Department of Transportation Secretary Mary Peters maintains her reckless indifference to the economic struggles of working Americans. She continues to break the law by way of continuing with the Mexican Trucking Program, a "Pilot Program" that places us all in harm's way. While she sleeps soundly, we acknowledged a week of National Sleep Awareness.
The NTSB has said that driver fatigue is a leading killer of drivers throughout the United States, something that the Teamsters Union have said for a long time now, and have repeatedly asked how American drivers are relegated to an 11-hour day while Mexican drivers get 11-hours when they first hit our borders? Is that safe? Who wants to be near an 40-ton vehicle driven by a driver on his 19th hour? Not me.
In case you haven’t had the chance to get to FireMaryPeters.comor TeamsterPower.com, let me be the first to tell you that Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa blasted the Bush administration earlier this week for its reckless indifference to the economic struggles of working Americans who continue to struggle under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"No matter how many jobs we lose, no matter how many foreclosures, no matter how many people die on the highways, the Bush administration just doesn’t care about the safety and security of American workers," Hoffa said.
President Hoffa’s comments came at the end of a news conference by Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who extolled the benefits of NAFTA. Yea, you read right ... benefits. Peters claims that closing the border to unsafe Mexican trucks would hurt American businesses that want to sell to Mexico. Really? Well, if that is not enough madness for you, Peters went on to say that Mexico will retaliate against the United States if it closes the southern border. Oy vey.
"I don’t buy it," Hoffa said in a conference call with reporters. "They’ve got a $70 billion trade surplus. They’d be foolish to do that."
Safety
For more than 10 years, the Teamsters have said how unsafe it is for Mexican trucks to freely roam the United States. The union has made it clear that since NAFTA was passed there has been a system in place that is not broken. This refers to the fact that for the longest time any cargo coming into the states from Mexico stopped 25 miles into the border. The trucks were then off-loaded and the cargo moved on an American truck with an American driver behind the wheel.
The safety issues go from the trucks to the drivers and back to the trucks again. Most members of Congress agree that this Mexican trucking program is a hazard waiting to happen – and why the current system was put in place. The only one who doesn’t seem to see the light here is Secretary Peters. Her inability to "get it" puts her in violation of the law, a slap in the face to working people and Congress simultaneously.
One of the safety issues that come up frequently among drivers I know is the hours-of-service. You see, in the United States a truck driver must rest after driving for 11 straight hours, which is really too long to safely wrestle a 40-ton rig at 55 or more miles an hour down the highway. But the mystery question is what happens when a Mexican driver takes eight to 10 hours just to get to the border? Are they then given another 11 hours to driver under U.S. laws? Do you want to be in the lane next to that driver on hour 19 of his trip?
While we go back and forth on all the safety issues, hours-of-service included, a press release issued during the first week of March got buried on my desk. The release, from the National Transportation Safety Board, says "NTSB Chairman Rosenker stresses the need for sleep and rest requirements as the nation marks sleep awareness week." I don’t recall seeing a "National Sleep Awareness" card at my local card shop, but had I found one, I might have sent it to Secretary Peters.
The release states, "Throughout its 41-year history, the NTSB has seen the issue of fatigue reoccur in many of its accident investigations with fatal results. As a result, [the] NTSB has studied operator fatigue and issued recommendations calling for improved scheduling regulations and practices, education for operators and employers concerning fatigue and sleep disorders, and research to better understand the risks associated with fatigue in transportation."
I do not doubt that this is true, I do doubt, however, whether Mary knows what it is like to work a tractor trailer at 3 a.m. on a rainy highway. I am also doubtful she read the release from the NTSB.
So, while Mary sleeps, comfortable in the arrogance of this lame duck administration, there’s a phone ringing in a 911 dispatch center. She won’t answer it. She doesn’t care.
And that’s why the Teamsters are screaming for her to be fired. Maybe that will wake her up.