Demonstrating their economic power by shutting down crucial operations in Florida ports, the drivers are forging organizations and looking for allies in the labor movement. While "independent trucker" might sound like a condition that separates them from the working class, the graphic descriptions by the truckers of the reality of their proletarian condition argues otherwise. Capitalism is stripping millions of all property in a relentless drive to squeeze the utmost out of the labor of human beings.

As with working farmers, the independent truckers face monopolies that, like vultures, peck away to get every last morsel they can. The truck drivers highlight the outrageous price gouging by an ever-smaller number of oil companies. This affects workers across the country as well, both at the gas pump and in the skyrocketing cost of heating oil this winter.

The big shipping and transportation companies are pressing to minimize labor costs, from crews on ships, to dockworkers, to drivers and railroad workers who deliver and haul goods to and from the ports. The bosses benefit by keeping workers at each stage of this vital transportation process separate and divided. But this becomes harder once workers decide to fight.

Members of the Teamsters union, railroad workers, and Machinists are also setting an example of solidarity with the engineers and technicians at Boeing. Winning broader support among the industrial workers and their union, the International Association of Machinists (IAM), is key to pressing forward with this solid walkout by members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA). The bosses at Boeing count on being able to crank out planes and other goods despite the strike. Bringing the potential power of the IAM to bear will strengthen the struggle of both unions

"We're starting to look like a union," said one technical worker on the picket line. For the Machinists members that is good news, and expanding the numbers of IAM members on the picket lines and at rallies is a first step to show the company they have to contend with a united workforce.  
 
 
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