Why a strike? The CSA 2010 will cripple trucking.

Big carriers don't have the capacity to pick up the slack if enough independents and owner operators decided to strike or take a week or two off at the same time. The big carriers only account for about 10% of the capacity nationwide. The other 90% of freight is hauled by carriers with 20 or fewer trucks. As I have stated previously, you only need to stop the fuel tankers to stop the trucks from moving. And the threat of blocks hanging from over passes, bricks being thrown through windshields or tires being slashed did have an impact during the strike of the late 1970's. Today, there are too many who live paycheck to paycheck to make a strike viable unless you stop access to fuel. If a strike were called and fuel tankers targeted then the strike might have a chance of working. If tanker drivers knew that they could be shot or blown up if they moved their trucks, then they would not move. I don't advocate that type of behavior, but that is the union way of doing things when people don't cooperate when they want to strike. Of course, another problem is issues. What do you want and what do you want to accomplish?

If you really want things to change then you need to make your voices heard by contacting state and national representatives. Get involved in the political system. VOTE!!! Of those who complain the most, I wonder how many actually even bother to vote, much less send an email, write a letter or call their representative? You don't really need to strike to get something accomplished. Decide what you want, get as many people together as possible and start contacting your representatives. Make your voices known.

 

Count me in. Wouldn't be much different than what I am doing now anyways sitting around waiting for decent work.

 

Im on Strike NOW! csa2010,fuel,HOS, just walked away today after 10yrs proudly just took a job thats pays 12.00hr to prep motorcycles will i miss OTR sure will but they aint getting no more blood or tears shed by me or my family anymore

 

Nobody will notice. It took 18 months and an election before anybody took the Tea Party serious.
Saying you are on strike now and then going someplace quietly is not making a statement. Good Luck.

 

Hey all;
On the strike issue. It will happen again. When , I am not a card reader. But be sure history repeats it self..
I will start soft and get ugly from there.
But may have some lasting effects. Depends on the ones involved.

Defense. When , You take on the responsibility of carring a concealed weapon you do not have the right to only protecting your self. It is rather a responsibility that you now owe others around you.

Training ? Yes that would also seem rather obvious in any case. I did not speak of some one joining in on an exchange of fire. Rather an unselfish act of bravery and responsibility to those around him. Training is required by most states. Offensive moves are a different game,.

Had it been your wife or daughter and you found out later that I was in that crowd armed and had many times more "Training" than Joe blow LEO and yet did nothing to stop what actually happened ? You would now be holding me accountable for {Why did you do nothing} ...

IMHO if one is too carry , they should pursue extra training to be able to Handle additional situations.
In many cases if you take a good look at the security officers that are in place you will find fat out of shape and even lazy looking so called cops or security LEO. The training they have is more of a joke rather then some sort of Elite team personal.
They do not get paid squat. Anyone that thinks these security personal are going to lay their lives on the line for you for $12.00 an hour has a lot to figure out in life.

I have been in combat shooting styled competitions for years and shot against many cops. It is sad to see just how bad they really are.. Some do rather well, some are very good, and some are extremely pathetic.

I will agree with you that in certain cases the idea of an armed citizen interfering could cause more problems than they would help. At that point it would be best if they just hit the floor along with the rest of them.

Our political powers are not blameless in all of this. They have for years been cramming crap down our throats and so much so that at times it can cause certain people that have been on the edge to cross the line.
This does not excuse the criminal in any way. But does at times show us how one became that way. Again still no excuse for murder.

No different than an up coming strike would toss at us. Things will happen that will be illegal and just plain wrong. Yet it will happen with no excuse and no way to justify it latter ..
When this happens we all best hope there are a few good truckers left that will dare come to our defense. Striking in it self would not be wrong but many will do wrong things. Lets not allow it to be any of us.

 

The tactics described by G/Man are real. This is what happened back then.
It worked then and shut down many parts of the trucking industry.

It was not that all trucks stopped running. Rather trucks going to certain places stopped running. That is what caught the attention of the powers.

Fuel was the biggest issue. Back then we all set it up for one day. No fuel was purchased in the state of Indiana. 1 day made a huge difference.

Trucks lined up and drove both ways through Indiana at 35 MPH and we let no one get on or off that road. The scales closed.
The money Indiana lost that day was huge.

For those still wanting unions ? The unions are the ones that did most of the brick tossing. Tire slashing, etc. Oh yes they did.
I do not know of any independents that did anything illegal.

Still want a union ?

Service has always been best from Independents and the Owner/Ops.
Company drivers just got a pay check and most did not give a rats butt.
They still do not get paid enough to risk anything for.
Seeing as most of the cost of our fuel is a Tax, The states and feds are the ones to blame for that. Farm fuel is tax free. Not yours.. And don't get caught with it in your truck. To the best of my knowledge there are no real tax breaks to any of us that own and operate a truck or trucks.
No low interest loans, and zero state or federal help of any kind.

They subsidized the Rail road and then gave them a lot of your freight. Not only that they used your tax dollars to do it. Even after they found states in the past changing illegal road or axle taxes and gave them orders to pay that money back to the trucks , did you all get it back ??????

I got some of it but never got all of it. And I never will.
It is a law that the FSC goes to the truck. But there is no way to enforce it, so you will not see it. That makes the brokers criminals , yet no way to change it nor do anything about it. If we stopped pulling their freight till they paid fair and square they would have no choice but to pay what was due. Still , won't happen... Too many will not run empty as said before by others , they live pay check to pay check and would not dare run empty on a principal.

I am not independently wealthy but have at times told brokers to find someone else to pull their cheap freight and left there empty . Over 1000 miles at times.. Yep , it hurt my wallet but I felt better knowing that the broker did not get that load pulled at the last minute and it would only take a few more times of that happening before he lost that account.

 

What happened to all of you in april 2008? It was well publicized and all we could get to shutdown were about 10,000. I shut down for 2months and went back hauling in time to get hit with 5 dollar fuel. I shut down again this time for a year. There will have to be a lot more participation before I put it on the line again.

 

Yeah I remember the 2008 threat of a strike and they even covered it on the news here locally. But it wasn't well organized.
On the other hand what you are talking about taking 2 months off and then a year off was more of a personal decission and not part of an effort to participate in a strike. Frustration runs high in our industry. Sounds to me like you became a victim of that yourself. We all get that way from time to time I think.
Starting out I thought about quiting every day for the first 6 months. It took me another 6 months to adjust and reluctantly accept my new career choice.

 

Something that some of you may not realize is that many of the taxes that are on fuel is a percentage of the selling price. In other words, the higher the cost of fuel the more taxes are collected by the government. It is not in the best interest of the government to have fuel selling too cheap. Some of the spending that governments made were the result of making projections based upon fuel being at a certain level. They made their projections when fuel was at $5/gallon. They started spending money with the expectation of fuel staying at $5/gallon or more. When prices dropped to $2.50/gallon it caused a shortage in tax income.

 

The 2 months off was participation- the year off was frustration and necessity of making a living.