Poll: Truckers Strike - When Will Truckers Stand Together? IF Ever?

now ive heard all this mess about truckers standing together for many many years and those that say they never will are wrong they will and they have when its a worthy cause. ive been envolved in a few shut downs sodly none succsesfull and there are reasons for that.
first you cant strike , your not a union and the unions will not support you never have and never will the union is out for the union and nothing else.
next you can not shut down a major highway or any highway for that matter it happens to be illegal and they can and will tow your truck and give you a rather large fine to boot . fight the national guard not adviseabel they can walk thru you.at best you wind up in federal prision band you could wind up dead them boys have been known to shoot and they do have big guns.
strike for the price of fuel well that wont work either the fuel is purchased from other countrys and wall street and the big oil companys set the price on it .
just because you are a truck driver does not mean you can violate the law just dosent work that way.
can you shut down? sure you can as long as you dont break the law, you can park them in a truck stop and in most cases a rest area and stay parked as long as you want.
as far as a shut down well you can probably do that but as hard as times are wright now dont be surprised if most drivers wont do it and calling them names aint gonna do any good , you cant expect a man to lose is truck and his livlyhood on the maybe we cam make it better , it aint gonns happen and all those that have went befor and shut down for various reasons know what im saying it has to be done right and for all the right reasons and no you cant strike against the us goverment that sure wont work thats been tried to.
so give it some serious thought before you start talking strike or shut down and what it might cost you and what you might get out of it n.
happy trailes
southernpride

 

NOW FELLOWS AND LADYS: i have heard talk abouta strike quite a bit lately and for starters i would agree it would be a good thing BUT first of all you cant strike your not a union and you wont get any support from the union they never have and they neve will the union is for the union and nothing else.
now if you keep going till we all get it together and thats a big if it can work but you got to no what you can and can not do.
i read a post from a lady driver who ask a couple of questions and that in itself is not a problem but she like a lot of drivers just dont no what you can and cant do.
first and foremost you can not break the law period. now the ladyy ask when are the drivers ever going to stand together. my answer to that is when they have a common goal that they all can agree on then they can shut down they have before and they will again when the time is right .
she then ask when we we stand against the national guard now im not by any means talking bad about the lady but its evident she hasent been out here to long and thats ok we all have to learn BUT if your are so enclined as to engage the national guard you need to no that the guard is a part of the us miitary and they can and will walk right thru you at best you will wind up in a federal pen at worst you could wind up dead to me either is not a pleasent thought , they do carry guns and they can and will use them the us military is not known for retreat.
can you have a shut down , o yes you can its been done before on more then one occasion and the reason they all failed is they went about it the wrong way. YOU CAN NOT SHUT DOWN THE US GOVERMENT. an indiviual state , o yes you can and that is the root of most of our problems contrary to popular belief why because there greedy and its that simple.
for example the big fancy scales you have to got thru o there nice got fancy lighting , fancy automatic scales , a lot of parking now who do you think payed for those super coops you did , and you no you dont buy anything second class you got plenty of money so they just take some more with there fines and regulaion and make them fancy and you just keep on paying bout every time you cross one , the federal goverment did not pay for them.
you buy a fuel permit that gives you permission to buy fuel in each state , then you py tax on that fuel when you buy it , but thats ok you got plenty of money fill it up. but every body wants to blame the goverment well the govedrment didnt do that either.
if your going to shut down great but no what your shutting down for and no it cause and affect.
when the time comes and im sure it will my trucks will be parked and they will stay parked till it is all setteled but they wont be parked in the middle of a highway.i dont do jail very well.
good luck to all and happy trailes --------southernpride

 

