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Sunday, July 27, 2008

Australia Prepares for Nationwide Trucking Strike and Possibly Violence

Australia may wake up today to a nationwide trucking strike and possibly violence against any truck drivers that attempt to work today.

image The Australian Long Distance Owners' and Drivers' Association is leading the nationwide shutdown, which begins on Monday.

The industrial action does not have union backing.

TWU Queensland secretary Hughie Williams says drivers have been told their safety cannot be guaranteed if they do not stop work.

"There's also been other threats ... not only of being unsafe on the roads but there's been threats of trucks being burnt, of heavy objects being thrown off overhead bridges," he said.

ABC.NET.AU

It is a grim turn that the country down under is facing as truck drivers and unions work to get drivers higher wages while gas prices continue to maintain record highs.

The country that will really be impacted by these potential strikes will be China and the United States, who are directly and indirectly reliant on the natural resources that Australia produces.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Jim Palmer Trucking Enters Chapter 11

With the price of diesel fuel, it is small wonder that many trucking firms around the US are going into bankruptcy to reorganize or some even default on leases, loans, fuel charges and more.

image

Jim Palmer Trucking entered into Chapter 11 in July to reorganize after missing payments on leases and other items.  Lonnie Wallace, the President of Jim Palmer highlighted his main concerns in an interview with the Salina Journal.

The real culprit, he said, is the price of diesel fuel. During the week Palmer Trucking filed bankruptcy, diesel was selling for $4.76 a gallon, $1.88 a gallon more than the same week in 2007.

"It's costing us 34 cents a mile more in fuel charges to run now than it did the same time last year," Wallace said.

That amounts to $14.5 million a year in increased fuel costs. Fuel surcharges tacked onto customers' freight rates are covering only 85 percent of that, he said. Based on those figures, roughly $2.16 million of the higher diesel fuel price is absorbed by Jim Palmer Trucking each year.

That amount doesn't include "deadhead miles," those traveled without freight, and what it costs in fuel to keep refrigerated trailers cold.

"There's no compensation for that from the shippers, at this time," Wallace said. The company is negotiating to recover some of its other fuel costs.

When the cost of fuel goes up, all to often the trucking firms and the truck drivers themselves are the weakest link in the logistics structure put together by contracts and business agreements.  Wal-Mart will not accept higher prices on its latest shipment of milk, eggs, blue jeans or acne treatments and typically the supplier will pass off those costs to the lowest bidder in the freight hauling business, which means the trucking firms fighting for business end up getting the shaft from the market place.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Pakistan Witnesses a Trucker and Bus Driver Strike over Fuel

While Republicans and Democrats cook up recipes for the War on Terror, they may be losing ground as fuel prices hit reluctant ally Pakistan.  A 60 percent increase in diesel fuel prices has triggered a trucker and bus driver strike this week.

Transport operators have pulled thousands of buses and trucks off the roads in Pakistan's biggest city to protest sharp increases in fuel prices.

Gasoline and diesel prices have risen by about 60 percent in Pakistan since February because of rising world oil prices and cuts in government subsidies.

Truckers, bus drivers on strike in Pakistan's biggest city over rocketing fuel prices - International Herald Tribune

Sunday, July 13, 2008

World Wide Trucker's Strike - Indian truckers call strike as fuel, taxes hurt - Planned Months in Advance

It is somewhat amazing the analysis and planning that goes into strikes today.  Strikes in India planned for early July were hatched months in advance.  In some cases they were planned based on comparable strike impact from years before, in 2004 in this situation.

NEW DELHI, June 12 (Reuters) - India's truck fleet will begin an indefinite strike early next month over rising fuel costs and taxes, a union leader said, taking 4 million vehicles off the roads, curbing diesel demand and possibly hitting goods supplies.

If the threatened stoppage takes place, Indian drivers will join a series of protests in Asia and Europe after crude oil's record run forced governments and fuel retailers to cut subsidies and raise prices. See [ID:nSP106193]

"From July 2, there will be no vehicle on the road. We have taken that decision," said Charan Singh Lohara, president of the All India Motor Transport Congress, which represents both large and small truck operations across the country.

A similar week-long strike in August 2004 pulled monthly diesel sales down 9.3 percent from a year earlier, while annual growth in industrial output slowed to 7.9 percent from 8.4 percent in the previous month as the strike disrupted shipments.

UPDATE 1-Indian truckers call strike as fuel, taxes hurt

Interesting in that this strike is looking to pull down the sales of diesel.  In concept, not driving means fewer fuel sales, but the back log of items from rice to grain to petroleum to ipods and strollers will ultimately ship and the decrease in sales is not a decrease at all but a delay instead.

World Wide Trucker's Strike - U.K. & Ireland Oil Shipments Threatened

Like the strike that spread through the Balkans, the United Kingdom and Ireland were threatened with a petroleum disruption resulting from a transportation strike planned for 4 days.

June 10 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. officials have drawn up emergency measures to address potential fuel shortages if tanker drivers go ahead with a four-day strike, the Financial Times reported.

The government will try to reduce disruptions from the strike, John Hutton, U.K. business secretary, said, according to the FT. Measures include ensuring provisions of fuel for emergency services and possibly transporting supplies to high- demand areas, the newspaper said, as well as temporarily suspending antitrust rules among oil companies.

About 500 drivers who work for JW Suckling Transport Ltd. and Hoyer UK Ltd. have threatened strike action over a pay dispute. The strike will run for four days, starting June 13, the FT said. Both companies are the sole providers of fuel to about 1,000 Royal Dutch Shell Plc gasoline stations across England and Scotland, according to the newspaper.

