The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Truckers Strike

[Tease]

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: Incidents of violence and sabotage mark the second day of a nationwide strike by independent truckers.

[Titles]

MacNEIL: Good evening. The strike by independent truckers entered its second day today, and brought violence to the highways in 21 states. Drivers still on the roads were attacked with bullets and rocks. One driver was killed in North Carolina when he was shot in the throat. Two other people were seriously injured, and many drivers were hurt by broken glass. The independent truckers, who haul nearily 80% of the nation's fresh food are striking in protest against new truck taxes passed in the recent gas tax hike. The Independent Truckers Association claimed that more than half of the 100,000 independents had joined the strike. The Department of Transportation estimated only one fifth. Stores around the nation reported no produce shortages yet, but some truck stops said business was down by as much as half. The strike organizers said it would take four to five days for the effects to be felt, with fruit and vegetables likely to be affected first. Most of the nation's truck drivers belong to the Teamsters Union and work for wages under contract. They are not on strike.Their union today condemned the strike violence, and called for government protection for union drivers. Tonight, why are the independents on strike, and what effects could it have? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, these are hard times for the operators and drivers of all trucks. There is the recession, which has cut back business with drops nationally in total tonnage hauled, mileage driven, and revenues made. There's deregulation, which has brought 8,000 new trucking companies of various sizes into business in the last two years. The result has been more trucks competing forless business, and the results of that include an unemployment rate of 30% among truck drivers, bankruptcies for many truck companies, and hair-thin operating margins for those still in business. Into this environment came the new 5"-a-gallon gas tax passed into law in December by the lame duck session of Congress.What upsets the truckers is not the nickel tax so much as the special truck user fees and excise taxes on new trucks, tires, and other truck equipment. It's what prompted the strike call among independent truckers. One who has answered that call is Wayne VanHooser of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who is with us tonight from Atlanta in the studios of Georgia Public Television. Mr. VanHooser, you own your own truck, correct?

WAYNE VanHOOSER: Yes, sir.

LEHRER: And what do you normally haul on your truck?

Mr. VanHOOSER: Well, we haul a lot of carpet out of north Georgia and tires and stuff out of Nashville, Tennessee, along with Aladdin thermos bottles and everything that Stanley makes out of Nashville. Tennessee, and produce back in from the West Coast back into the east side.

LEHRER: All right. Where's your truck now?

Mr. VanHOOSER: It's sitting in Alabama at the company I'm leased to.

LEHRER: I see. In other words, what you do is you, as the owner of your truck, make a deal with a certain company to haul these various things you're talking about, right?

Mr. VanHOOSER: Well, they have authority to haul it. I don't have the authority to haul it on my own.

LEHRER: And they pay you a flat rate to haul this stuff.

Mr. VanHOOSER: Well, we're on a percentage rate. They have a rate set up, and then we draw a certain percentage for hauling it.

LEHRER: Okay. What was your economic situation -- what has been your economic situation in these last several months?

Mr. VanHOOSER: It's been real right. It's been hard to make a dollar. It's operated on a break-even basis, really.

LEHRER: You haven't been making any money?

Mr. VanHOOSER: Oh, no, sir. I've barely been keeping my head above water.

LEHRER: Well, then, why are you on strike then?

Mr. VanHOOSER: Well, for the simple fact that if it's all I can do to break even as is, what's it going to do to me with all the taxes that they've dumped on me? If I'm going to go broke, I'm going to go broke sitting at home. I'm not going to beat myself into the ground out there on the road doing it.

LEHRER: What are these taxes they've dumped on you? What would they do to you personally? Lay out the tax situation personally for you.

Mr. VanHOOSER: Well, I'm looking at a $4,000-a-year increase, and at the rate it's been going, I'll be lucky to have $4,000 left after everything is paid.

LEHRER: You mean this is this truck user fee that goes up in 1985? It's graduated, right, over the next several years? By 1985 you'd be paying $4,000?

Mr. VanHOOSER: Yes, sir. They give us a year's grace because I only own one truck, but irregardless of the fact, I've still got the nickel-a-gallon gas tax, which is $1,000 or more extra per year. I've got the tire tax, which is an extra almost $500 per year. Then you have the excise tax on new equipment, which I was in the process of trying to purchase new equipment when all this come about. And I'm in a holding pattern now.

LEHRER: Can't you pass all these tax increases on to your customers?

Mr. VanHOOSER: No, sir, because the freight is so marginal now, there's not enough freight to go around for the number of companies in there. I heard you mention deregulation, and I haven't seen any deregulation. I've seen re-regulation, but when it comes to deregulating, if you deregulate that means turn it loose -- let everybody have a shot at it -- and they haven't done that.

