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Indybay Feature

Truck Drivers Still on Strike at Oakland Port

by upton sinclair (irlandeso [at] riseup.net)
I will post more of a reportback later in the week. I am busy posting pics, updating the main story, and spending time at the docks. Come out and join the strikers for a while if you can. The strike is on indefinitely, as the workers have commited to stay out in solidarity until all the drivers get the same deal. If the workers decide to settle or any authorities decide to attack the strikers I will try and post an update within a half hour(or get someone else too).
strikeowneroperatortruckdriversofcali.jpg
§Aumento Ya!! (A Raise Now!!)
by upton sinclair (irlandeso [at] riseup.net)
huelgaencontradelosbajosprecios.jpg
§Demands
by upton sinclair (irlandeso [at] riseup.net)
truckerstrikedemands.jpg
The list of demands that were develped by drivers based out of the Oakland Port is more extensive and detailed than the demands of the drivers in Southern California. Teamsters organizers that are helping the drivers told them that they will get their list of demands to the drivers down south, to see if they can start coordinating their struggle better.
teamstersportdivisionhelpingout.jpg
Some Teamsters showed up at one of the gates and started handing out flyers and telling the drivers how they will be helping them out, in order to make sure that they get what they are asking for. The Teamsters organizers were going to present the truckers demands to the Oakland Port Authority at a meeting at 3pm today, and help coordinate between the truckers in the Bay Area and the truckers on strike in Southern California.
§Strikers at Maersk Sealand Gate
by upton sinclair (irlandeso [at] riseup.net)
strikersatmaersksealandgate.jpg
§Owner Operators Get the Shaft
by upton sinclair (irlandeso [at] riseup.net)
owneroperatorsgettheshaft.jpg
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Don't like it? Work for a new company
Thanks, dipshits, for shuttting down the highway so that all of us who work for a living have to sit there and listen to you bitch. No, really, we appreciate it. Next time I don't like produce prices I'm going to come and shut down your driveway.
by Lotti
Wow, you're evil. Any job category can have its market manipulated by others so that wages are reduced to subsistence level. That includes jobs that some people assume are guaranteed high wages such as engineering and programming. People also have the right to manipulate the market back.
by james
classic example of one group of working class people siding with the bosses against another group of working class people, who are their true allies. just because you have a different job, doesn't mean your struggles aren't connected. instead of complaining about the truckers shutting down the highway, you should be organizing your workplace and community to go on strike as well, in a show of support. general strike is the only way to end wage slavery once and for all.
by worker2
so very well said!
by Aline/Shannon (cajade1999 [at] hotmail.com)
truck_2.jpgdefxnh.jpg
As oil companies report record profits, trucking companies forced to buy California fuel are on strike. As of 4/27/04, California truckers were paying an average of $2.27/gallon for diesel fuel—56 cents/gallon higher than the national average and 22 cents/gallon higher than their competitors in Arizona. California Trucking Association is seeking an executive order from Governor Schwarzenegger to do the following:

1. Create competition in California’s diesel fuel market
2. Allow federal EPA approved diesel fuel to be sold in California.
3. Request the Attorney General to investigate and prosecute the worst market manipulation since the energy crisis.
4. Prohibit plans underway at the Energy Commission to ration diesel fuel for California fuel users.
5. Investigate the actions of international companies who set (store door) delivered rates at a cost below California fuel prices or refuse fuel surcharges.
6. Repeal the recent action of CARB moving ahead in 2006 with a new oil cartel sanctioned standard based on the theory that the fuel can be cleaner than the new federal standard.

Truckers who transport interstate commerce are required to register with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which requires drivers to carry more intensive insurance and submit to more stringent inspections. They must mark their vehicle on both sides with the legal name under which they operate, and the identification number issued by the FMCSA preceded by the letters US Dot. To break the strike and demoralize strikers, companies who are not properly certified are hauling trailers from Union Pacific property at the Oakland docks by taping other companies’ logos over the information posted on the side of their trucks.
by Just another trucker
Don't worry about the highway being shut down for a short period of time. Worry about not being able to get the produce from the store, because you can't afford to get the gas for your car, you can't afford the payment on your house, or the food you want to get from the store. Trucker's work for less than minimum wage in many cases, the laws for truckers make it nearly impossible to get things to the stores and now the price of fuel is going to shut things down completely. You all just take it for granted that what you want will be available when you want it. GOOD LUCK NOW!
by Doubter
My uncle and cousin are truckers. Even with the skyrocketing cost of diesel factored effecting their pocketing book, they don’t make less minimum wage and would be considered middle class. I have my doubts that in “many cases” truckers are making less than minimum wage.
by JankyHellface
You say your family members are truckers? Well, perhaps your family is working for a larger company.

