1,000 signatures reached
To: Sibelco
Sibelco: 12 hours waiting with no pay and no bathrooms is not OK.
Truckers like me are spending two to four to 12 to 36 hours waiting to pick up or deliver loads in the oil fields of West Texas - and we’re not getting paid for it.
Drivers are also not being shown the Shippers Bill of Freight, which allows for serious wage theft. One driver was paid $500, but when we got our hands on the Bill of Freight, the load was supposed to pay $3,000!
On top of that there’s no bathrooms. We have to use a bucket or go in the open fields. You know how dehumanizing that is for either a man or a woman to have to use a bucket? This is insanity.
We’re not allowed to abandon our place in line, no matter how long the wait is, and we have no control over when the load will be ready. If we leave the line, we could be fined, suspended or fired.
A Belgium based mining company, Sibelco, owns the mines. They claim to uphold the highest ethical standards, but what’s happening in their mine is the complete opposite.
We’ve been protesting outside the entrances of the sand mines, and organized a cross-border trucker-led convoy in West Texas, to win respect and justice for truckers – and have a big protest coming up in Charlotte, NC, in days.
Sign our petition to stand in solidarity with us and tell Sibelco that 12 hours waiting with no pay and no bathrooms is not OK!
Why is this important?
One driver I know can’t afford tires or oil changes, and says his family’s suffering because the money’s not enough. It’s ridiculous because the price of oil is still high, but inflation takes more of our pay and our wages are going lower and lower.
These mines are just hurting people, they’re hurting the land. The fracking by these mines is poisoning the groundwater. There’s 2.2 million people who live here, and our home could become a wasteland if the degradation by these mines isn’t addressed. We aren’t tree-huggers: we’re truck drivers. But we also need clean water, safe air to breathe, and livable land.
After we protested last year, and refused to fulfill deliveries for a day, 18 truckers were fired. It’s against the law to punish people for organizing at work like we did, and we’ve filed a complaint to the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that investigates labor practices.
A lot of drivers are recruited from Mexico, but it doesn’t matter which side of the border truckers are from. So we’ve formed a cross-border alliance of Truckers Movement for Justice in Texas, TAMEXUN, STB, and TMJ in Mexico. Stand with us and sign the petition demanding justice for truckers.
