Record diesel prices are prompting truckers from the Pacific Northwest to South Florida to agitate for relief in the form of fuel surcharges.
Tracy Lutton, who owns a log trucking company based in Aberdeen, Wash., is one of many feeling frustrated by negotiations with shippers.
“The timber companies have always told us what they would pay us, because we are a small, specialized industry,” Lutton said. “Now that the fuel price is getting up, we are getting to where we can’t run. They still want to pay us an amount that goes back to almost the 1980s.”
In protest, 200 members of the Northwest Log Truckers Co-Op parked their trucks Aug. 10. “We have to be careful because of antitrust laws and collusion, but everybody decided enough was enough, and everybody parked their trucks,” Lutton said.
The same day, on the other side of the continent, 652 owner-operators roared bobtail from Hialeah, Fla., to the Miami City Hall in a Teamsters-led protest demanding the surcharge they believe should rightfully come to them.
“What we were doing was attempting to raise awareness of the issue that drivers are paying these increased fuel charges without release,” said Mike Scott, president of Teamsters Local 174.
The long-awaited highway spending bill signed by President Bush this month did not include a mandatory fuel surcharge for truckload haulers, to be paid by shippers, as the Truckload Carriers Association and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association had hoped. The American Trucking Associations successfully fought to keep the surcharge out of the legislation.
