Good Job Port Trucker!!

[CK]

I like this site that you guys have. It's to bad every driver out at the port is not on here every weekend. They sure should be. We need unity among us but I guess that's preaching to the choir right? OK I will return later with a few other drivers. I hope this expands even larger reaching truckers at every Atlantic port. I am returning to reading again. Thanks, CK

[rudy]

i agree. i located this a couple weeks back. this is a cool web site that needs to be shared. there should be 3,000 truckers talking on here.if not for seeing a link on craigs list i would not have known about it.

[flatspot]

first you must teach the dummies i see at the charleston port terminal how to read. then how to work a computer. then they have to get permission from their dispatch to come to this web forum. the last might be the most difficult to get around. at the last two companys i leased they cant take a crap without asking the company first.

[peterbuilt500]

Hello trucker I am new to this site but no stranger to the ports. I am from the NY/NJ ports. I welcome your sympathy lol. This is a great site and I will get 3 thousands truckers on here. Kudos to folks behind this. UNITY UNITY UNITY I hope to link the entire East Coast driver fraternity young , old, and retired. In NY/NJ you name it I have seen it, if it hurts the trucker or his family I have experienced it. Longshoremen are paid great, benefits awesome, why do port truckers act as if we are in some other industry than they are. We lack organization and determination. All of this global growth, Panamax ships, berth deepening etc. We let them parade the buearocracy and political affiliations like the AFL CIO, and the ATA. We need take our work much more serious.

[road runner]

Your are 100% right. This cannot operate without trucks.

[peterbuilt500]

PIER PRESSURE coin the phrase and use it. We need bumper stickers t-shirts and flags for when we block the gate and barbecue. Lol In all seriousness I know many I.L.A guys who respect us but we got no organization so they treat us and call us pier rats. Feeding off each other, if we fight and cut lines and s#*t how much more will you make in a day. Especially if everyone of us does it. We don't need to we must UNITE! If your present financial status is less than appealing check out the salaries of some of these fluorescent f**k FACES! Nepotistic lazy asses who make all of that while virtually no work is done. So they can obviously make it with no trucks at all. Truckers on welfare, paying rent, with shabby used cars no retirement on a whole. It should be industry wide, politicians get a piece of all of this and that's why our pockets are so empty. PIER PRESSURE "ALL OR NOTHING"

[ilovdieselsmoke]

PIER PRESSURE!

Love it but........ it'll take lines three miles long again days on end before enough of these happy go lucky truck campers get angry enough to take action. When they do shut down it'll be a spur of the moment sort of thing and after not seeing any results by end of the first day most will start back driving like mad shoppers on black Friday to be first to show at the gate in the morning...

The shipping companies know by now that after many years of unrest drivers are not going to ban together like they once did about fifteen years ago. The leadership and agitators are all gone. Most of the new breeds way of thinking is this job is just a temporary fix and soon I'll be out of here when I win the lotto so screw everyone else or, "I can't stop because I'm hauling in volume just like the big fleets do."

It will take a lot of effort to coordinate an east coast job action ever again in this port turmoil.
Three mega ports at one time in the east during the Christmas peak would definitely focus some much needed attention from the media and law makers from DC to the problems but then there has to be a clear cut plan of action carried out by the numbers. Trucker leadership must remain in charge at all times. No one else.. That could become a problem as the Teamsters Union wants badly to play this game too but in a much different way.

At first Teamster leadership would stand well clear because of anti-trust lawsuits during a wildcat strike but they would find their way back in acting as the governments negotiators to end this getting everyone back to work. That would suit their agenda just fine but not be good for the owner/operator. Actually a massive shutdown would benefit the motor carriers because they would raise rates but that has to be where a fix comes into play for the independent trucker. That could be discussed at a later date off line...

One thing is clear, this entire system is going to become unraveled sooner than later all by itself if no one does anything unless our government grants blanket amnesty and imports every low wage driver from central America to the states which is a good possibility with the idiots we have in office!!!!!

