Submitted on Fri, 04/27/2007 - 11:47am
Contact: Billy Randel Industrial Workers of the World NYC General Membership Branch phone: (646) 645-6284 email: [email protected]
With help from the IWW, New Jersey truckers open first driver education and organizing center in nation.
Elizabeth, NJ, April 27, 2007 - Truck drivers from Ports Elizabeth and Newark, in conjunction with the Industrial Workers of the World union,are set to open a new drivers' education and organizing center in Elizabeth on May 1, 2007, the first of its kind in the nation.
The center is being organized to fight for and enforce the rights of rail and port truckers, and is being named in commemoration of Teamster organizer José Gilberto Soto. Soto was assassinated in El Salvador while organizing port truckers there in 2004.
Submitted on Sat, 12/09/2006 - 4:22pm
By Jill Dunn - etrucker.com, December 9, 2006.
The Industrial Workers of the World organized an owner-operator protest Dec. 7 over traffic tickets issued by the BNSF Railway at its Los Angeles-area facility.
More than 30 owner-operators held signs outside the Hobart, Calif., site, one of the busiest intermodal facilities in North America.
Ernie Nevarez, a protest spokesman, said truck traffic had been slowed by 90 percent. BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent differed, saying the event did not slow business and the Sheriff’s Department was directing traffic.
The company is, however, evaluating its ticketing policy, Kent said.
Truckers object to unjust tickets issued for violations such as running stop signs and speeding, Nevarez said. “If you talk back, you get kicked out for life,” he said.
Truckers can be barred from the facility for no more than one calendar year, and that only after the third ticket, Kent said. “You are not banned for life,” she said. Violators must attend a class after the first ticket, and the second ticket bars them from the facility for 30 days, Kent said.
BNSF Railway, a subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America. In March, BNSF announced a $26 million expansion of parking and stacking at the Hobart facility.
Submitted on Sat, 08/19/2006 - 1:24am
By Ernesto Nevarez, Port of Aztlan, [email protected] - Turning the Tide: Journal of Anti-Racist Action, Research & Education, Volume 19 Number 4, July-August 2006
The City of Los Angeles has issued 9 Franchise Contracts to taxi companies which allow them to work LAX. These companies have permission to use about 3,000 drivers. Most are poor immigrants from a variety of countries, such as Iran, Russia, Congo, Pakistan, etc. The companies have banded together and have invented a non-standard workplace with characteristics that have been institutionalized and accepted as the "standard" and which the workers have fatalistically believed was their reality. That was until the Nick Search Decision!
Submitted on Sun, 06/04/2006 - 3:35pm
Disclaimer - The following article is reposted here because it is an issue with some relevance to the IWW. The views of the author do not necessarily agree with those of the IWW and vice versa.
By Chris Kutalik - June 2006
During the countdown to Los Angeles truckers struck in solidarity with immigrants and over their own working conditions. Photo: Axel Koester the May Day immigrant walkouts, transportation industry commentators worried about the impact that immigrant strikes would have on the nation?s ports. Many feared repeats of the 2004 and 2005 strikes by mostly immigrant Latino port truckers (or troqueros), which crippled freight traffic up and down the West Coast.
Submitted on Fri, 04/28/2006 - 8:19pm
The Los Angeles Troqueros Collective is trying to organise a nationwide truck strike for Monday May 1, 2006. (4/27/2006)
The strike would likely impact drayage activities around the Los Angeles and Long Beach marine terminal complexes and the rail ramps in the area, which have been specifically targeted.
The strike will not affect marine terminal activities, and DHL Global Forwarding (DGF) expects the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) labour to continue to work the vessels in port. It also will not affect on-dock rail operations, which are also manned by the ILWU.
While not all drivers will honour this call for labour protest, it is difficult to predict what percentage will show up for work Monday. It is expected that pickets will form at many of the marine terminals.