Bloomberg.com: U.K. & Ireland

Again this disruption or threat of disruption is much more serious as it impacts not just a single shipment but to threaten the shipments of drivers that are not actively engaging in the strike and it threatens the ability of everyone else to drive.  Its not the delay of a diet pill delivery, its the potential delay of emergency response vehicles or critical deliveries of food and other products.

World Wide Truckers Strike - Balkan Trucker's Strike spreads from Greece to Romania

Not only are economies in Europe and around the world connected, but the power for a strike to travel cross borders has been demonstrated.  In May a strike spread through Greece to Romania and back again.  This strike over fuel prices actually delayed the delivery of fuel to gas stations bringing many aspects of local life to a halt and even stopped the shipment of freight out of ports where freighters sat with empty fuel tanks themselves.

The increase in fuel prices over the past months triggered a series of strikes by those employed in transportation around the Balkans. The Greeks were the first to start action with a 10-day truckers’ strike that led to considerable fuel and goods shortage and caused rising tension around the country before it ended on May 15. Romanian road carriers followed suit on May 12, passing on the torch to Bulgarian transport companies, who started protests on May 19.

In Greece, tanker truck owners together with owners of public-use trucks demanded a 13 per cent increase in their haulage charges instead of the five per cent agreed by the Greek government the previous month. They also sought permission to use the national highways on weekends and had demands relating to pensions and social insurance.

On May 9 the strikers met Greek transport and communications minister Konstantinos Hatzidakis. He agreed to some concessions that were in his beat, for example letting some categories of vehicles use the national highways on weekends. He also said he would liaise with employment and social protection minister Fani Palli-Petralia as far as pension and social insurance issues were concerned, Athens News Agency reported. However, the truckers failed to accomplish their main goal, the increase of haulage rates, because this was in the remit of the finance ministry, although Hatzidakis did conduct discussions with economy and finance minister Georgios Alogoskoufis. Several days later, protestors’ representatives met deputy economy and finance minister Antonios Bezas and Petralia herself to discuss their demands.

Meanwhile, the ongoing protest actions had an immediate impact on fuel supply in Greece. Athens News Agency reported that, following the strike on May 11, petrol stations started to run out of fuel and drivers around the country faced the tangible threat of being left empty-tanked.

Greek daily Kathimerini said vehicles were queuing up for kilometres at petrol stations to refuel and quoted an Athens petrol station owner as saying they served about 250 cars in less than two hours. Greek press reported fuel thefts and cases of pump owners raising prices in a bid to exploit the crisis. According to Kathimerini, there were also shortages in some food markets caused by producers’ inability to transport goods.

The truckers’ protest also hit shipping as several ferries failed to leave ports for lack of fuel, Athens News Agency reported. At 5am on May 12, taxi drivers joined the truckers’ protest, staging a 24-hour strike.

Balkan truckers ON STRIKE - News news

In many ways this strike had a lot more teeth than the strike in Portugal.  The strike didn't just delay by a day or two the delivery of fitness equipment or non-essential items, it delayed the delivery of fuel thus multiplying the impact of the strike.

World Wide Truckers Strike - Portugal

As a strike loomed in Portugal last month, the impact was expected but not necessarily feared.

PORTUGAL: Trucker Strike Expected To Cause Shortages

The current strike by Portuguese truckers, who are protesting against rising oil prices, has prompted retailers in the country to warn of shortages of staple goods. The transport operators in Portugal started their strike at midnight on 9 June.
Jeronimo Martins said its stores could be affected, and went on to blame the government for not protecting its drivers, who the retailer said wanted to work, but were being prevented by picket lines of striking truckers. The retailer said supplies to its Pingo Doce chain could be interrupted, and they the supermarkets will soon show a lack of some products, especially fresh foods. Yesterday, a police escort accompanied several of the company's delivery trucks, travelling from Azambuja to Aveiras da Cima, through the blockade of truck drivers.
Rival chain Os Mosqueteiros said its stores had been stable in terms of products in stock, but it added that if the strike continued for the next three or four days, it may start experiencing shortages

NAMNEWS

Running blockades to protect things such as market inventories to prevent shortages seems almost normal, but these strikes are still just the threat and not the real thing driven by the failure of finding any other options.  Fuel prices are driving the strike here, but not forcing the strike.  So people may delay a garden decor purchase but entire cities are not running out of food.

World Wide Truckers Strike - Gas pumps drying up in Chile truckers' strike

In this installment, we continue our review of the growing world wide truckers strike as it hit Chile a couple weeks ago.

Gasoline pumps were dripping dry in some towns while stocks piled up at Chilean ports on Thursday as truckers entered the third day of a national strike to demand an end to diesel taxes.

They launched the strike on Tuesday, lining highway shoulders along Chile's 2,700-mile (4300-km) border with rigs laden with cargo.

The strikes add energy-poor Chile to the list of countries experiencing protests against soaring global oil prices, and also come on top of a walkout at a major port.

The strike started a day after the government announced a new $1 billion fuel price stabilization fund. Truckers called it a band-aid that would do little to fix their woes.

"We're waiting for their call to talk," said Juan Araya, president of the National Confederation of Truckers. "This will go on until they do."

The truckers, camped out on highways, say the strike will not end until the government cuts highway diesel taxes and guarantees stable fuel prices for an extended period.

News reports showed gas stations in remote parts running out of fuel because transport rigs were either parked on highways or prevented from driving.

The strike was meant to be mainly symbolic and last for only 48 hours, but union leaders extended it after the government did not enter negotiations.

Gas pumps drying up in Chile truckers' strike

A trucker's strike in one country might indicate a delay in shipping of the latest Sony Vaio or load of vegetables, but as strikes ramp up around the world, just in time logistics models are impacted in an accordion effect.