A Trucker's Tale – Right To Work

Sep 23, 2026 - an hour ago

The fact that I grew-up in Western North Carolina, plus having had both an independently-minded father and grandfather, practically ensured that I would never be a “union man.” My college experiences never caused me to lean left-of-center on the political spectrum, and to this day, I think a person is better served when others do not speak for him or her.

A Trucker's Tale – Right To Work - by Ed Miller

I was born in a Right to Work state, and it has always raised the hair on the back of my neck when I have been told that I cannot do my job, or make money, because other people are having a strike about this or that. These are my feelings. I also respect the thousands of truckers who prefer the “union way.” When it boils down to it, we are all truckers, and that’s what matters. This chapter is truthfully one that I wasn’t sure I would include, but I am doing so because situations like this just should not happen! I really do not care who was right and who was wrong — these things should not happen.

During, yet again, another college hiatus, I arrived around 0800 at a Greensboro steel distribution facility with a load of steel coils. Our dispatch office had alerted me that the plant might be on strike, so I wasn’t terribly surprised to find the entrance gate blocked by 15 to 20 striking steel workers. They refused to move to let me in the gate and I quickly learned that I would forever be labeled a scab if I went into the plant. Feeling scabby, I asked the gate guard to contact someone in the receiving office. Soon, a supervisor came out to let me know he had called the Greensboro Police Department to request if they could send some officers to help me get into the plant. It wasn’t very long before several police cars arrived, and like magic, the crowd offered some loud verbal protestations, but they eventually parted and I drove through the gate and into the plant.

The supervisors and foremen were more helpful than any of the steel workers ever had been, because several of them climbed onto the flatbed and helped me remove my tarps and chains, and it took less than 30 minutes before I was completely unloaded. They also helped me fold my tarps. Damn, just for crossing a picket-line? This was great!

When I returned to my truck after washing my hands, one of the supervisors walked up to me and said that he didn’t know how I would get out of the building because the picketers had gone around the building and were now standing in front of, and blocking, the roll-up exit door. (I would have turned around inside the building, and gone out of the door I had entered, if there had been enough room to make that maneuver.)

Judging the distance from where I was parked to the exit door, I guessed that I could be in fourth or fifth gear by the time I arrived at the door, so I asked the foreman to raise the door when I started moving. Sure enough, the door opened to reveal those workers defiantly standing there, and I was headed toward them at a fairly good clip. Of course, I still had room to stop if they did not get out of the way, since I would never consider running over anyone, but I didn’t even have to slow down because they scattered when they saw me coming. (It probably helped that I was driving a truck with an extremely loud 903 Cummins engine in it!)

I’m not ashamed to admit that I am no bad-ass, and I would never have crossed that picket-line if I hadn’t been told that I was being prevented from doing my job. I will also admit that after I passed by the strikers, I did not stop at the stop sign at the end of the street, nor did I completely stop at any stop light as I made my way to I-40. I also didn’t let many cars stay alongside me very long as I drove east. Not that I would have wanted to cross another picket-line, but I am sure I would have done so if the need had arisen. Thankfully, I never had to do so again.

The Fraternal Association of Steel Haulers, or FASH, was founded in the late 60’s, and it was an organization comprised of steel hauling owner-operators (O/Os). Most members had been represented by the Teamsters Union, but FASH’s founders thought the Teamsters treated the O/Os like “red-headed stepchildren,” so they broke away from the Teamsters. The association’s members were known to use violent tactics to persuade other truckers to “park their trucks” when FASH called a strike.

This FASH lesson has been included because the association caused me to endure several terrifying weeks of truck driving. Unfortunately, during one of my “driving sessions” during college, I had several unpleasant dispatches which caused me to traverse the Pennsylvania Turnpike from Breezewood to Pittsburgh and beyond. I refer to them as unpleasant because the FASH boys decided that one way to get other drivers to park their trucks was to intimidate them by dropping bricks and cinderblocks from the Turnpike overpasses.

I was not going to park my truck, so I thought of all kinds of ways to protect myself from those window breaking missiles. I tried to arrive at each overpass while using every bit of the roadway, both lanes and both shoulders. I even tried to move into a different lane as I went under each overpass.

It also stood to reason that I could not block the entire windshield, but maybe I would be able to at least pull onto the shoulder if I could protect my eyes when being hit. So, when possible, just before each overpass, I would cover my eyes with one of my arms. This wasn’t too easy while passing, or being passed by, another truck, or when in a lot of traffic, but I did it when I could. This was, by far, the most scared-shitless driving I had ever done, and many “Thank You, God” offerings happened during those two weeks of terror. Drivers don’t always like it when law enforcement officers sit on overpasses, but during this time, everyone was glad to see them.

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The next time one of these FASH strikes happened, I was a terminal manager in Pittsburgh, and one of our trucks was going to deliver a closed-van load close to the Pittsburgh Airport. When the driver stopped at a red light several miles from the consignee, a fellow climbed onto the side of the cabover International and asked the driver if he knew there was a strike going on. The driver replied that he was aware that FASH drivers were striking, but he was not on strike, so he needed to deliver his load. The FASH member told him not to come back to this part of town again and that he would be smart to park his truck.

When the striker was standing on the side of the tractor, he purposely blocked the driver’s view of his side mirror, so the driver did not see another striker reach under the trailer and pull the handle on the fifth wheel. Yep, when the driver left the red light, the trailer unhooked from the tractor, slammed onto and off the tractor tires, and then fell onto the landing gear pads, which of course had been raised for travelling.

When the cops arrived, the FASH members were so proud of what they had done that they had fled the scene and were nowhere to be found. The landing gears were bent, so they could not be hand-cranked, so a wrecker was summoned to lift the trailer, in order that the tractor could get back under it.

Well, those FASH bastards cost our company quite a bit of money on that episode. I wonder if they would have been proud of themselves if the trailer had become uncoupled after the truck had built up speed and had then run into a bus load of kids.

Ed Miller ([email protected]) has more than 40 years of management and ownership experience in the trucking industry. Today, he is a part-time tour bus driver, published author of “A Trucker’s Tale”, and regular contributor to Supply Post. He is a father of three and a grandfather of two, and lives with his wife in Rising Sun, Maryland.