In a move seen often by workers attempting to improve workplace conditions, trucking bosses fired 15 drivers in North Carolina and Virginia early in January this year. The companies claim it was for decreased business volumes, but most of the drivers were among internal organizers for the IWW. In addition, the companies began hiring new drivers immediately following the lay offs. "We have no doubt this was in retaliation for our organizing efforts," one driver said at a meeting held January 17.The IWW conducted a scheduled meeting, January 17, which was originally planned to formally establish the union was altered to determine how to proceed with the organizing effort given the firings. Undeterred by the boss’s aggression, many drivers (including many of those laid off) still joined the union. A petition for charter is still being circulated.
In an outpouring of altruism, IWW members across the globe responded to the layoffs by donating money to the struggling drivers. IWW members in Cambridge, England and Cologne, Germany held fundraisers to help the drivers in NC and VA. This act indicates that Wobblies everywhere believe in this movement. The money has been an incredible help to the drivers and the campaign in general. The campaign continues in the Southeast.
Download a Free Copy (PDF)
Organizing is heating up for the
truckers in the southeastern United States. Though the independent drivers of
North Carolina and Virginia have come a long way this past year, there are still
aspects of the campaign that need attention. Right now there are a handful of
wobblies helping out, including two part time organizers/volunteer coordinators.
For efficiencies sake, we've divided up the current campaign needs into three
different teams, Organizing, Logistics, and Strategy. Many of the tasks can be
completed outside of the North Carolina area or even the United States. If you
can help we ask that you can devote a steady amount of time or a regular task,
whether big or small. We'll have organizers that will work with you. Possible
internships available. For more info about the campaign visit our website at
On the weekend of Martin Luther King Day, log truckers and container
haulers from Eastern North Carolina and Virginia will be gathering to formally
charter the United Truckers Union. This event will be the culmination of a
nearly year-long organizing drive that led to a work stoppage on the morning of
December 8, 2008. That action, which saw small but lively pickets outside of
Weyerhaeuser mills along coastal North Carolina, reduced the amount of logs
entering the New Bern mill by approximately 35% and shut down several tree
stands in the Plymouth area. Only six trucks left BTT's yard, one of
Weyerhaeuser's primary subcontractors and a target of the strike. Following the
mornings' stoppage, a unnamed Weyerhaeuser representative announced to local
media that management agreed to the workers' key demand: that mill management
recognize the drivers' organization and arrange a meeting between the drivers'
negotiating committee, Weyerhaeuser, and representatives of the subcontractors who employ the drivers. Accordingly,
the union has directed a letter to the Vice President for Southern Timberland in
Seattle, Washington offering several dates and places for an initial
meeting.
Before sunrise on a Monday morning, outside a sterile office park in
Compton, a convoy of small, beat-up cars, none of them newer than 1995, arrives
at the offices of the trucking firm Calko Speedline. One by one, the car's
drivers emerge, ranchera and mariachi and est?s escuchando a Piol?n por la
ma?ana! competing from their radios. They buy coffee from the taco truck that
follows them in, and assemble in small groups, huddled in circles among their
big rigs - hulking red, green, blue and white mammoths lined up along the curb,
their diesel-burning engines grumbling into action one by one.
By: J. Pierce with Adam Welch