LEHRER: I don't understand what you mean by that.

Mr. VanHOOSER: Well, I still don't have the authority to haul carpet on my own. I still don't have the authority to haul tires. I don't have the authority to haul any regulated product on my own unless I apply to the ICC for rights, and then if I am denied those rights, even though I have put up my money to apply for my rights, I lose that if they turn me down, and then I have to go through the process all over again.

LEHRER: What about the violence that Robin reported at the top of the program? What's your reaction to that? Is that something that's just part of this strike and we're going to have more of it in the next few days until the thing's over?

Mr. VanHOOSER: Well, it'slike I've always contended before. Any time you have a shutdown of any kind you're going to have a certain amount of violence. Now, nobody has proven to me yet that the blame belongs on the truckers on strike or shutdown. As I said before about the gentleman that got killed in North Carolina, now, was he killed around his hometown or was he out of town? Has he made any enemies? I mean, does he have somebody that he has stepped on their toes that if they could do this and then knowing that we're going to get the blame?

LEHRER: I see. All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Not all independent truckers support the strike. Marshall Siegel is the head of the Independent Truck Owner-Operators, an association of some 4,000 independents based in Boston. He says his members are still on the road. Mr. Siegel joins us tonight from public television station WGBH in Boston. Why are your members not on strike, Mr. Siegel?

MARSHALL SIEGEL: Well, Mr. MacNeil, we firmly are against the strike. We are not against the fuel tax. We can live with the fuel tax. We totally are against the rest of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982, but as far as going on strike and in joining a strike, let me say this. First of all, an owner-operator is not in a position, due to the economic conditions and due to the depressed freight market brought around by the deregulation of Motor Carrier Act o 1980, where he can sit down for a week, two weeks, three weeks, let alone four weeks. He doesn't have the money behind him to sustain him to meet his obligations and to raise his family. Secondly, because of violence that's likely to occur, we're against a strike. Three, in order to strike, you have to be a union, and the Independent Truck Owner-Operators are not a union. Four, they're not dealing from a position of strength. That is, they're out there alone trying to fight this. The rest of the trucking industry is running. They're picking up the freight; they're making a livelihood. You're in a situation where you don't have a national platform for the owner-operators that the owner-operators themselves voted on to say, "Well, look, this is what we want in when we go back into Washington."

MacNEIL: So you think they're in a no-win situation, do you?

Mr. SIEGEL: They're in a no-win situation as far as the strike goes. If every owner-operator that is supposedly on strike sat down with one, two, three, four family friends or -- family or friends and got them to write, call their congressmen, telephone them to lobby against this poor excuse for a bill that's going to, you know, bankrupt the owner-operators, then I firmly believe that we can get Congress to act.And I don't feel that it will be counterproductive to what's happening now. A strike will be counterproductive to everything that's trying to go forth in Washington.

MacNEIL: Just let me make sure I understand you, Mr. Siegel. You're saying you completely agree with Mr. VanHooser on how this new act will affect independent owner-operators financially. You just don't think the strike's the right way, and they should be trying to lobby Congress instead.

Mr. SIEGEL: Absolutely right, but there's one thing you have to understand.An independent trucker with five or fewer trucks does not pay that highway use tax until July 1st of 1985. The only tax that a trucker is going to pay this year, provided he is not buying a brand new truck, he's going to pay the nickel-a-gallon fuel tax. Now, the nickel-a-gallon fuel tax you can live with. I don't agree to one cent a gallon going to mass transit because, can you imagine here in Boston putting an 18-wheeler on the MBTA and going through Boston? It'll never happen. But, okay, let's go along with the theory that they're going to repair the roads, okay? By repairing the roads, what's going to happen is basically this. If you follow a tractor-trailer down the road now you know he's swinging from one lane to the other, waiting on traffic to pass so he can get out of that rough ride that he's in. If they fix the roads we feel that he'll get to his [unintelligible] on time, deliver his freight, be able to pick up an additional load per week to come back, which will give him additional revenue. Secondly, running down the road he's going to do less damage to his truck running it through potholes, and every time he does that he has to put $216 into a spring; and you do that every month, that gets expensive.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you about the violence, finally. Is the violence going to pressure your members to stay off the road?

