By MARK NEWMAN Courier staff writer
April 03, 2008 11:12 am
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ELDON — A truckers’ protest that made national news is now impacting southeast Iowa.
“Owner operators can’t really ‘strike.’ You’d be striking against yourself. This is a shutdown,” said Dan Anthony, a Missouri trucker who leases his semi and his services to TNT Trucking in Eldon.
TNT has temporarily closed its doors.
“We hate to do it. Delivering freight, that’s what we’re in business for, but it just costs too much to operate,” he said. “It seems like we’re running from point A to point B to get enough money to buy gas to get to point C.”
Anthony said maybe the government could give professional drivers a break on the fuel tax. Nationally, the Associated Press reported, truckers hoped their actions might pressure President Bush to stabilize prices by using the nation’s oil reserves.
“The gas prices are too high,” said Lamont Newberne, a trucker from Wilmington, N.C., who along with 200 drivers protested at a New Jersey Turnpike service area. “We don’t make enough money to pay our bills and take care of our family.”
Besides avoiding punishing fuel costs, there is a statement involved in the local shutdown, too. They had seen the news coverage of the national protest.
“We’ve all kind of discussed it and decided we needed to something. Doing nothing results in nothing. If we can bring attention to this, maybe something can be done,” Anthony said.
And yes, he agreed, it may result in higher prices at the store. But drivers need to be able to afford to get the product to the stores — and make a living.
“The fuel prices in the last half a dozen years have quadrupled, [but] the freight rates, the fuel surcharge, haven’t kept pace,” he said. “That extra cost is coming right out of pocket.”
With the national truckers’ strike, Anthony said store shelves will start to dry up a bit “in a couple of days.”
“We don’t like to do that because that’s not why we’re in business. But if we can’t get enough money to buy fuel ... people will become [more] aware when the stuff isn’t showing up on their shelves, because the trucks didn’t get it there. Maybe we draw some attention to how people receive it. Everything you use, everything you eat, everything you touch is delivered by truck. ”
Meanwhile in Washington, top executives of the five biggest U.S. oil companies said they know high prices are hurting consumers but deflected any blame and argued their profits — $123 billion last year — were in line with other industries.
Clayton Boyce, spokesman for the American Trucking Association, told the AP diesel prices are the worst he’s seen but said his organization does not condone the strike.
His group is pushing for a number of measures to keep the prices down or to otherwise help truckers, including allowing exploration of oil-rich areas of the U.S. that are now off limits and setting a 65 mph national speed limit.
Anthony said he can’t have a job which is essentially a break-even proposition.
We’re spinning our wheels just to spin our wheels,” he said. “I carry 300 gallons in my semi. At $4 a gallon, it’s a $1,000 bill every time I stop to fill up.”
But for awhile, said the trucker, those wheels won’t be taking him to his Missouri home.
“I’m staying right here in my truck, in Eldon.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Reporter Mark Newman can be reached at 683-5358 or by e-mail at mgnewman@mchsi.com
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