STRIKE: Independent short-haul truckers protest on Roth Road off Interstate 5 on Monday. The drivers say they cannot make ends meet on their current pay because of rising fuel and maintenance costs.

Protestors demand higher pay to cover fuel

LATHROP — For the second time in three years, hundreds of independent truck drivers parked their big rigs this week and took to the picket line, demanding higher pay to cover rising fuel and operating costs.

Signs reading “Diesel skyrocketing, can you afford to drive?” and “We demand double rates” lined Roth Road at Interstate 5 on Monday, where the short-haul drivers tried to flag down passing trucks to join the protest.

Protestor Israel Bongca, 40, said the price of Diesel fuel has more than tripled in the past three years, while his company’s fuel reimbursement rate has stayed the same.

With Diesel now up around $4.35 a gallon, much of Bongca’s fuel costs come out of the flat rate he is paid to haul canned goods and other freight from a Stockton railroad terminal to spots around the Bay Area.

“You’re only making $10, $15 an hour, and you own the truck” Bongca said. Out of that income, he added, he must pay for his own insurance, inspections and repairs.

Several drivers on the picket line Monday claimed the companies that hire them have failed to pass along fuel rate increases given to them by the companies’ distributor, Intermodal Transportation.

But Dave Faxton, manager for Mason-Dixon Trucking’s Stockton office, said everyone in the industry is hurting.

“They don’t realize how the economy is now,” Faxton said. “Our brokers cannot give us another dime. Half the people we deal with are laying off people already.”

Still, managers from each of the affected trucking companies have met and reviewed the protestors’ demands, Faxton said Tuesday, and are discussing new rates for each of the companies’ 400 routes.

Drivers remained on the picket line as of press time Thursday, and no agreements with the companies had been reached.