![[Valid Atom 1.0]](valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
TRUCKERS' STRIKES COMMENT * USA - Truckers Hit the Brakes
But at least we have one shining example of defiance of the face of economic assault. There comes a point, sooner or later, when you stop scrambling around on all fours and, like JB and his fellow drivers all over the country, you finally stand up...
New York,NY,USA -The Nation, by Barbara Ehrenreich -April 7, 2008: -- Until the beginning of this month, Americans seemed to have nothing to say about their ongoing economic ruin except, "Hit me! Please, hit me again!" You can take my house, but let me mow the lawn for you one more time before you repossess. Take my job and I'll just slink off somewhere out of sight. Oh, and take my health insurance too; I can always fall back on Advil... Then, on April 1, in a wave of defiance, truck drivers began taking the strongest form of action they can take: inaction... Faced with $4-per-gallon diesel fuel, they slowed down, shut down and started honking... The truckers who organized the protests--by CB radio and Internet--have a specific goal: reducing the price of diesel fuel. They are owner-operators, meaning they are also businesspeople, and they can't break even with current fuel costs. They want the government to release its fuel reserves... They want an investigation into oil company profits and government subsidies of the oil companies. Of the drivers I talked to, all were acutely aware that the government had found, in the course of a weekend, $30 billion to bail out Bear Stearns, while their own businesses are in a tailspin... More importantly, the activist truckers understand their protest to be part of a larger effort to "take back America," as one put it to me. "We continue to maintain this is not just about us," JB--which is his CB handle and stands for the "Jake Brake" on large rigs-- told me from a rest stop in Virginia on his way to Florida. "It's about everybody--the homeowners, the construction workers, the elderly people who can't afford their heating bills"... But the truckers' protests have ramifications far beyond the owner-operators' plight--first, because trucking is hardly a marginal business... And the larger message of the truckers' protest is about pride or, more humbly put, self-respect, which these men channel from their roots. Dan Little tells me, "My granddad said, and he was the smartest man I ever knew, 'If you don't stand up for yourself, ain't nobody gonna stand up for you.'"... The actions of the first week in April were just the beginning. There's talk of a protest in Indiana on April 18, another in New York City, and a giant convergence of trucks on DC on April 28. Who knows what it will all add up to? Already, according to JB, some of the big trucking companies are threatening to fire any of their employees who join the owner-operators' protests... (Photo by HILDA M PEREZ/Orlando Sentinel/April 3, 2008: Harlan Becraft says he spent $54,000 on diesel fuel last year)Labels: truckers' strikes
posted by Unknown @ 9:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home