Word: bigs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...owner-operators' difficulties in getting fuel at fair prices. But the shutdown quickly brought to the surface deeper and long festering resentments. The drivers, who often operate on very low profit margins, felt they deserved fast financial relief. They argued that cumbersome federal regulations have long favored the big trucking companies, which are not on strike, and discriminated against smaller owners. Under federal rules, to carry anything except agricultural products, the independents must drive under contract to the big companies. When they hire out, they must pay the company between 30% and 50% of their gross returns...
...big trucking firms will put up more resistance to deregulation than the airlines did, even though in the case of that industry, renewed competition has boosted profits at the same time that it has cut fares. The major trucking companies are adamantly opposed to any change in rules that have kept competitors out and profits high, and they are staunchly supported by the 100,000 Teamsters who work for them. (The independents belong to no union.) Both the trucking companies and the Teamsters have a powerful ally in Howard Cannon, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who has already traded...
...problems in the long run, it would do little to settle the current difficulties. One factor working against a prolonged strike, however, is the basic split in the industry. The independents are bitter enemies of the Teamsters, who are combatting the strike by keeping trucks rolling in such big cities as Chicago and Detroit, where they control the jobs...
...boys among the families who sat cooking their scanty meal over campfires in the courtyard. Virtually all have joined los muchachos, youths who fight with the Sandinistas at the barricades. Said a seven-year-old whose older brothers have enlisted in the anti-Somoza forces: "When I am big enough I am going to be a Sandinista...
...compromise. By pledging parliamentary support to the Christian Democrat-led coalition, the party had to share the blame for the government's failure to deal effectively with such problems as inflation and unemployment. As a result, working-class support for the Communists has fallen off, especially in the big cities...