Truckers

Daimler Truck Workers Use Strike Threat To Win Big

May 19, 2024 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. Strategize! Daimler, North Carolina, Strikes, Truckers, UAW, Unions, Worker Rights

North Carolina heavy truck and school bus manufacturing workers won 25 percent pay increases and ended wage tiers after an energetic contract campaign and strike threat against Daimler Truck. The United Auto Workers unionized these plants in the 1990s and early 2000s—but since then, wages had stagnated. Starting pay was low, and the plants were stuck on different wage scales. At Thomas Built Buses, the largest school bus manufacturing site in the U.S., assembly workers topped out at $24, $5 less than their counterparts at Daimler’s Mount Holly truck plant. The new contract establishes a common wage grid across all 7,400 workers at the four North Carolina plants, as well as parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis.

Truckers Movement For Justice To Protest At Hunts Point Market

September 16, 2023 Truckers Movement for Justice, Popular Resistance. Resist! New York City (NYC), Truckers, Wages, Worker Rights

For years, Truckers Movement for Justice (TMJ) has worked to contribute to fixing issues within the trucking industry by informing the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) and the US Department of Labor (USDOL) that truckers need ALL HOURS WORKED ALL HOURS PAID, OVERTIME FOR ALL, and ENFORCEMENT OF THE RIGHT TO SEE THE FREIGHT BILL. Without movement on these three simple demands, TMJ picketed on 1 May 2023 in front of the USDOT and American Truckers Association (ATA) buildings to remind and warn them to act immediately. Dirt was dumped onto the sidewalk and TMJ President Billy Randel drew a line through it before declaring, “We are drawing a line in the sand!”

North American Truckers’ Movements Announce International Alliance

August 26, 2023 Truckers Movement for Justice, Popular Resistance. Organize! International Solidarity, Mexico, Truckers, Worker Rights

Mexico City, MX - Tamexun and Truckers Movement for Justice will formally meet in person for the first time, and are publicly announcing their historic international alliance. Tamexun, based in the United Mexican States, is an association formed to stop the exploitation of truckers, and is celebrating its fifth anniversary with Saturday's demonstration. Truckers Movement for Justice (TMJ), based in the United States of America, is a grassroots organization focused on economic issues affecting truckers and the trucking industry. Tamexun and TMJ are both comprised of truckers: company employees, lease-operators, and small carrier owner-operators.

Truck Drivers Plan Boycott Of Florida Over State’s New Anti-Immigrant Bill

May 18, 2023 J. L’Heureau, World Socialist Web Site. Resist! boycott, Florida, Immigration, Truckers, Worker Rights and Jobs

A nationwide truckers boycott of Florida is being organized in opposition to a new state law targeting undocumented migrants and refugees. The new legislation was initially announced by the state’s fascistic governor Ron DeSantis in February and framed as a means of countering what he termed “the Biden administration’s failure to secure our nation’s borders.” In a statement published on a government website, DeSantis declared, “Florida is a law and order state, and we won’t turn a blind eye to the dangers of Biden’s Border Crisis. We will continue to take steps to protect Floridians from reckless federal open border policies.”

Who’s Behind The ‘People’s Convoy’ To Washington DC?

February 22, 2022 Steve O’Keefe, Counter Punch. Educate! COVID-19, Right wing politics, Truckers, United States

Thousands of truckers are being hijacked by anti-vax loonies and encouraged to parade through red state America in search of any remaining Covid-19 restrictions to protest. The so-called “People’s Convoy” is scheduled to leave Barstow, California, on Wednesday, February 23, and meander eastward, picking up truckers as they go for a final jamboree and road-blocking in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, March 1, 2022 – the day of Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address. Are these the same organizers that brought us Canada’s “Freedom Convoy,” blocking the streets of the capital, Ottawa, for weeks and blocking border crossings to the U.S.? No, those organizers were arrested. Those trucks were confiscated. Those protesters have been debanked and uninsured. This is a whole new crop of American Made truckers.

