"One Hellacious Uproar"

That is the truckers' promise

Many of the nation's superhighways were eerily silent last week as the big 18-wheel diesel rigs ceased to roar. Occasionally there were other sounds: voices raised in anger, the thud of punches, and the crack of rifles sending bullets through the sides of trucks, shattering windshields, and sometimes hitting human flesh. Most of the nation's 100,000 independent, long-haul truckers were striking in protest against the rising cost (up 35% since the beginning of the year) and increasing scarcity of diesel fuel. Some merely stopped working. Others used their trucks to block access to refineries and fuel terminals, trying to disrupt the nation's commerce as much as possible. Warned Oscar Williams, an official of the Independent Truckers Association (30,000 members): "I can predict that when housewives in the major cities go to market and cannot find peaches, cherries or fresh meat, or find they have to pay double for these goods, there will be one hellacious uproar heard in Washington."

The strike was as spotty and as disorganized as the independent truckers, who own their rigs and are fiercely proud of going it alone, but the action was damaging enough. Pickets closed giant fuel terminals in Niles, Mich., cutting off deliveries of gasoline and diesel fuel to southwestern Michigan and northwestern In diana. Said Niles Mayor Larry Clymer: "I'm sitting here biting my nails. What we got is a snowstorm in the middle of June. Nobody can go anywhere." In Connecticut, truckers effectively blocked off five major fuel terminals. In Massachusetts and Maine, produce shipments dropped 40%. Hog deliveries in the Corn Belt were off by 75%. California Governor Jerry Brown sent a telegram to President Carter warning that agricultural shipments had reached a crisis stage: "Most of the California production is perishable and will be totally lost if the disruption continues."

In many states, including Georgia, Kentucky and Rhode Island, Governors kept trucks moving by calling out the police or the National Guard for protection. In the Midwest the truckers disrupted deliveries of gas and diesel oil for stations in eight states. After independents blocked fuel storage depots in Green Bay, Wis., Governor Lee Dreyfus declared a state of emergency, and police ordered the line of trucks removed. Said Dreyfus Aide Bill Kraus: "The truckers found the aorta and put their thumb on it, but the gas is now going everywhere again."

In Alabama, one trucker was killed when he was shot in the leg and his rig swerved off the road. The wife of another driver was shot in the chest and critically wounded. Governor Fob James angrily ordered National Guard tankers to transport fuel and considered putting some parts of the state under direct military rule. "The people who commit these crimes are outlaws," he declared. "I hope to put them in the electric chair, and if we had a hanging law, I'd use it."

The strike was touched off by the owner-operators' difficulties in getting fuel at fair prices. But the shutdown quickly brought to the surface deeper and long festering resentments. The drivers, who often operate on very low profit margins, felt they deserved fast financial relief. They argued that cumbersome federal regulations have long favored the big trucking companies, which are not on strike, and discriminated against smaller owners. Under federal rules, to carry anything except agricultural products, the independents must drive under contract to the big companies. When they hire out, they must pay the company between 30% and 50% of their gross returns.

Says George Sullivan, national organizer for the Fraternal Association of Steel Haulers (FASH): "We have to live with innumerable rules and regulations that take up all your time. You have to get 197 different permits if you drive in 48 states. You have to buy a permit to buy fuel in a state and then tell them how many miles you drive and send them back money for driving through. When the truckers are making money, they can put up with all that. But when they're not making money, they get very hostile."

The truckers made several demands of the Carter Administration. First they wanted an increase in freight rates. The Interstate Commerce Commission permitted a 6% rate hike, but that was not enough, the truckers complained, to cover the boost in fuel costs since the beginning of the year. The independents insisted on an increase in their share of the diesel fuel that is allocated by the Department of Energy. The Government responded by lifting the regulation that allowed farmers to get all the diesel oil they needed. The Administration hopes that the change will allow the truckers to get more fuel without antagonizing the farmers, many of whom are now between spring planting and the fall harvest.

The truckers also wanted to abolish the 55-m.p.h. speed limit, arguing that it costs them money by slowing their trips. But the Government refused even to consider that move. The accident rate would rise again, and more fuel would be burned at higher speeds. Finally, the independents demanded that states establish uniform truck weights across the country. Most states allow an 80,000-lb. load and 60-ft. truck length. But nine states, most bordering the Mississippi River (called the Iron Curtain by truckers), impose lower weight limits. Trucks going across the continent have to keep their loads down to the Iron Curtain level, and they lose money in the process. The Federal Highway Administration last week asked the Governors of the nine states to waive their limits for 90 days. If that is done, operators could increase their loads by 10% and save 25 million gal. of fuel a month, according to the estimates of the American Trucking Associations, the lobby for the major companies.

