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INDEPENDENT TRUCKERS HARD HIT BY RISING COSTS
(This article is from the October 1-15/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
AMONG THOSE hardest-hit by the oil crisis are truckers, who remain a vital part of the transportation sector in most countries.
While the rise in fuel prices is the immediate cause of truckers' protests, their anger is based on intolerable working conditions. Trucking in North America has become a form of "sweatshop on wheels," following the deregulation and deunionization of the industry. Almost none of the "over the road" general carriers (which handle 90% of all truck freight in North America) are still unionized. Many drivers earn less money per mile than 15 years ago.
In fact, these drivers are more like indentured serfs than "independent" owner-operators. They are bound by lease agreements to the carrier companies, which set the rates, provide the trailers, own the license plates and permits, and often, hold the mortgage or lease contract on the truck itself. Drivers are responsible for truck payments, repairs, maintenance, insurance, and all other costs, including fuel. As "owner-operators," they are forbidden from forming unions or bargaining collectively.
No wonder that a drastic increase in their daily operating costs has sparked outrage among truckers! The best response to their critical problems lies in the campaign by progressive truckers to legally reclassify drivers as employees. Hopefully the rage and desperation caused by the fuel crisis can be channelled into a powerful movement to regain their rights as workers.
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