Strike Won't Work.. Unless.

[emo]

I don't want to make this long - this is my first post to the forum, actually. But, in reading all of the talk about a strike, I can't help but think that we are deluding ourselves. Despite all of the valid points a driver could make about the current state of affairs in the trucking industry - from fuel prices, to insurance costs, to detention pay and shipper practices, to freight rates that remain unchanged from the '80's, etc - none of it matters. It is all regulated by the market, as we all know. Supply and demand. And, it can't be stopped until the number of trucks out on the road decreases to meet the level of demand. The rise in fuel prices and the difficulty in passing it along to the shipper is just another force pushing truckers out of business. The only good news is that someday the balance between supply and demand may inverse and freight rates will increase, but not after alot of trucking companies go out of business as a result of our current recession and rising fuel prices.

The only way to truly effect the situation is to control the supply. But, this would take a massive organizational effort and tremendous leadership and solidarity on behalf of the truckers in this country. So, unless we are willing to begin the task of forming a single, indivisible unit behind a united voice, our concerns mean nothing. In harsh honesty, my only advice would be to leave trucking and strike in the true tradition of today's independent trucker, alone...

[wild horse]

Actually the only way a strike would work is to get the BIG GUYS involved. Y'all know who they are; Schnider, JB, Swift, Western Express, Prime, CR England, etc...

[flatbedPete]

You need to do more reading, some of those big guys are with us, in fact they have started today and will be parked until Monday night

[flatbedPete]

According to the report 86,000 trucks

[broncrider]

can you provide a link to this report pete???

i am very interested in this

[flatbedPete]

Here is the article:

March 29, 30, 31 are the dates that have been set by 4 of the largest trucking companies in the industry, J.B. Hunt, Challenger, Schneider National, and Werner trucking, That's about 70,000 trucks total right there, Trucker to Trucker.com called OOIDA and they have confirmed these dates also for these 4 companies


I W W Union called me tonight and stated that they are indeed supporting the April shutdown, they have committed 16,000 trucks will shut down to show support for our Message to Washington D.C. Now if you figure that each truck runs 500 miles a day & gets 6 miles to the gallon, that’s 83.33 gallons of fuel per truck. now figure that at say $3.80 a gallon & that’s low that comes out to $316.65 worth of fuel not bought that day per truck x 16,000 trucks = $5,066,400.00, and that figure is just that 1 union , that does not include the owner/operators that are shutting down for April 1st, 2008

And here is the link to the blog where Dan Little posted it:
[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.

[flatbedPete]

Sorry for the delay, I was taking a bubble bath and enjoying some of the finer things in life

[badsey]

Fuel costs are too high and the surcharges can't catch up fast enough. This is a good time for a strike with all the political banter going on.

If we do this right we can make positive changes.

Roads and gas stations need to be shut down and people warned of the strike.

Park'em and bring the grill (I'll bring the food)

[aussiejosh]

Thats right drivers united you'll never be divided

[Spacer]

Looking at history, attempts to centralize and control an attempt to control the market usually fail, which is fortunate, as successful attempts seem to end up making things worse.
The Great Depression appears to be a fine example, where the market would have corrected within a year or so, large-scale meddling drew it out and made it worse.
Looks like we have something similar happening now on a more widespread economic basis.

Besides, the folks who would suffer first, and most, will be the rank and file Americans, and our image isn't doing all that well lately.