2008 Strike Rumors

Holy Bat Crap!!! We aren't even done with 2007 yet, and the 2008 strike season is starting. Great if they can plan it around some of the winter snowstorms, then I can stay out and plow snow and make some extra bucks. Usually the first strike of the year (out of so very many annually!) is called for some time in April, so the strikers can take in a little bit of early fishing. Maybe they will be doing ice fishing this year, vice regular pond fishing.

On the serious side, the calling of strikes is an annual event, and on the date that the strike is called for, I can personally guarantee that you can walk out to any piece of highway, and you won't find one truck less on the road than there was the day before. They never happen, except in the minds of the people that consider themselves the leaders of the strike. It's an annual ritual, just like the opening of baseball season.

 

You own a trucking company, Matthew? What will you do if your workers strike?

 

I found a website that was related to this, and submitted an entry into the guestbook. Hopefully I can get more information that way. I had heard nothing about this.

 

Since the CB has a range of somewhere between 3-5 miles, I donlt think it's a very effective methid of organizing a strike, but do tend to see it as a wonderful way for radio loving bigmouths to go around spreading their delusional calls for one without having to take any responsibility for their actions.

For a strike to have any real effect, there has to be someone to bargain. You have to define the issues over which you are striking, have a set goal for the strike to acheive, and have someone to negotiate the end to the strike. In this case, there is no issue that currently enrages enough people to bring them to act. There is no national voice to negotiate an end to the strike, and there is no "other side" to negotiate with!

You can't have a strike without someone to strike against. That's basic unionism 101. Unless you have an enemy or a bad guy, you can't do a strike. If the issue is fuel prices, which would be my suspicion for a current strike, who do you strike against? The fuel companies are not the customer of many of us in a way that a strike will harm them, and they don't have the power to negotiate any kind of a settlement. Unless you somehow manage to strike against every single fuel supplier in the country at one time, it's not going to do much good.

 

I did a quick search and came up wiat a website, and about as I suspected, the entire strike consists of a rant on an anonymous web page. And as a matter of fact, if you click on their guestbook and read, the first thing you encounter is a comment from the purported author of the strike, telling everyone to go ahead and run on the days he indicates for the strike.

It's a repetitive thing, calls for strikes and loud claims about how shutting down the country for a few days will make things better. Long on rhetoric, short on realistic plans.....

 

Not to mention the fact that a strike would put another issue on the plate. Supply and demand. Do you really want stores gouging prices on a gallon of milk right now?

 

..as far as freight, most DC's are stocked up for the holidays as we speak! The custs that will suffer are the grocery DC's et al...and of course, US!