FIRST let me say it would not be a strike we are not union thankfully and the union will not support us they never have they are for the union nothing else.
it would be a shutdown and can we do it ? sure we can no law against shutting your truck down. how do we do it ? well its really not all that complicated the problem is we as truckers have no leadership why? think about it , all of us are going all over the country in every direction always on the go always in a hurry most of us are never in one place long enough to hear current news for example this last shut down that was supposed to have happened in may , i heard about it after it was over, cant very well take part after it all over. why? because it was not organised and no leader ship, no representation and for any shut down to be succcesfull you have to have it there is just to many of us which is a good thing but we cant act if we dont no.
there is nothing id rather see happen then a good shut down . why ? because ive been in this business all my life and im more then familure with all the problems all of us face and quite frankly it pissess me off that we cant do anything about it and because of that fact we are taken advantage of time and time again the goverment and each and every state jump on us like a dog on a bone repeatedly and continuasly . WHY? because they can and they can get away with it WHY ? because we arent organised enough to do anything about it. if we were it would be a different story believ it.
now dont get me wrong im not by any means wanting every one to form a union im in fact im dead set against unions and i for one will never join one im an independent owner operator, i lease to no one and i work for no one and im to old and set in my ways to change now .
but every couple of yeares the effort to shut down comes up and i hope some day it comes together and i commend the guys that try to shut down a lot have lost time and money trying but by god they did try and if you notice every time they try the get a little bigger and thats the way it starts BUT you got to shut down for the right reasons and the right way.
for examp[le you cant BREAK THE LAW, you cant shut down a highway or an interstate no body wants to go to jail and thats a sure way to do it and dont say they cant ive been there they #### well can. you cant drag a man out of his truck because he didnt or cant shut down, that will get you shot and put in jail , you cant break the law. can a shut down be accomplished without breaking the law ? O COURSE IT CAN and if and when it comes the right way you gain the respect of all the people who in turn will support the shuit down and that will go a long wau in acheving the goals you set out for ..
fuel well thats tough most of it dosent belong to us kind a hard to tell anothr country what price to sell it for , but there are many other thing we could change to make things a lot easier , think about how much you pay in taxes each year both to the goverment and each individual state and the states are worse then the goverment you pay for a fuel permit that enabels you to buy fuel in each and every state then on top of that you have to pay taxes on each and evry gallon you buy is that right HELL NO can you do somthing about it HELL YES but we have to be organised to get it done ther is a helluva lot more of us then there are of them.
can we do it , hell yes its a free countryt we can do as we please but it takes all of us to get it done .
now i think eventualy it will get done sooner or later we will get enough of the obuse to get it together and the sooner the better but it does take time . BUT TO GET IT DONE YOU GOT TO START THINKING ABOUT EACH OTHER AND YOUR PROFESSION.
just think about it and think about all the money the goverment and each state take from you every day when you itemise it your sure to get pissed off and only YOU can stop it but it has to be a concerted effort buy all of us .
good luck to all .------southernpride

 

i just read your post and although i disagree on a couple of points you made i do agree with others. i no there are drivers that if a shut down occurs they cant shut down and nothing can be done about it and they should not be forced to take part you cant ask a man to give up his livlyhood and a company drivere would most lilly be doing just that that would defeat the whole purpose of a shut down but eventually there has to be a shut down you can run a truck for free and you cant work for free if our way of life is to continue it has to come . and writing your congressmen is like spitting in the wind there the root of the problem if you mention truck in your mail they dont even read it they simply throw it in the trash hell they wont even answer your phone call.
but we as american drivers have the wright to work and make a decent living and congress and each and every state just dont care to them we are an atm machine any time they have a pet project, no problem the trucks have plent of money all we have to do is make another permit , raise the price of there tag, raise the price of fuel, or make another scale no problem and as much as a lot of people dont like it the only way to change things is to shut them down nothing gets the attention of anyone better then to reach deep into there pocket.
i mean no disrepect but after almost 50 years in this business ive seen it get worse and worse and it all falls on the goverment and even more so the individual states all of them we dont have a choice it has to be done
the best to you and yours ------southernpride

 

now as far as a strike you got to remember you cant legally strike your not a union but a shut down o yes you can no law anywher says you cant turn that ignition off when ever you want to and like the lady says viloence wont work all that will do is get some hurt and some in jail neither would be a good thing an violence spreas and rapidly.
ive been envolved in several shut downs and im sad to say none were succesfull in one in warren ohio i wound up with three bullet holes in my trailer and two in my tractor and at the time didnt even no there was a strike things like this wew dont need and as a matter of fact they caught the shooter a man and his son that worked ata gas station they had nothing to do with a truck trouble attracts trouble i think we have enough troubel to go around.
if and when a shut down comes im ready i shut down for the last one but it didsnt do any good but it takes some one that can organise the better part of the business and that is a hard thing to do BUT when it happens and i think it will ill be out front doing whatever i can. luck to us all.---southernpride

 

my question to everybody is,how can we be forced to drive? nobody can force you to drive a truck when you say no.if they did,they would have to assume full responsibility for anything that happened while you are being forced.and no government or private company is going to assume that kind of responsibility.ask any dot officer if he is going to hold you responsible for driving while being forced to.he will tell you,there's no way you can be forced to drive.why do you think you get the ticket when you're under "forced dispatch".so that excuse of we would be forced to drive by the feds don't hold water.because they would have to pay for all the tickets and accidents that would happen.

 

Haven't you heard of multi-million dollar lawsuits involving accidents ? Does the driver end up getting sued ? In many cases yes he does for personal negligence but the carriers pay the bulk of it . FYI there is a law forbidding management to force or allow drivers to falsify logs and some company managers have been prosecuted for it .
But that being said I agree the responsibility falls on the driver and he can't be forced .