Mr. SIEGEL: No. The violence is not going to pressure us to stay off the road. What we're going to do is look at the situation, and we're going to be very careful where and how we drive. But if you give in to violence, you give in to intimidation, and there is no way that our organization is going to give in to intimidation by anybody. And let me say this in defense of the trucking industry. That violence out there does not have to be from independent truckers. I would hope that it is not. I would hope that indeed, the violence we're talking about is coming from somebody that this is his way of kicks. But the thing is this: there is bloodshed out there, and the bloodshed out there, regardless of where it comes from, is basically because of a strike being called, all right? If there is a strike being called, then that means the bloodshed has to be on the people who called for that strike. When you're in a situation like this where you have a strike, you don't know how many people are striking. You don't know how many independent owner-operators are shutting down because of fear and intimidation or violence. So I really don't believe, from all reports that I heard today and from our membership that we talked to and non-members, that this showdown or whatever you want to call it -- strike or shutdown or showdown -- is going to last much longer.

MacNEIL: Okay, well, thank you very much. We'll come back. Jim?

Mr. SIEGEL: Thank you.

LEHRER: The organization behind the strike action is known as the Independent Truckers Association. It is based in California. It is headed by Mike Parkhurst, and has a membership of 30,000 truckers. Mr. Parkhurst, let's go through Mr. Siegel's points. First of all, he says the strike is counterproductive. This is not the way to get Congress to change the law.

MIKE PARKHURST: Well, I would like to believe that, but unfortunately it's not the case. Back in December, when the American Trucking Associations and our own organization were working frantically -- and I'm sure that Mr. Kiley will back me up on that in a few minutes -- were working frantically almost around the clock to get the Congress to stop these oppressive taxes, we generated over 30,000 telephone calls in 10 days into the Senate alone. We sent massive numbers of telegrams and letters, and we lobbied personally; we brought truckers in from our organization to lobby personally; and we kept in close contact with the American Trucking Associations to see the progress, monitor the progress that they were trying to make also. When you mount the largest lobbying effort for the American trucking industry -- by the ATA and our own organization, the ITA -- and you combine forces there and you spend all that time and all that money and all that effort, and nothing comes of it, well, that's been working within the system, and nothing happened. And I had top ATA officials, who will be nameless, who have told me privately, "We know that unless you threaten a shutdown and then perhaps carry out a shutdown, we will not roll back these taxes." We were in there lobbying back in December. Mr. Siegel wasn't in Washington lobbying. Nobody even heard of his organization before a few days ago.

LEHRER: The question of violence. Mr. Siegel says that regardless of who may or may not be committing the violence, the people who called the strike, meaning you, must bear the responsibility for that violence. Do you agree?

Mr. PARKHURST: Of course not. You know, there were a lot of contradictory statements there. In the first place, Mr. Siegel said that his people were running and that they weren's intimidated by the violence. Therefore, those truckers who have shut down -- and obviously it's a large number, because we checked with the association for truck stop operators, and they pointed out that it is having an impact; we've checked with reporters in Cleveland, Chicago, Des Moines, all over the country -- many truck stops have a severe lack of trucks. So there's obviously evidence that many truckers shut down.Therefore, if anyone says that truckers are not intimidated by the violence and that they're still running, that means that those truckers who shut down, shut down because they believed in our cause, which is going to help the entire trucking industry -- the ATA, the Teamsters Union, and even Mr. Siegel's new group.

LEHRER: Well, but many of the stories that I read today quoted many truckers as saying that they pulled off because they feared violence. You don't consider that intimidation?

Mr. PARKHURST: Well, yes, if they said that, then I believe that they would say that. I was just countering what Mr. Siegel said, that his --

LEHRER: Well, but my question was, as the caller of the strike, do you assume responsibility for the violence that grows out of the strike, no matter who commits it?

Mr. PARKHURST: Well, that would be rather ridiculous, wouldn't it? I'm not responsible and I'm not going to use the media to convict unknown persons of a crime that they have not even been apprehended for.That wouldn't be responsible, would it?

LEHRER: Finally, Mr. Siegel's point that the independent truckers just don't have the money economically to sustain this strike. They're already so close to bankruptcy. Even your own member, Mr. VanHooser said the same thing: he was already, for all practical purposes, out of business.

Mr. PARKHURST: Yes, and that's the problem. The public doesn't realize that the entire industry is in a severe depression -- not a recession. As a matter of fact, it started back in 1979 when 25% of the top 100 carriers -- and this is before the Motor Carrier Act came into being. A year before, 25% were either in bankruptcy or were operating in the red. And in the last few months, the meager profits of the entire trucking industry dropped 66%. So it's been on a downhill slide, and it can't even be blamed on the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which, as Mr. VanHooser appropriately and accurately pointed out, was not deregulation.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Trucking associations in all 50 states are represented in Washington by an umbrella organization, the American Trucking Associations, which is not supporting the strike. Its senior vice president is Edward Kiley. Mr. Kiley, why isn't your association supporting the strike?

