I tell ya cd. Between that excellent and objective article written by a third party, combined with your astute anyalysis...........the PRAs are on the ropes this time I think.

It's one thing to banter back and forth between each other on this board about these issues. Yet, when faced with a third-party report that flies in the face of everything that they have been apologizing about like a broken record............they run like ants.

Typical I say. They'll just continue to collect their 25CPM with no benefits, job security etc, and be satisfied with bitching amongst themselves anonymously on Channel 19 and getting nothing done about it. "It's a lifestyle." Remember?issedoff:

No surprises here cd. Status quo. What a damn shame...........

Apologists.

You know what's amazing? Everyone of us can see this everyday but how many of us have actually stopped to think about it . . Look at Flying J . . have you thought about why they're closing restaurants? Or the TA with their absurd "all you can eat" deal? Or Subway? They stopped their $5 foot-long deal for about 3 days. Sales tanked!

(FJ's) Bankruptcy notwithstanding, their costs to run a restaurant go up, just like everyone else's, including mine. They have had to raise their prices to the point where their captive audience, us, can no longer afford to eat there. You can't get away from a sit-down meal for less than $15 bucks with a tip. I used to eat in these places 4 or 5 times a week . . not anymore. I'm down to 1, maybe 2 and that's only if the place is spotless.

Real wages for Drivers haven't changed since deregulation . . going on 30 years. The lure of CPM keeps sucking 'em in and the reality of CPM keeps blowing 'em out.

Here is a very small sample of something I'd like to see a lot more of . . a union (Teamsters) putting it's people out front instead of more rhetoric:

Union pickets at Chrysler over non-union trucker pay - WREX.com ? Rockford?s News Leader

I second all your opinions...In my later years, I kind of stopped "raising the union flag". But, I look around and I see the extremely terrible working conditions/pay that drivers endure because now the economy sucks, so what do the coolie carriers do ? Of course, take it out on the people that do the work and can stand it the least, the driver. I'm grateful to my union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters for at least making sure I'm not exploited. I'm grateful for my pension and my health-care and for decent working conditions. All drivers deserve a life for their hard work and lately, things just seem to continue to deteriorate on the backs of the drivers. I applaud the Swift drivers for having the courage to stand up for themselves and hope they are successful. It's not a "lifestyle", it's just a modern day version of the sweatshops of old. There is an excellent book on Amazon called "Sweatshops on Wheels" written by a former truck driver who is now an economics professor in Michigan.

Yeah, how did that new union thug at Saturn help them out? Saturn going bye-bye. I do hope you folks know that this is all about the unions trying to keep out outside truck companies to form a monopoly in the ports?

I've written to my Congressional Rep and Senators numerous times. Explaining the abhorrent working conditions in the transportation industry - the sweatshop on wheels, the time away from home, how only the trucking industry could spin per diem on it's ear and use it as another way to suck money from drivers, the uncompensated work, that HOS rules essentially makes us hourly employees but we get shafted with CPM shenanigans.

We have too many truckers making $35K a year and voting Republican because he think a Democrat is going to come confiscate his guns.

So what went wrong? (with Saturn)

GM started running out of money a long time before the current depression. As the 21st century approached, GM's board apparently chose Saturn to suffer most from the downturn.

Saturn dealers started selling cars and trucks not built in Spring Hill and available in other GM stores under other names, and those cars were not covered with what had become a Saturn trademark --- plastic body panels to ward off parking lot dings.

Though the dealers stayed loyal to Saturn's original concept of treating the customer like they'd never been treated at a car dealer, since 2000, new product barely trickled into the stores (this is how a carmaker can punish dealers or an entire division) and not-so-slowly Saturn appeared destined for some sort of failure.

Actualy I've seen this kind of activity with both Driving and non driving jobs. I've seen ppl fired over the most trivial reasons.

I think a lot of the automakers issues stem from the fact that they don't sell cars people really want. Plus the quality issues etc. And in this instance I do think the UAW got too cozy as long as they got theirs..But, truck drivers and autoworkers working conditions and pay are different worlds..apples to apples and all that..

I'm curious where this goes.Probably nowhere!Swift can pay their way around the law. If something would have been done about working hours,pay and other benefits to the truck driver, it would have been accomplished in the past.

Who knows really,maybe it would be a wake up call in this industry so wages can be raised a little,keeping in mind that we us drivers sacrifice a lot for being on the road,compared to a union car worker, or something else.