More than 200 Stockton owner-operator truckers working out of the rail yards in California's Central valley have joined the IWW since July and won several victories.
In the past few weeks the union has succesfully worked to reverse two IWW members' lifetime banishments from the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe rail yard and have negotiated a favorable settlement of a strike at the 11-driver Patriot trucking company.
The truckers are now preparing to take on the issue of the wait times they are forced to endure without pay, which can run up to two hours for an increasing number of drivers, and are also fighting against short paychecks. "The truckers are fighting eveyr single day to get their money," said one trucker.
Some 250 truckers in Stockton work for the rail yards and are considered independent contractors who lease the trucks they own to the companies they work for. Nearly 85 percent are Sikh Indians from the Punjab region of India. The work force also includes a number of Latino and some Filipino, Cambodian, Middle Eastern, black and white drivers.
More info at: http://www.iww.org/unions/iu530/truckers/truck8.shtml
===== "I'm not too worried by hegemony / I know the cadre will look after me" - Magazine, "Model Worker," 1978