Trying to quiet the striking truckers, President Carter met with Senator Edward Kennedy last week at the White House to announce their joint sponsorship of a sweeping new plan to deregulate the trucking industry. The Government would stop regulating rates, freight and entry requirements, steps that the Administration estimates would save the public $5 billion a year in shipping costs. In a report sent to Congress, Carter attacked the present system, which puts the independents at a competitive disadvantage. "Collective rate making, commonly known as price fixing, is normally a felony," he wrote. "But the trucking industry has enjoyed a special exemption from the antitrust laws. This immunity allows trucking companies to meet in secret and decide the prices they will charge for truck transportation. Although rate agreements are theoretically subject to ICC review, the ICC has been inclined to rubber-stamp rate agreements rather than subject them to an independent and thorough review."

Trucking companies need certificates issued by the ICC in order to haul certain goods or to operate along certain routes. The ICC normally does not certify owner-operators. "Because regulation permits such high profits and makes operating certificates so scarce," declared Carter in his report, "ICC certificates are bought and sold for enormous sums." They sell for upwards of $20 million.

The proposed legislation suits the deregulation mood of Washington. ICC Chairman A. Daniel O'Neal has been relaxing some trucking regulations over the past two years. Insists O'Neal: "We are not a rubber-stamp commission. This commission is not in bed with the companies it regulates."

The big trucking firms will put up more resistance to deregulation than the airlines did, even though in the case of that industry, renewed competition has boosted profits at the same time that it has cut fares. The major trucking companies are adamantly opposed to any change in rules that have kept competitors out and profits high, and they are staunchly supported by the 100,000 Teamsters who work for them. (The independents belong to no union.) Both the trucking companies and the Teamsters have a powerful ally in Howard Cannon, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who has already traded barbs with Kennedy over deregulation. Cannon insists on extensive hearings and doubts that a bill will clear Congress in the next two years. Complains FASH Spokesman Sullivan: "The Government people are scared to death of the Teamsters."

While deregulation would provide a solution to the independents' problems in the long run, it would do little to settle the current difficulties. One factor working against a prolonged strike, however, is the basic split in the industry. The independents are bitter enemies of the Teamsters, who are combatting the strike by keeping trucks rolling in such big cities as Chicago and Detroit, where they control the jobs.

Teamster-baiting, in fact, has become a way of life for I.T.A. President Mike Parkhurst, 46, a burly, boisterous former trucker who started organizing the independents almost a decade ago. His monthly magazine, Overdrive (circ. 51,000), is the main trade publication of the independents. Parkhurst freely admits that one of the goals of the present strike is to weaken the Teamsters. He wants the independents to carry freight at the same rate as the Teamsters, clearly a challenge to the monopoly that has benefited the nation's biggest union for so long.

But the independents are also fragmented. "A trucker is definitely independent," says Roy Woodworth, an operator in Wilton, N. Dak. "He likes to do his own thing, so he is kind of hard to organize. We banded together out of necessity." Across the nation, hard-pressed Governors tried without success last week to find someone who could speak for the owner-drivers in their states. In Minnesota, Governor Al Quie gave up, declared a state of emergency, and called out the National Guard. About 100 representatives of small operators met in Washington to draw up plans with William Hill, chairman of the shaky Independent Truckers Unity Coalition. But many of them walked out in anger over Hill's insistence on a 10% rate increase and his highhanded tactics. Explained Ted Brooks, who represents Maryland independents: "We feel that holding out for 10% is unfair to the public and is going to result in nothing but bad publicity for the independents."

The independent owners were playing a hazardous game. They wanted to stir up enough trouble to pressure Washington into making the reforms they wanted. Perhaps more than they had anticipated, they were succeeding. "There's a lot of macho in all this," said Mac Vernon, a spokesman for the I.T.A. "They've got the image of being the last of the cowboys."

But some of the truculent truckers also acknowledged that they could cause a backlash that would hurt them in the end. Public sympathy is quickly eroded by violence. Admits Vernon: "It makes us look Mice bandits." At week's end scattered acts of violence were continuing, and no one --not even the stubbornly independent owner-operators--could tell just how long their strike would go on.

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