These folks are with smaller companies and work on a per job basis. Most of which have yet to see a large increase in pay in the past few years - while prices for upkeep, insurance, healthcare, maintenance and fuel (which come out of there own pockets) have increased dramatically. These are folks who do not have the ability to use there capital might of the larger trucker lines to negotiate better deals. They also do not have the might of the Teamsters or ILWU to negotiate better wages. So yea, when everything is factored in alot of these truck drivers are getting less than minimum wages.

On a side note, have you ever been in the situation where your family had to share a 2 bedroom house with 3 families? - alot of these truck drivers are in this situation. Not quite middle class, would you agree?

Alot of the problem has come from these folks who do make a better wage not showing solidarity with these striking truck drivers. (Mostly because they have better job options). These same people, however, show support and solidarity with workers of other countries who are treated the same way these folks are. Seems a little like a double standard to me.

I think it might do a little good to read up on the issue or actually talk to some of these truck drivers before you comment your doubts.

solidarity!
-janky
by die hard diapatcher
All this crying poor trucker drivers. These are the same guys who are cutting the rates. They go to work for these fly by night companys or try to start there own. They wouldn't have these problems if they didn't bring there uncles, brothers & cousins to driver for these companys. Also most the the guys crying about rates haven't increased in the past 10 years have been working that long. Also have you seen some of these local trucks on the road. Doesn't look like there doing much maintance to me. So cry on the doors of the steamship lines there the one's raising rates to there CUSTOMERS an NOT paying the TRUCKING companys.
by Agrees w/ Die hard Dispatcher
Janky,
you are not as much of an expert as you think... I've known alot of these drivers for years, not just a couple of days Many drivers working for various different trucking companies, both big & small). Many own Nice homes, nice cars, have second business' & Property in other countrys & go out of the country for 3 & four months @ a time. Many trucking companies have been paying a fuel surcharge to their drivers as fuel prices started to increase, even when they haven't received as much from the Steamship lines & shipping companies. You cannot get 10 years worth of a raise all in one day... It takes time to negotiate rate increases w/ steamship lines & shippers who may just refuse the increases alltogether. Most trucking companies pay extra to a trucker for hauling freight w/ Hazardous Materials even though steamship lines typically pay nothing extra for this.

These truckers are independant contractors who can work for whoever they want, & can refuse any work they do not want to do, yet shipping companies still have to find away to move everything their customer wants them them to.

No one says truckers aren't intitled to raises in rates there should have been better organization, & negotiations so that there was time to respond. Some truckers have been forced into this strike by others who lied to them & the violence that has gone on & threats against person & truck.
by community supporter
I definitely agree that more organization is required to win this struggle in the long run, and that not all can be won right now. Truckers and the companies they work for, and sometimes create, are also somewhat responsible for cutting each others throats by underbidding each other in an attempt to get more business. Although the whole system that is in place, call it free trade/capitalism/or simple competition, encourages stabbing your fellow worker in the back and the downward spiral that has left these drivers so frustrated that they have gone out on what is essentially a wildcat strike. I also understand that some of these truckers are somehow making a decent living off of the fucked up system that is currently in place, regardless of fuel prices, and that many of these people are cutting some corners in order for this to happen. This seems to involve either screwing over their fellow workers or not being able to do as much maintenance on their trucks as they probably should be doing.

At any rate, I hope that these folks are able to come to some sort of collective agreement to end the strike, but it seems like that will be rather difficult with all the forces involved. In the end it really seems like they should probably take one of these negotiated agreements that the Port is offering and move towards organizing into an association to deal with all the outstanding issues that are left unresolved; otherwise this same sort of a situation will repeat itself down the line as the history of the truckers seems to indicate.
by Doubter
I talked to my uncle and cousin and a couple of their trucker buddies over a game of poker and they confirmed a lot of what dispatcher. They said that it’s ridiculous to think that these guys are working less than minimum wage. That if they are making less than minimum wage they have no one to blame but themselves for underbidding and undercutting their competition.

They also expressed a lot of concern with the Teamsters reaching out to the Owner/Operators. Often times Owner/Operators are the drivers who cross their picket lines and they found it funny that now they are the ones asking people to honor their picket line. They think that the Teamsters are making a huge gamble in supporting these drivers and hope that they will remember this and honor their lines.
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