Truckers protest to get relief at pump

[yoda]

On a day when Mexicans celebrated their freedom from European oppression — Monday's Cinco de Mayo — Latin American and Punjabi truck drivers who are independent owners lined up on Middle Harbor Road seeking freedom from poverty.
The drivers, their cars and truck cabs were lined up fender-to-fender outside the Union Pacific rail terminal protesting insufficient support for diesel fuel from the motor carrier companies who are their customers.
Four years ago, the companies that dispatch the drivers to carry cargo agreed to pay them every year 5 percent of their fuel costs above $2 per gallon. But in fact, these protesters claimed most of them were not. Instead they claimed they are shouldering $4.50 per gallon themselves.
"We are paying more than we make," said a driver who did not want to be named.
About 50 men standing in small groups — divided by the language they spoke — immersed themselves in intense conversation and held signs encouraging one another to "Fight for Your Rights."
Twenty of the drivers, from the Richard Daniels Transportation Company of Oakland, claim the company has not paid them for the diesel. Drivers for other companies said those motor carriers which use their services recompense them anywhere from 34 cents a gallon to 12 percent of their costs.

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