https://themilitant.com/2019/11/29/teamsters-union-treated-owner-drivers-as-fellow-workers/
‘Teamsters union treated owner-drivers as fellow workers’
Vol. 83/No. 45
December 9, 2019
Truck drivers picket in Wilmington, California, Sept. 9, demanding NFI
company bosses treat them as workers, not “contractors.” Farrell Dobbs
explains how owner-operators, loaded by debt, are also exploited workers.
Teamsters Port Division
Truck drivers picket in Wilmington, California, Sept. 9, demanding NFI
company bosses treat them as workers, not “contractors.” Farrell Dobbs
explains how owner-operators, loaded by debt, are also exploited workers.
Teamster Politics by Farrell Dobbs is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the
Month for November. It is the third volume of a four-part series on the
history of that union during the giant labor battles of the 1930s. Dobbs
emerged from the ranks to become a leader of the 1934 Teamster strikes
and the central organizer of the 11-state drive to bring tens of
thousands of over-the-road truckers into the union. Dobbs went on to
become the national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party from 1953
to 1972. He was the party’s presidential candidate four times. The
excerpt is from the appendix “How the Teamsters Union Organized
Independent Truckers in the 1930s.” Copyright © 1975 by Pathfinder
Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY FARRELL DOBBS
During the depression of the 1930s individually owned trucks appeared in
the transportation industry in ever-increasing numbers. A major factor
in this development was an intensive sales campaign by the auto
corporations. Their caper was to induce the unemployed to buy themselves
a job by buying a truck. Workers who could scrape up the down payment
were allowed to meet the balance of the purchase price on a long-term
installment basis. Incentive for such purchases was given by the federal
government, which used individually owned trucks on its “make-work”
projects for the unemployed of that period. State, county, and city
engineering departments followed suit, especially in connection with
road work.
Comparable trends developed within private industry. Firms having their
own fleets of trucks often kept a surplus of rigs on hand by hiring
independent owner-operators, who usually found themselves payless —
despite the time put in — when they were not actually hauling something.
Fluctuations in business volume were thus compensated for at the expense
of the owner-operators and to the profit of the fleet owners. Broker
setups appeared in the form of companies that relied entirely on
individual truck owners to move goods. In such cases virtually the
entire overhead cost of trucking operations was shoved on to the
owner-operators, thereby impairing their capacity to earn a living.
These and other practices of a comparable nature held sway in coal and
ice delivery, construction hauling, motor freight, and elsewhere in
transportation.
Immediate profit-taking along these lines was not the only object the
capitalists had in mind. Advantage was sought from ambitions that
developed among independent owner-operators to expand their holdings and
go into business for themselves. Illusions were fostered that such
prospects were open to all individual owners, so as to trick them into
identifying themselves with the problems of management. To the extent
that the scheme worked, divisions were sown between owner-operators and
the drivers of company fleets. Unionization of the industry was thereby
impeded; the laws of the open-shop jungle could better prevail; and the
trucking bosses were able to wax fatter in all respects. …
Such were the prevailing conditions throughout the trucking industry
when Trotskyists in Minneapolis began to win leadership influence within
the IBT [International Brotherhood of Teamsters] during the second half
of the 1930s. In shaping our overall class-struggle policy, close
attention to the independent owner-operator question was included. We
began by taking full account of the realities of the existing situation.
Drivers owning their own trucks had become a factor of major dimensions
within the industry. To consolidate the union power, they had to be
brought into an alliance with the fleet drivers. Before that could be
done, however, a course had to be developed that would serve the
owner-operators’ interests.
Careful examination of all the factors involved convinced us that those
owning one truck, who did their own driving, should be approached by the
union as fellow workers. Proceeding accordingly, we set out to organize
as many of these individuals as possible. They were then extended the
democratic right to shape the demands that were made upon their
employers, the leasing companies. On that basis the union as a whole
followed through by backing them in struggles to improve their take-home
pay.
The validity of that policy was confirmed by its results. In the major
struggles of that period against the trucking employers generally, the
union’s owner-operator members served loyally. They volunteered their
trucks to transport pickets and shared in the picketing. A significant
number of our casualties in battles with the cops were from among this
category of workers. After the union had been consolidated, they
continued to play a constructive role. Like other members of the
organization, they looked upon those of their own kind who took an
antilabor stance as finks and dealt with them accordingly.
Our course had checkmated the divisive schemes of the bosses. In
Minneapolis the truck drivers and allied workers had emerged as a power,
and the union was able to march forward in advancing the interests of
all its members. …
A man who owns the truck which he drives is merely an employee who is
required to furnish his own tools as a condition of employment. He has a
full legal right to be represented by a labor organization. …
We approached the equipment as expensive tools the individual
owner-operators had been required to provide in order to get jobs as
drivers. This served our objective, which was to make the leasing
companies pay for the use of those tools, as though they were the
owners. That would reduce their advantage down to having the
owner-drivers buy the equipment initially, and there wouldn’t be much
percentage for the operating companies in such an arrangement. To the
extent that we could succeed in that course, the trend toward an
increase in the use of owner-operated rigs could be reversed; and a
healthier situation could be established, with trucking firms again
using their own fleets, operated by drivers paid on a regular wage basis.
In striving toward that goal we were aided by gains registered in
securing higher wages and better conditions for fleet drivers. Those
accomplishments were noted by the owner-operators, many of whom began to
realize that they, too, would be better off as fleet drivers.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •‘Strike for safety’ at CN wins widespread support
•Iran protests hit economic crisis, rulers Mideast wars
•SWP fall drive gets truth out about workers’ strike battles
•Solidarity with copper strikers fighting Asarco union busting!
•Fear of defeat in 2020 drives the Democrats’ push to impeach Trump
•DC protest: Cops who killed Bijan Ghaisar should face charges!
Feature Articles •Protests in Colombia, Chile resist government attacks
Also In This Issue •Workers organize support for flood-hit parts of UK
•‘Our History Is Still Being Written’ now out in French
•Bolivia protests falter after deal with ‘interim’ gov’t
•Conviction overturned, Gerald Reed’s still in jail
•Fall Campaign to sell Militant subscriptions and books Oct. 5 – Dec. 10
(Week 7)
•Socialist Workers Party Fund Drive Oct. 5 – Dec. 10 (Week 7)
Editorials •Help make ‘Militant,’ book, fund drive
On the Picket Line •Indiana teachers rally for higher pay, better
working conditions
•Striking steelworkers in British Columbia rally over concessions
Books of the Month •‘Teamsters union treated owner-drivers as fellow
workers’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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David Hume
“ In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees
of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral
evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ”
― David Hume,
