Ontario truckers launch blockades Source: UPI Publication date: 2000-10-16

TORONTO, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Independent truckers in Ontario launched a series of blockades along a major highway and at a fuel-supply terminal to protest high fuel prices and to pressure industries to take some of the burden.

The blockade began after members of the National Truckers Association met during the weekend in the Toronto suburb of Oshawa to decide on their course of action after the provincial government failed to deliver on pledges to come up with a solution.

Independent truckers in other provincies said they would wait to see what their colleagues in Ontario did before launching similar protests. The independent truckers in Ontario blocked feeder lanes onto a major highway passing through the Toronto area, after blockading a fuel terminal earlier in the day. More protests were planned for other parts of Ontario on Tuesday.

The independent truckers want industries and shippers that use their services to accept a 24-percent fuel surcharge. They said trucking companies automatically pass on extra fuel costs to their clients, but industries and shippers using the services of independent truckers have been refusing to accept a surcharge, and are pushing them out of business.

Al Palladini, Ontario's minister of economic development and trade, has been meeting representatives of industries and shipping companies using the services of independent truckers. Last week, he asked the truckers to give him more time, saying he was close to an agreement, but Bill Wellman, who heads the National Truckers Association, said members of the union were "tired of being asked for more time."

Palladini told reporters he could have a deal by early Tuesday, "so, hopefully, sometime tomorrow afternoon we're going to have something that we could actually take a look at on paper."

The minister warned that the Ontario government would regulate the trucking industry if no agreement were reached. The renewed crisis came as international oil prices hit $36 a barrel last week in the wake of the unrest in the Middle East.

Last month, the truckers demanded that the provincial and federal governments slash fuel taxes to help ease the burden of higher diesel costs, but both levels of government rejected tax cuts as a solution to the crisis.

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-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), October 17, 2000