[tommy]

that is what the america truckin assoc and the ports want. import farm workers from south of the border. teach them how to drive trucks for $6bucks an hour.u get what u pay for.

[Special K]

Six dollars an hour? That's a d**n pay raise compared to some of the container rates I see posted. After fuel I know a few who if lucky make one hundred-fifty dollars for an eighteen hour work shift to split between them self and truck. Check out CL or some of these other truck wanted sites. They're loaded with adds claiming after expenses you make twelve to eighteen hundred per week.
BS! That is after fuel not after truck expenses and you're running your a$$ off. They don't consider anything else but feeding the oil company out of the gross check you get. Many of these drivers think that any money the truck made other then paying fuel is profit in their pocket. That's how these companies manipulate these rocket scientist so well.

[oboy@ivorva]

I would like to see everyone stop the trucks for three days. That's if at least 85% shut down on cue. Send port managers a letter letting them know they have ten days to respond to meet with a driver committee from three Atlantic ports or same thing happens in two weeks at all three ports again. Repeat the process once every few weeks without more then three days notice until they seriously start correcting problems. Get other drivers to join from several port areas.

[peterbuilt500]

They want to stereotype us as not bright or witty this is genius! We must coordinate, because its simplicity could topple this Goliath. Please Truckers lets not get complacent or distracted. They will try to divide us the classification issue, but we are all diesel smokers first. Let us stand united as Port Truckers first and garner the attention we all so deserve. When we have the proper attention to the issue then we begin to negotiate. When all Port drivers have a certain standard of income and health and retirement package. We must set an industry standard, not the present limbo contest of how low can you go. This should be instituted when they don't need it most, we have absolutely nothing to lose. Today at PNCT Newark, NJ one move took 5 hours, keep in mind I am presently a company driver. This is just slightly less blood loss than our independents who average $6 to $8 an hour. I did it for 8 years to no avail. I totally understand our brother and sister o/o have a personal investment in this, and so there loss is significantly greater. Thus, we all know once we stand together there is definitely enough capital within the industry to fix all our issues. We must first be heard!

[ty chung]

yes this is very great site. i am not a registered member yet but i just recently found your forum. i do not understand why no more drivers on here. there should be many thousands drivers on this web page. could it be there are not that many working ports with computer access? i would hate to think very few care but that is possibility. we must educate the masses.

[peterbuilt500]

When you work so hard yet feel like you've been raped, you come home with a sense of determination and that's how I found the site. Together with though and focus on this issue we can definitely overcome these bastards!

[donnie]

yes , there are to many people getting wealthy off our labor & our power equipment. i don't know how trucking used to be but it had to be better then this or the older guys would have cashed it in. at least what i hear is trucking today is garbage compared to the seventies or eighties. some older gentlemen told me they got same rate per mile when fuel was fifty cents a gallon. if that's true how the heck did trucking rates remain same all these years?

[P500]

The way rates have remained the same is our petty arguement over being independent or company. I truly know the difference, but with industry standing on our necks and nuts we must unite and stand as TRUCKERS first. This industry needs a overhaul, but is must be leveraged first. They will not come we have to make them come. At this point we are in a detrimental state because we have done it this long for this little, we have to unite organize and STOP!!!

[gleason]

trucking rates wont get any better. there r plenty dummies ready-willing to haul cheap s#^t this fall. i do not haul anymore containers. out of the nine companies i leased over past three years to i managed to find one that paid decent. then another agent took over the terminal. now right back to same crap like everyone else in savannah. how could this freight money for same customers be cut by one third? not possible. unless this new woman was not paying the full percentage of load to drivers. she brought four of her programed dummies with her from the start so i knew our time was limited. after a few phone calls we saw the home office would rather have her then six of us. this only shows me they r not worth working for so i left with others. now she is gone and the new manager called five of us to come lease back. screw them.

[charlie]

that is exactly why more truckers need to get involved. you guys have a really great site. keep up your fight to educate the masses. maybe one day southern truckers will wake up.

[clifton]

we need this,thanks