of the oil companies, we support the truckers demands. Everyone who has had to pay exhorbitant gas prices, has had to freeze at night and has listened to the oil companies report huge profit margins, should stand firmly behind the truckers. As the drivers said, "We're doing this for every American, not just the truckers. The average guy is feeling the pinch too."

RAISE THE SPEED LIMIT!

FREEZE DEISEL PRICES!

COMPLETE FUEL FILLUPS!