EDWARD V. KILEY: We're not supporting the strike because this is not the way to go. A strike like this or a shutdown, whatever you call it, is against the public interest. The industry we represent -- and we represent the majority of interstate motor carriers over the highways -- we feel we have a responsibility to continue to serve the public. The strike route or the shutdown route is not the way to go. It's contrary to the public interest, and you see what's happening out there today when you do this. It inevitably leads to violence or threats of violence, and this is absolutely wrong and we condemn it.

MacNEIL: You heard what Mr. Parkhurst just said, that top officials of your organization had said privately that a shutdown or threat of a shutdown was the only way to roll back these taxes.

Mr. KILEY: I deny that completely. I don't know whom he's talking about. He said they shall remain unnamed. I know of nothing like that, and I'm confident nobody in our organization or in our industry has made such a comment.

MacNEIL: It was also reported after the gas tax bill was passed that your association accepted the new taxes which are being objected to by the strikers because you secured in exchange extra weight and extra length permission under that bill.

Mr. KILEY: That's not true. We did not accept the tax level that the Congress ultimately enacted in the act of 1982.

MacNEIL: There was no deal made there?

Mr. KILEY: No, there was no deal made on that at all. Part of the whole package was a working toward uniformity in truck sizes and weights, which has been desperately needed for many years. But this was not a quid pro quo deal. Now, some said it was by saying that the increases we were to get in productivity by coming to more uniformity in truck weights and truck lengths were compensated for by the taxes. That is absolutely not true. The increases were limited to certain parts of the country. They also were limited to certain types of motor carriers. And there was certainly no quid pro quo. However, we had no problem with the fuel tax increase and no problem with the other tax increases that have been basically going into the highway trust fund. We recognize the need for a modern highway program; we need more money to keep this highway program up to date -- our highway system up to date. Our problem is with that big increase in that truck weight tax. Now, we were successful, I might say this. Someone said -- Mr. Parkhurst said we were not successful in convincing Congress. I think we were. Not completely so, no. That's why we're going to go back to Congress. We were successful in several ways. One was the ultimate tax, as high as it is and as unacceptable as it is, is much lower than was first proposed by the Secretary of Transportation. Secondly, there's a phase-in for this tax. The fleets of five or more than five have a year and a half before the first tax step takes effect. If you own less than five vehicles, it's two years and a half. We're going back to Congress and seek the legislative route to correct this unjust tax, and that's the way to go.

MacNEIL: Will this strike help you in that effort by dramatizing the complaint?

Mr. KILEY: No, I think it'll be counterproductive because this strike, I think, is against the public interest, against the public safety, and I don't believe you're going to pressure Congress into doing anything by violating the law.

MacNEIL: What would your advice be to Mr. Parkhurst and Mr. VanHooser this evening?

Mr. KILEY: I would suggest to them that they tell their members not to strike, to continue to operate and work with us in a cooperative way to go to Congress in this session and seek relief from these taxes. I might point out that already there are five bills been introduced in the Congress to remedy the situation.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. VanHooser, what do you think of Mr. Kiley's advice?

Mr. VanHOOSER: Well, Mr. Kiley advises us to join his organization, and I invite Mr. Kiley to join our organization for the simple fact that if they lobbied all this hard and if you take a hypothesis of the five largest carriers in the nation and figure the number of millions of dollars it's going to cost them over a four-year period or five-year period, now, if I had one of those large carrier corporations that I was in control of, then I would have been to my lobbyist and I'd have said, "Look, this is going to cost me $10 million a year or $12 million," and I'd have said, "Here. Here's $2 million or $3 million of $4 million, as far as that goes," and been to the rest of the carriers -- and let's just take the five largest ones -- and if we handed up $5 million apiece, I could own the White House when I left that place. Now, if their lobbyists can't do a better job than that, then I would say that they need to get them a different lobbyist. I mean, we know how bills get passed, and it's not going up there and getting on your hands and knees.

LEHRER: Mr. Kiley?

Mr. KILEY: Well, I'll say this, that the members he's talking about, the five or so largest carriers, they are members of our association. They agree completely with what we have done. They can add. They can subtract. They're businessmen. They know what this is, and they have condoned completely the action that we have taken, and they're supporting us and what we intend to do.

LEHRER: Mr. Parkhurst, what about Mr. Kiley's other point, that this is just not in the public interest or public safety, and it's not the way to influence Congress?

