Dozens of big rig truck drivers protest low pay, cause delays on Los Angeles and San Bernardino county freeways

Daily News ^ | 4/25/20 | Jonah Valdez

[Libloather]

Thomas Ramirez, 39, a truck driver from Beaumont has spent the last month hauling cleaning supplies intended for hospitals in San Francisco and Sacramento from the Los Angeles and Inland Empire areas.

While the coronavirus has brought most sectors of the economy to a halt, prompting mass unemployment, and keeping families shut in at home, thousands of truck drivers like Ramirez have continued transporting essential equipment and goods throughout California, such as medical supplies, food and clothes.

Despite the risk of exposure to the disease as well as their essential role in keeping the wheels of society turning, even garnering praise from President Donald Trump who last week, exclaimed from the White House “Thank God for truckers,” some Southern California drivers say they have noticed their pay for carrying cargo sharply decrease by hundreds, and in some cases, by thousands of dollars in recent weeks.

On Friday, Ramirez rallied dozens of other truck drivers from across the region who took to the road to protest the plunging wages and to call for more regulation of the freight brokers who the truckers say are driving the falling rates.

“I feel like we’re America’s lifeline,” Ramirez said. “We’re the ones who move the clothes, the food, the medical supplies, and in New Jersey, the dead bodies. They’re using truck drivers. But we feel at the end of the day we are left behind.”

[eyeamok]

My friend drives a truck,self employed, and he says the problem is the brokers got real greedy and are only offering the drivers about 20-30% of the Freight Charge they are charging, and the drivers are getting pissed, they shut down a city in Texas last week because of it.

[hinckley buzzard]

There is a lot more to driving a truck than just cruising down the highway between the lines.