Ottawa Trucker Protests Do Not Represent The Working Class

February 14, 2022 Eugene Puryear and Rania Khalek, BreakThrough News. Resistance Report Canada, COVID-19, Right-Wing, Truckers

Ottawa truckers have been blocking roads, airports, and border crossings from the U.S. to Canada to protest coronavirus restrictions and vaccine requirements. Despite the many illegal activities associated with the right-wing protests, they have not been attacked or sabotaged by police – in stark contrast to the many Indigenous protests over access to ancestral land and water. Q. Anthony Omene, columnist for The Globe and Mail & co-host of TheKulture.TV, joins The Freedom Side to explain more about what’s going on.

Ottawa Under Right-Wing Occupation: Progressives Push Back

February 14, 2022 Preston Wood, Liberation News. Educate! Anti-fascism, Canada, COVID-19, Truckers, White Supremacy

For more than 10 days, truckers opposed to vaccine mandates at the Canadian and U.S. borders have mobilized thousands of supporters to disrupt and terrorize the people of Ottawa. While beginning as a protest against vaccine mandates, the thousands who have poured into Ottawa have escalated the situation into a major occupation threatening the safety and well being of Ottawa residents. Ottawa’s mayor and police have finally been forced to declare a state of emergency after refusing to take measures for more than a week to quell the violence that has escalated in the nation’s capitol. Here in the United States, right-wing politicians and billionaires like Elon Musk are praising the truckers and the mobs who are rioting in downtown Ottawa and around the Parliament.

Governor Reduces Sentence Of Truck Driver To 10 Years

December 31, 2021 Norisa Diaz, WSWS. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Legal System, Prison, Truckers

Aguilera-Mederos, who was 23 years old at the time of the accident, was transporting lumber on Denver’s I-70 freeway when the brakes on his big rig truck failed on a downhill grade where he tried to hug the shoulder. His truck then slammed into stopped traffic that created an explosion and pileup. Governor Polis and the state’s political establishment were forced to respond to mass economic and political pressure by a powerful movement of truck drivers, who mobilized widespread support for Aguilera-Mederos within the working class. Since the December 13 sentencing, drivers refused by the thousands to enter the state of Colorado and deliver goods and circulated the issue widely on social media. Though little reported in the media, the powerful boycott shook the state’s economy to its core.

California Attempts To Rein In Exploitation Of Truck Drivers

September 12, 2021 Larry Buhl, Capital and Main. Educate! California, Law, Truckers, Worker Rights and Jobs

Like many truck drivers delivering goods from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to big retailers throughout Southern California, Juan Carlos Giraldo has a contract job, and it looks decent at first glance. His primary employer, Container Connection, pays a flat fee of $300 for a round trip from a port to a Walmart warehouse in Mira Loma. With no traffic or wait times, the trip takes four hours, which means Giraldo can make 10 round trips a week. In the best case scenario, he earns $3,000. But the best case scenario usually doesn’t happen. Long waits at the port are routine, because his dispatcher doesn’t let him know when a shipment is ready to load. If Walmart doesn’t have an empty container ready to bring to the port, he earns half of his round-trip fee: $150. As a contract worker, Giraldo is responsible for insurance on the company truck and goods, which is $180 per week.

Truck Drivers And Workers Strike At Southern California Ports

April 14, 2021 Kim Biggar, Splash 247. Resist! California, Port, Strike, Truckers

Truck drivers at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, represented by the Teamsters union, started strike action against Universal Logistics Holdings (ULH) this week, adding further to extraordinary congestion woes at America’s principle west coast maritime gateways. According to the Teamsters website, ULH-affiliated companies at the ports “illegally fired truck drivers, denied them back pay, and refused to recognize and bargain with the union [the drivers] legally won.” The drivers have formed a picket line outside the ULH Southern Counties Express trucking yard in Compton, California.

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