The actions are occurring throughout Ontario, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and elsewhere in eastern Canada. In Ontario, a new organization, the National Truckers Association (NTA), formed several weeks ago, is attracting thousands of members and has become the organizing center of the Ontario wing of the movement, which exploded onto the highways in the last week of February. An estimated 4,000 of the 20,000 truckers in Ontario are refusing to work.

In Newfoundland, scores of gas stations ran out of fuel, dairies stopped receiving milk, and mail delivery became irregular.

In Quebec, the protests have ended for the moment following an agreement in principle between the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN), which represents 1,000 Montreal area independent truckers, and 10 employers to increase wages by 15 percent to cover the higher fuel costs.

In Ontario, truckers belonging to the newly formed NTA organized protests at General Motors and Ford plants, and at oil refineries and storage depots. Blasting their air horns they convoyed around the plants tying up traffic. Other truckers continued their protests tying up traffic on the highways in the greater Toronto area.

"We're desperate," trucker Slawomir Bledowski said at the entrance to the Shell and Esso storage depot in north Toronto. He and a dozen other truckers had parked their rigs at the entrance preventing the Shell drivers from leaving the yard for intervals of half an hour. At the same time other truckers drove their rigs up and down the street slowing traffic. Many drivers in cars honked in solidarity. Some rolled down their windows yelling out "making them come down!," referring to the exorbitant gas prices they are being forced to pay.

Signs in the windows and on the sides of the truck tractors said: "On strike," and "I won't work for free." Another read: "Who will support me when I'm older and can't drive. Why won't the media support us?"

"About 95 percent of the Shell drivers understand us," said Bledowski. "They know we are fighting for them too. The bank owns my truck which I bought two years ago," he said. "I lose every time I take it on the road. I can hardly pay for the fuel." The trucker said their desperate economic situation, and being paid by the mile, makes the job unsafe due to the long hours they put in each week. The NTA was formed several weeks ago out of the kitchen of Heather Whyte, a wife of a trucker. Since then, thousands of truckers have rallied to its call for action. The Canadian Auto Workers union donated $10,000 to help it get organized. In Ontario, independent truckers who haul auto parts for GM, Ford, and Chrysler are required to pay dues to the CAW, although they do not work under union contracts.  
 

Truck stops become organizing centers

Across Ontario truck stops have become organizing centers at which each day truckers gather to plan their next moves. An NTA phone line explains where meetings are taking place. At the Fifth Wheel truck stop in Bowmanville, east of Oshawa, one young trucker explained that when he got back to Nova Scotia he intended to park his rig if the protest was still going on. "I've been driving my own rig for five years," he said. "I've got two years more payments to make. But the way things are going I might not make it. I'm just paying for fuel." He explained that he was on a two-day layover waiting for a load, but couldn't afford to drive his rig to visit relatives in the area and has a hard time paying for meals once his cooler runs out.

Fuel prices have almost doubled over the past year and have risen as much as 30 percent in the last eight weeks. In 1999 the average trucker paid $36,000 for fuel. This year it will be $48,100, reducing pre-tax income from $31,500 to $19,400 for an hourly rate of about $13 per hour or less.

An NTA poster in the truck stop restaurant points out that haulage rates, which are about a dollar a mile, have not changed in 20 years. Yet the price of a new class 8 truck tractor has risen $40,000 since 1993. "This country runs on the wheels of its trucks," is the slogan at the bottom of the poster.

At the same truck stop, trucker Janice Williams from Las Vegas, who has been driving for 12 years, said that she thought that "things are bad in the States but they're worse here. I support what they're doing. If we all went on vacation north and south of the border for a week we'd get what we need," she said. "The stores would be empty in three days."

The realization of their key role in the economy is a constant theme in the discussions among trucker drivers. "Between 80 and 90 percent of this country's productivity travels by truck and we will bring the entire economy to a halt to get what we want," said Oshawa trucker and NTA organizer Paul Bourgeois to a mass rally at the beginning of the protest.  
 

Capitalist politicians stonewall truckers

The NTA and other truckers are demanding government action to lower taxes on fuel, reduce fuel prices, and raise haulage rates per mile in the trucking industry. The NTA also demands a base salary for truckers, a retroactive lump sum payment by customers to help cover drivers' losses, and a fuel surcharge tied to the retail cost of fuel. So far, capitalist politicians have turned a deaf ear to their demands while condemning their militant tactics.

In Newfoundland, Finance Minister Lloyd Matthews says he will not reduce taxes on diesel fuel. In Ontario, Premier Michael Harris said he had no time for truckers who break the law to protest fuel prices. "I don't think that improves their cause. I don't think lawbreaking is ever an option," he complained.

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Jean Chretien said truckers should pass rising expenses on to others. "We live in a market economy. These prices have increased around the globe. When you have added costs you transfer it to the people you are working for," he said.

The editors of the Globe and Mail backed up Chretien, lecturing the truckers that "the government should not be in the business of regulating prices. That is the job of the marketplace."

What really worries Canada's capitalist rulers was expressed by Christian LeMire, president of the Purchasing Management Association of Canada. "These people [truckers] have a lot of power," he said. "If one day they block everything, we would be in deep trouble."

John Steele is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 175. Nathan Ceccin and Rosemary Ray also contributed to this article.  
 
 
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