The Source for Trucking News, Opinions and Trucking Jobs | I’m the idiot? More on Fuel Strikes

The title could also be Moron Fuel Strikes! I received this comment regarding my post about a strike for fuel prices and didn’t delete it for a couple of reasons. Mainly to show I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, but to call me names without backing it up is just stupid.

To back up my position (again) that striking for fuel prices is the wrong way to go, I want to point out a couple of articles from Canada -

MAY 1, 2005
OBAC Urges Owner-Ops To Say No To Cheap Freight

OTTAWA, ONT. (May 1, 2005)
– Responding to the recent protests and road blockages in the Vancouver
area, the Owner-Operator’s Business Association of Canada is advising
its members that blockades and protests will have little, if any,
impact on fuel pricing, and serve only to alienate truckers from the
communities they serve.

“Rather than clambering after governments to cut fuel prices,
owner-ops should be focusing their attention on the real problem –
inadequate haulage rates – and going after their customers to start
paying what it costs to have their freight moved,” says OBAC chief
Joanne Ritchie. “Tax exemptions and rebates are band-aid solutions when
what’s needed is open-heart surgery.”

These are watershed times, Ritchie says. With strong economic growth
driving increased demand for trucking services and driver shortages
squeezing capacity, there’s never been a better opportunity to improve
the rate structure.

“There’s plenty of evidence that customers are
willing to pay more to have their freight moved, and the vast majority
of shippers are paying surcharges to offset skyrocketing fuel prices,”
she says. “If owner-ops aren’t seeing the benefits, their carriers are
either not collecting appropriate surcharges or are not passing them
through to the contractors.”

They go on to explain how to run a business.

OBAC suggests all owner-operators begin
conducting a critical cost analysis of their operations to determine
the scope of the shortfall in rates. For example, at 80 cents per
litre, an owner-operator achieving a reasonable fuel mileage of six
miles per gallon (IMP) is paying 60.6 cents per mile to run the truck.
When fuel was at 50 cents per litre, it cost only 37.8 cents per mile
to operate – a difference of nearly 23 cents per mile. At current
haulage rates, fuel eats up the lion’s share of revenue, leaving little
for payments, maintenance, wages, or profit. This is the kind of
rationale owner-ops need to bring forward when approaching their
customers for rate increases. 

“Owner-operators have a huge amount of clout in this market, and
many of them just aren’t taking advantage of it. They’ve got to get
over the idea they have to settle for less because there are a dozen
drivers lined up to take the job,” Ritchie says. “That’s simply no
longer true. Buying into the myth and continuing to work for less than
it costs to run the truck allows carriers to get away with charging
substandard rates. This keeps the bad carriers in business. As long as
they have a workforce willing to haul for less than it costs to run a
truck, the carriers have little reason risk angering their customers
with the prospect of rate increases.”

Ritchie points out that the carrier associations are urging their
members to use this tight market to regain some lost ground in rates,
and she says it’s high time owner-ops took a little of that advice too.

The American version OOIDA says the basically same thing, except for gallons instead of liters.

Here’s a seperate article about a strike about fuel prices, also in Canada.

B.C. truckers snarl traffic to protest high fuel

            CTV.ca News Staff

Upset
over dramatically rising fuel costs, about 500 dump truck drivers drove
their rigs through Vancouver’s Lower Mainland Friday in protest.

The drivers are trying to bring attention to their increasingly
desperate situation, with diesel prices hovering around $1 a litre — a
huge monthly increase that’s cutting a deep swath into their wages.

"I’m paying at least a thousand dollars more (a month) than I used to pay last year," one trucker told CTV Vancouver.

Their protest, the second in a week, slowed Vancouver area
traffic to a crawl; and completely starved the construction industry of
supplies on Friday, grinding it to a halt.

"This is the only way to get your message through to industry that,
in fact, (we) mean business," said B.C. Teamsters president Don McGill. 

Notice that it’s an actual organized Teamsters union. And their solution?

To make up the shortfall, truckers are demanding fuel surcharges on
their hauling rates, amounting to an extra 12 per cent from
contractors. The amount will then, ultimately, be handed on to
consumers.

"Costs are going to be passed on," said McGill. "It’s payback time and we have to have it."

Last week, truckers hit the road to pressure federal and provincial governments to cut fuel taxes.

Good idea, but…

Falcon met with the truckers’ representatives, but all he offered
was a promise to gather the stakeholders for a meeting to look into a
solution for the high fuel costs.
 

A Calgary fuel industry analyst said that the struggling western
truckers will have to live with the high pump prices. At least for now.

Promises from a politician to have a meeting and a fuel analyst saying, "eh, too bad." Really successful strike.

A seperate article about the same strike, but from the other side.

Truckers’ action has low impact on industry
May, 06 2005 - 2:50 PM

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980)
- Peter Simpson, the CEO of the Greater Vancouver Homebuilders
Association, says the impact of today’s protest by dump truck drivers
has been very small on his members.

"We have about 470 member
companies, half of whom are builders, developers and renovators so they
had the warning. They took steps to make sure that they were okay and
it hasn’t been a major problem today because it’s only a one-day event,
anyway."

Simpson says they empathize with the truckers because everyone is suffering under the high fuel prices.

Again, the same response, "poor truckers have it rough, but so does everyone." What good did a union organized strike do? And some owner operators here in the states think striking is going to do any good? Someone explain that to me, without saying a strike will show how important we are.

Call me names, tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about, but BACK IT UP!!!