The truckers are demanding the Department of Energy (DOE) establish an automatic fuel surcharge to be paid to the drivers by the contractors who hire them.

Most of the drivers at the protest haul containers at the Port of Miami-Dade. They own the truck cabs, but work for trucking companies that receive contracts from shippers for the containers they want transported.

With diesel prices at $2.45 per gallon, the DOE sets a fuel surcharge of 28 percent. “Companies might pay us 5 percent instead of 28 percent,” Pedro Ramos told the Miami Herald. Other truckers might receive the full amount or no surcharge payment at all.

The action was organized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and International Longshoremen’s Association. While the owners of airlines and shipping companies have the power to impose fuel surcharges, Ron Carver of the Teamsters told the media, “The truck drivers who have to buy their own fuel are going into bankruptcy.” The unions are demanding Congress pass legislation providing a mandatory surcharge to pay truckers more as diesel prices rise.

The independent truckers, who transport cargo to and from some of the major ports in the United States, staged a nearly two-week work stoppage in July 2004 until a federal judge ordered them to end their strike. The action protested low wages, rising fuel costs, an insurance surcharge imposed on them by port authorities that is deducted from their paychecks, antiunion laws, and long unpaid waiting periods. At that time diesel fuel prices averaged $1.75 per gallon, an increase of 32 percent over the previous 12 months.

The action last year in Miami by more than 700 drivers coincided with a strike and job actions by truckers at Port Newark, New Jersey, and at the Port of New Orleans. Smaller protests by truckers at Port Everglades, Florida, and other ports on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts also took place.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home