Truck drivers in Jalandhar, India enjoy a meal during a 2018 strike. Some report that they often have to pay their employers for the pleasure of driving their freight for them. While most workers are protected by minimum wage laws, truck drivers are excluded.
#1974 TRUCKERS STRIKE CANADA DRIVER#
One truck driver have told me that he is treated like “an indentured servant,” an opinion that I’ve heard echoed by many. I’ve spoken to hundreds of truck drivers in North America over the years. (This bill was proposed before Biden, but it was his allegedly-pro-labor administration that passed it.)Īnd a message for those who want increased economic stability for all Americans: Even if you don’t agree with the drivers protesting the vaccine mandate, it’s hypocritical to completely ignore the two million people in that industry. I’ll be interested to see if more Republican politicians pledge to solve issues that frustrate drivers, like halting a new law in which those as young as 18 can drive interstate. Drivers have been right-leaning for years, but the Freedom Convoy has been an opportunity for the right to profess their solidarity with truck drivers, an otherwise ignored group. It’s a massive win for the right that they’ve aligned themselves with truck drivers. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images) This 2017 image of Trump in a truck shall help me make my point. The Freedom Convoy has allowed political right to profess its support of truck drivers. If the public understands your cause, that opens the door for them supporting it. If that’s something you don’t like, you might want to support this group of workers who are pushing against it by sending a tweet, some cash, or even rallying in person. Even if you’re outside of trucking, you can process the idea of vaccine mandates to drive crossborder shipments. And you also wouldn’t need an explainer on the ELD mandate!Ĭompare that to the Freedom Convoy. If it did, I probably wouldn’t have had to spend the last few paragraphs explaining it. The protest, while well-planned, did not really make a dent. More than 15,000 drivers joined the group ahead of the protest. The plan: Don’t work for one day, April 12, 2019. To protest it, a group of truck drivers made a Facebook page called Black Smoke Matters.
I have received hundreds, and more likely thousands, of emails about the rule. Read more: Truck drivers say the latest measure to keep roads safe has left them 'chained up,' 'more reckless than ever,' and unable to support their families Many drivers argued that this rule - called the ELD mandate - actually made their jobs more unsafe.
In 2018, a safety rule designed to curb how many hours truck drivers are behind the wheel each day went into effect. (Reuters)Ĭompare the Freedom Convoy to the intriguingly-named Black Smoke Matters movement from several years ago.
A whopping 280,000 drivers protested a new tax, and quickly caused nationwide food shortages. However, their myriad labor concerns have been mostly ignored by legislators and mainstream publications (except, of course, for lauded news sources like Modes and Business Insider).Ī 1999 truck driver strike in Argentina. I’ve always found this bizarre, considering truck driver is the most common job title in many states. For the past several decades, truck drivers haven’t been represented in the discourse in the same way that coal miners, fast food workers, or teachers are. It’s emblematic of a new era - dare I say, a vibe shift - for the truck drivers. What is surprising is that truck drivers are being used as political objects at all. Teamsters expert Witwer summarized the union’s viewpoint in rejecting the Freedom Convoy as such: “This is a strike to benefit the far right. Such measures are highly politicized in the US: 93% of Democrats support vaccine mandates for large employers, compared to 17% of Republicans. That the left is distancing itself from this protest against vaccine mandates is not particularly surprising. Meanwhile, the political right, whose leaders often challenge pro-worker legislation, has embraced this demonstration. The Freedom Convoy has not appealed to writers at publications like Jacobin and The New York Times, either. However, the Teamsters aren’t championing this particular demonstration of truck drivers - despite the sustained international attention this protest has captured since late January. Blocking the roads with trucks, he told me this week, is a classic Teamsters tactic - back when striking truck drivers were regarded as a "menacing” force. But not David Witwer, a professor at Penn State Harrisburg. Truck drivers are blockading the streets of Ottawa amid the Freedom Convoy, and people are freaking out. (Arindam Shivaani/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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