{"id":14646,"date":"2011-12-12T22:24:37","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T06:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14646"},"modified":"2011-12-12T22:24:37","modified_gmt":"2011-12-13T06:24:37","slug":"open-letter-from-port-truck-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14646","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter from Port Truck Drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For more information on Occupy the Ports, see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.occupytheports.com\/\">the official site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>From &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/cleanandsafeports.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/12\/an-open-letter-from-america%E2%80%99s-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports\/\">An Open Letter from America&#8217;s Port Truck Drivers on Occupy the Ports<\/a>:&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Today\u2019s demonstrations will impact us. While we cannot officially speak for every worker who shares our occupation, we can use this opportunity to reveal what it\u2019s like to walk a day in our shoes for the 110,000 of us in America whose job it is to be a port truck driver. It may be tempting for media to ask questions about whether we support a shutdown, but there are no easy answers. Instead, we ask you, are you willing to listen and learn why a one-word response is impossible?<\/p>\n<p>We love being behind the wheel. We are proud of the work we do to keep America\u2019s economy moving. But we feel humiliated when we receive paychecks that suggest we work part time at a fast-food counter. Especially when we work an average of 60 or more hours a week, away from our families.<\/p>\n<p>There is so much at stake in our industry. It is one of the nation\u2019s most dangerous occupations. We don\u2019t think truck driving should be a dead-end road in America. It should be a good job with a middle-class paycheck like it used to be decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>We desperately want to drive clean and safe vehicles. Rigs that do not fill our lungs with deadly toxins, or dirty the air in the communities we haul in.<\/p>\n<p>Poverty and pollution are like a plague at the ports. Our economic conditions are what led to the environmental crisis.<\/p>\n<p>You, the public, have paid a severe price along with us.<\/p>\n<p>Why? Just like Wall Street doesn\u2019t have to abide by rules, our industry isn\u2019t bound to regulation. So the market is run by con artists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now go <a href=\"http:\/\/cleanandsafeports.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/12\/an-open-letter-from-america%E2%80%99s-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports\/\">read the rest<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For more information on Occupy the Ports, see the official site. From &#8220;An Open Letter from America&#8217;s Port Truck Drivers on Occupy the Ports:&#8221; Today\u2019s demonstrations will impact us. While we cannot officially speak for every worker who shares our &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14646\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-poverty-labor-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14647,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14646\/revisions\/14647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}