Re: ATA renews attack on port trucking plan

Changes — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:15:51 -0000

Having spent over forty years in the trucking industry, I will never cease to be amazed at how the Federal and State Governments have abused the workers in this industry. We along with the farm workers, have never been protected by the laws such as the "Fair Trade and Labor Act" (1937), nor are we aided by the various State Labor Boards, as are most employees that do not have the benefit of union representation because we are engaged in Interstate Commerce. The government has done all it could to make Unions ineffective as a way to effectively bargain for worker rights for at least the last four decades, all labor gains made during the Forties and Fifties have been systematically disassembled by recent administrations from that of J.F. Kennedy to the present horrible example of "executive branch" power junkies that inhabit the "White House".
We are however, the recipient of never ending legislation regarding how we must perform our job tasks. The legislation usually serves to make our jobs harder and less profitable than it had been prior to the new legislation. New legislation usually only serves to create jobs in the "Government Sector" which tend to make it less possible to actually earn a living in the private sector.
In a marketplace that becomes less and less profitable due to rising fuel and insurance prices now even the ATA, (an organization that has rarely had the interest of the worker near to it's heart) has seen that they must try to find another way to stop re-regulation as the Port Operators in L.A and Long Beach have chosen to try to siphon profits into their own pockets from the financially depressed trucking industry.
I see all of this as a sad comment on the US trucking industry, as having been a part of the industry when most of the local cartage jobs nationwide (Union or not) came with a full benefit package and the opportunity to earn a decent paycheck (equal to what most skilled trades paid per hour) what kind of pay rates can younger drivers hope to receive when the Ports and the Government all have their hands deeper into the pocketbooks of those workers? We don't ever get more pay per hour, just more hours to work (mostly over the logbook limits).

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Re: ATA renews attack on port trucking plan