If every single truck driver in the United States refused to drive anywhere, what would be the impact on the economy? Would they be able to make serious demands and have them met? I was thinking of this when someone in the boat thread mentioned a protest of truck drivers in Washington, D.C. over gas prices. If it were a nationwide thing, how much of an effect could they have?
WAG. Probably considerable impact, considering all consumer goods have to travel via truck to the retail outlet or your home/office. The flow on effect could be even more so when you take into account all the jobs tied to goods transportation and delivery.
If this is in reference to protest high diesel fuel prices, not a damn thing.
As already mentioned in my WAG, the effects would be considerable. But it will not happen.
With no drivers to deliver gas, every gas station in the country would run out within a day or so. There would be no milk anywhere in a few days. Grocery stores would be empty in a week. etc
If all trucks stopped rolling, the economy would cease to function. If you bought it, a truck brought it.
Of course the first things mentioned were gas, groceries, and the like, but much of the economy relies of the movement of things pre-consumer, and that’s all carried on trucks too. Essentially every factory would shut down once they ran out of supply; no steel, no fuel, no parts, no tools, no aluminum, no nothing. Since factories are increasingly ordering supplied just-in-time, many if not most would close up shop in a matter of days.
As to what could be accomplished, depends what they were striking for. Fuel prices? Wouldn’t change a thing. Fuel prices aren’t being set by anyone who cares about U.S. truck drivers. Gasoline is rising in price because it’s worth more.
Every single truck driver in the country? Who would organize this? There’s plenty of professional truck drivers now who are self-employed - who would they be striking against? And there are plenty of people who can drive trucks even if they aren’t currently doing to for a living.
So what would actually happen would be you might see a lot of truck drivers go on strike. But you’d still have a sizable group that would keep working. Due to the scarcity of drivers they’d get higher wages and trucking costs would rise. So products would still get moved albeit at lower quantities and higher prices.
Not much (other than minor short-term problems).
Given the unemployment in the USA, they would promptly be replaced by other drivers. Most people can drive cars; driving a truck doesn’t take much additional training. Some people would need to upgrade their drivers licenses to drive big rigs, which might take some time. But if there were serious problems, it’s likely that some Governors would issue an emergency order providing expedited processes to quickly provide truck licenses.
One thing that happened in the 70’s was every other group of unions would then take their turn. All the rest of the U.S. workers even not union try to get more so they are better able to match their now lessened buying power. You get a cycle of rampant inflation, which is currently happening anyway because of the huge oil price jumps. Strikes just add to the flames. The 70’s had way more union members than they do now, and less restrictions on there ability to legally strike. Much of the backlash the unions currently feel such as less numbers and strike restrictions, is due to their tactics and corruption in the 70’s. Like has been pointed out, striking over fuel prices won’t help anybody, because the people raising the prices aren’t affected by the strike. They don’t care, and won’t be pressured into lowering oil prices to end the strike. Unions can do nothing for members if they can’t affect the people they are bargaining with, to force a favorable outcome.