Mr. PARKHURST: Well, that's very interesting because the American Trucking Associations -- most of the carriers, not all -- have for many, many, many years been in bed with the Teamsters Union, which have in their contract the ability to strike. It's very interesting that the Teamsters Union does not support this shutdown effort, which will help them. The ATA is now not supporting the effort, but it's very interesting that when the Teamsters Union came off with a strike, the ATA didn't say, "Oh, don't go out on a strike," and yet, the only thing they were striking for were higher wages. What we're striking for or shutting down for is to not only cut the taxes back, but to help to make the American people aware of one basic fact -- two basic facts. Number one, Uncle Sam already has more money in the till than he is legally allowed to spend for the next two years in highway taxes already collected. Therefore, the nex tax is just an income tax. That's item number one.

LEHRER: Let's get a response from Mr. Kiley on that.

Mr. KILEY: What, on the --

LEHRER: On the tax point.

Mr. KILEY: Well, you mean the taxes we're going to pay?

LEHRER: That's right.

Mr. KILEY: Well, as I said earlier, we recognize the fact that the highway program has to be funded. It has to be funded better than it is. As one of the gentlemen said earlier, if we don't do this we're going to be paying money by the damage to the vehicles of increased maintenance costs because of highway deterioration. So we believe that we have to have more funding for the highway program, and we're willing to pay our fair share. But as I pointed out, the problem is that big increase in just that weight tax.

LEHRER: Let me go back to Mr. Siegel in Boston on this question of violence and intimidation. Do you believe that the truckers who have parked their rigs now, most of them have done so out of fear of what might happen to them or their equipment?

Mr. SIEGEL: No doubt in my mind, Mr. MacNwil, whatsoever. We're talking about people from fear and intimidation that they've heard and over the years seen what's happened when you have this type of shutdown or so-called strike. But there was an interesting observation made by Mr. VanHoosen, if I might reflect upon that a minute. He was talking about the thousands of dollars, if not millions, that the lobbyists from these big trucking companies have to spend to try and get this bill stopped. In yesterday's media it was reported that Mr. Parkhurst spent thousands and thousands of dollars to promote this strike, and when asked about calling it off, said why should he call it off; he spent this type of money. What I would like to know is, why wasn't this money -- whether it's his or an outside source -- given to owner-operators to come into Washington and mount a massive peaceful demonstration where the White House could see for themselves or in fact Congress could see for themselves if there was 50- or 100,000 or 10,000 independent truckers who sincerely believe that philosophy?

LEHRER: Let's ask Mr. Parkhurst that question.

Mr. PARKHURST: Well, we brought truckers in while Mr. Siegel was up in New England doing nothing to stop the bill. We brought truckers in, and we spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to fight this back in December as the ATA can verify. We worked hard; we have an organization, and we brought truckers in every day. We had many, many, many truckers coming from many, many states, and the ATA even attended some of our meetings back in early January just before President Reagan signed the bill. But the bottom line of this whole thing is, which is being obscured by little bits of nitpicking, in my opinion, is the ATA said they can't afford it. As far as naming names for Mr. Kiley, I'll point out that a past chairman -- and I'm sure that Mr. Kiley can verify the name Roger Roberson, a past chairman of the American Trucking Associations -- said, in your own paper, Transport Topics, on January 10, Mr. Roberson said, "This time we will not tell our people not to strike, even though we have in the past." Now, Mr. Roberson is the president of a 48-state carrier called Pre-Fab Transit out of Farmer City, Illinois. I'd like to point out also that on January 11, on page one of Section C of the Baltimore Sun, Will Potter, the president of Preston Trucking, a 5,000-truck fleet in 16 states -- $200-million-a-year carrier -- said that the threat of a strike was necessary.

LEHRER: Mr. Kiley? He named names.

Mr. KILEY: Well, he did name names, but Mr. Roberson employs independent operators that work for him. I think what he was saying, in effect, to them, "You work for me. If in view of this you don't want to work for me anymore, I can't tell you you have to." They have that right, and he has that right, too. But the point you've got to keep in mind is what I've made earlier, that we've got to seek this thing in a peaceful, legitimate way, and not resort to violence and threats of violence. And this is what's got to stop. Now, we believe that traffic should continue to move, and we certainly hope that the violence that's going out there today, which is a natural result of the strike or the shutdown -- whatever you wish to call it -- should be stopped and stopped early.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: We have to end it there. Thank you, Mr. VanHooser, for joining us in Atlanta; Mr. Siegel, in Boston; Mr. Parkhurst and Mr. Kiley, in Washington. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.