Protests Breaking Out Throughout the Country from the Transportation Industry

       ON MAY 1, 2020 TRUCKERS gathered in large metropolitan cities to do slow rolls in the downtown to bring awareness for their plight in fighting against the obstacles they are facing in the industry. Record low shipping rates and skyrocketing insurance cost are just the beginning of the issues. These protests escalated and continued to the steps of the White House in Washington DC.

What started May 1st as a small protest against price gouging and coercion by freight brokers has grown into one of the longest and largest driver protests in history, as a Who’s Who of every major trucking protest leader in the last decade, joined the cause and put out an all-call for what is being hailed as the owner-operators’ last stand. 

A protesting Hazmat Trucker, Rumen Georgiec, stated that one of the main focus of the protests is: Regulations on Brokers & Just Pay on Loads. 

 Transparency - that brokers are required by law to attach what the customer is paying  for the load along with the rate confirmation

Just pricing on insurance

-	Just pay on loads, example include a minimum pay per mile based on equipment type (refrigerated trailers spend more fuel because the  trailer uses fuel). Loads to be paid above the national fuel cost per gallon.

As the protests moved to Capitol Hill, truckers use horns to sound ‘Mayday’ message — S.O.S. — in D.C. Over the past three weeks more than 200 drivers have camped around the White House and more are arriving by the hour as the largest and longest trucker protest in recent history. 

President Trump tried to re-brand the desperate cry for help as some kind of joyous tribute but this was rebuffed by the protesting truckers. "This is a protest," Anderson of OOIDA said. "Mr. Trump elaborated that we were here to support him. Our message to him would be this is a protest against bad regulation, broker transparency, truck insurance, so on and so forth. This is not here to support Trump. We're here to get resolution and bring awareness to our problem and fix our problems." 

"There are people here that in fact love Trump, there are people here that in fact do not," Michael Landis, chief executive of the United States Transportation Alliance advocacy non-profit and a truck owner-operator who is part of the protest, told CNN. "This is about trying to get his(Trump's) attention so we can speak directly with him about a lot of issues we're having here in the trucking industry, because we've tried other avenues and have been unsuccessful."

"This is not a protest in support of Donald Trump or a rally for Trump. Not that we're against him by any means. Most of these guys here actually probably voted for him, honestly. But we've been let down by the administration, by (Transportation) Secretary Elaine Chao, and by the FMCSA" he said.

Trump didn’t provide any specifics about what would be done to help truck but the Protests are ongoing on the Steps of Capital Hill in Washington DC and we are constantly keeping you up to date on your Facebook Page at Cellex Consulting Group.