Trucker's Response To High Fuel Prices
 

Shame you guys can't do something like this to make a point.

I think the guys in the regional forums should have done this a while ago......

20 MPH might be tough, even with full flaps...

They did this through Indy yesterday, but they did hit 45mph instead of 20.

The problem is that even though there was a convoy, other truckers were speeding past them and not participating in the protest. Before I became an airline pilot I drove tractor trailers for ten years. Here is the problem with the protest and why it applies to pilots as well.

Truckers and pilots alike feel gratefull and fortunate to have a job. They fear that losing the money they make now will further inhibit them from paying their mortgages. They just don't understand that a temporary work stopage will result in better wages and compensation as a result of their protests and strikes, but all truckers and pilots would need to particiapte. But a strike could take several months to conclude thus making them behind in their bills. This is where the fear factor sets in and makes them uneasy and uncertain.

The other problem is people are willing to do both jobs for less money. If you take concessions and pay cuts you are telling your company that you are willing to do the job for less money. How smart is that? I don't want to hear management complaining that the cost of doing business in rising so therefore concessions must happen. How bout you take a huge pay cut and lay management off.

Our industry will never return to the days of old. There will be no "taking it back" we shouldn't have given it in the first place.

Any coordinated labor action would be view as an illegal work action. Your the lawyer. Tell us how to do this without the organizers having to spend the next few years in court and being threatened with racketeering. Then, I'm all over it!

I know as well as the next person pilots cannot engage in similar action. Unless and until the RLA is changed somehow, you are unable to use this time honored union tactic. That's why I prefaced my post with "shame you guys can't do something like this to make a point." I have no answers to this, but I'm sure ALPA has many lawyers smarter than I am, just waiting in the wings to spring into action when the time comes.

Note that the truckers in the article are mostly, if not entirely, independent truckers. And I doubt this little demonstration will do anything to lower the price of fuel. If nothing else, I see fuel going up even more in the near term. These guys will just park their rigs and wait it out. Some will move on to other types of businesses.

I don't want to turn this thread into a political discussion (and risk having my favorite mod close it down), but whoever moves into the White House next year will have an impact on all of us so great that we are not able to fathom it now. I read an article that McCain is compiling his list of vice-presidential contenders. Fred Smith's name is being bandied about. The implications of this combination are both frightening and refreshing.

Ok, mods, you know that I will be the first to report any post that violates the TOS. And that includes my own posts.

HAHA!! yeah, but that mod will close down any thread at any time..

This is a bit different from pilots because pilots are indirectly affected, where truckers are directly affected. I don't think any of you guys pull out your wallet and pay the line guys to fill up your RJ. These truckers do, but them striking isn't going to affect anything, except supplies not getting to where they need to go so only us civilians would be hurt by it, not the wealthy powerful scumbags that control the price that oil is traded at. (brokers, OPEC, our legislative branch) I am making this post as an observation with no solution, and I don't know anybody that does have a solution, other than congress taking out some of the regulations and taxes that are causing a good chunk of the price increase.

see what they are doing today?