CORPORATE WELFARE IS NOT A RIGHT. Rising fuel prices have provoked truckers' protests in a number of places. One such protest took place in the United States. A commentary notes that independent truckers are themselves speculators.

Each owner-operator makes his own truck payments and buys his own fuel. No large corporate entity is available to support these drivers.

While their truck payments are fixed by purchase contracts, their fuel costs are not. Many truckers have fixed carrier contracts. Most will have provisions for cost of fuel increases; others will be hard pressed to survive.

A "fixed carrier contract" secures work for a truck owner. It is, however, a speculation that the price of fuel will not increase (if it decreases, the owner-speculator profits by it.) The commentary makes no mention of who buys the right of way. Perhaps truckers in Nigeria, South Korea, and Spain, where price protests recently took place, also are asking for relief from their erroneous speculations.

Apparently truck operators take the provision of their rights-of-way by others as an entitlement, if this news from India is representative.

Union leaders say millions of truck drivers have gone on strike across India to protest rising fuel prices and road tolls, in a move that could paralyze much of the Indian economy.

Nothing focuses the mind quite like being taken off the dole.

The All India Motor Transport Congress represents 4.8 million truckers. It is demanding lower taxes on diesel and the repeal of a recent hike in toll road fees, which they say are eliminating profits.

There is no discussion of the effect of truck weight on Indian roads in the article.

The Trotskyite World Socialist Web Site expresses its solidarity with the petty bourgeoisie of New Zealand.

On Friday, July 4, some 4,400 truck drivers across New Zealand took part in a mass protest over the rising cost of diesel fuel and increased road user charges for heavy vehicles. Truck convoys descended on all major centres during early morning peak-hour traffic, with an estimated 2,000 in Auckland, and hundreds in Whangarei, Tauranga, Hamilton, Rotorua, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill. Drivers also turned out to protest in many smaller towns.

There's the expected discussion of the bourgeois state taking benefits away from the working class, but no discussion of the effect of truck weight on New Zealand roads.

The national action was organised in less than three days in response to the Labour government’s decision to increase RUCs overnight after it had previously agreed to a month’s notice. [Transport Minister Annette] King labelled the protest “outrageous” while remaining silent on the massive fuel costs faced by the drivers. At the same time, she justified the government’s increase by insisting that drivers pay “their fair share” toward the upkeep of the country’s roads.

For ordinary people around the country the protest tapped into a deep reservoir of popular resentment against the Labour government which, after nine years in office, is presiding over devastating attacks on the conditions of daily life.

A commentary from Radio Netherlands (in English) offers a roundup of additional fuel-price protests as well as sensible observations.