 

SO....................... Why don't people ever look to the real reason to have a shut down? How about all of the overboard regulations coming down? For an industry that supposedly was "deregulated" it seems that the CARB board has become the new regulatory agency. If our country is operated and overseen in DC.........then why the hell does everyone have to follow the tree hugging tofu eaters on the left coast? This is utterly ridiculous IMO.
Also, the fuel cost does go up, and down, and fluctuates just like it always has........THIS WILL NEVER CHANGE! The cost of life escalates. We are working for the same wage the drivers in the mid 80s were. Why the fck????????? This is an outrage!!
We should be stopping our trucks until someone decides to offer a decent wage for the haul........ I have just last week seen a load offered to me from Schnieder National. The load was from NY to Ohio on a Friday at 2pm and I was told it was a 676 mile load paying a totally insulting $475!!!!!!!!!!! This is totally unacceptable! Why can they do this? And why are some people so fckin stupid to take these loads? All this does is tell Schnieder that we are a stupid bunch of monkeys who will haul a load for 70 cents a mile................... I'm not too sure, but who can actually operate a truck for 70c ? We are our own worst enemy in this regard....... and the reason???????????? FEAR OF LOSS!!! Stop fearing this loss.......... we do a noble job out here, and we deserve to be paid a decent #### wage for it! Look at the Auto industry, they pay their factory workers a huge hourly amount...........sometimes as high as $36 an hour! These guys go to work for 8.5 hours a day, they do the exact same work on Monday that they do on Friday.........They face the same challenges every day, no varience, no opportunity for failure. They shut the plant down if it's too bad out weather wise and they get up to 4 weeks of shutdowns, and holidays. They also get paid benefits , though some are starting to charge for this...but only a portion. My point is this, we bust our ### every day and deliver the goods regardless of the weather, holiday, or weekend............ why are we the ones who make so little? It has been years since driver wage was raised, and if we complain about it we are given the runaround and then told to take it or leave it....................THIS IS A VERY ###### SYSTEMATIC SLAVERY.............

SO I GUESS WHAT I'M SAYING IS THIS : A shut down is a great way to get this done, but at least do it for the right reasons. 1: Stop letting CARB decide what the whole country needs.........Last I knew the Leaders of the country were 3000 miles away in what we call the "Capitol".
2: Stop ######## about fuel, it will fluctuate normally. Also if you are getting a decent rate/wage then the fuel wouldn't be a problem.
3: The most important one is the rates moving to a "decent" wage. All of the companies in America are able to set their prices except us, and I don't hear anyone complaining when Pepsi goes up a penny at wal-mart, or Target, Or Krogers........ you just go about your business and buy it.

As an aside to this we need to have a regulatory statute put in place for brokers. They are the only ones in our industry who continually make a profit, year in and year out. This is because no one is there to say "No, you can't take 22% off the top........... it's wrong. You are cheating hard working people out of their fair wage for the work they will do for you."

PEOPLE YOU MUST FIRST REALIZE THAT NOT ONLY DOES THE AMERICAN PUBLIC RELY ON THE TRUCKERS OF AMERICA TO THE POINT OF THEIR OWN DEMISE, BUT SO TOO DO BROKERS, SHIPPERS, PORTS, AND YES, EVEN THE TREE HUGGING RHETORIC SPITTING FCKS AT CARB!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be an American, fight for what is yours............ the last I looked we are still a capitalist society, stand up and prove it! A concentrated effort will be rewarded, OOIDA and the ATA will fight for us with laws only............They aren't working on regulating the brokers, and getting us a rate hike that reflects the last ten years of inflation of cost of living!

 

I know this is an old thread however, I'm gonna bump it.

SouthernPride: You are right with a few points. We do need to make sure it is for the right reasons. But, let me ask you something... Back on December 16, 1773, didn't the colonists "Break the Law" to change the country? Yes! Did it work? Yes!

I think about the lives that were sacrificed to create this country. Back then men were men! Now it seems like I am surrounded by a bunch of spineless motherf_____'s! We have talked about a strike for years... but nothing ever happens! I have heard things like "Well, we can't break the law!" Really! Come on Grow a set! If you are worried about the laws then why are you speeding, running 3 log books, not using your signal light, talking on your cell phone, need I continue? If you don't stand up and speak you won't be heard! The time has come to get off our ###es and change this country. I'm not talking about a violent protest or anything. This is simple! you don't have to block the interstate with your trucks! there are other ways! Think outside of the box!

I believe there comes a time when the citizens a country need to break some laws to make a change!

Here are a few of my reasons...

1. High cost of fuel
2. Taxes continually rising on everything from food to cigarettes to fuel etc.
3. Nanny state laws, our country is trying to run our lives and micromanage everything we say and do!
4. Out of control Debt, the politicians continue to spend and claim a great victory when they cut a few billion dollars out of the budget...
5. Sending our money to countries that don't like us!

These are just a few of my reasons for participating in a strike.

What are yours?

If you say you don't have a reason to participate then you must either been on some really strong drugs or you live in fairy land!

I'm willing to do my part, Are you?

 

Hey Muddbog, you do know that the late Southernpride pass on last month, don't you ?