Advocate for your rights – your way
Everybody has a different comfort zone. Some people don’t mind large crowds. Others hate them. Some people can easily strike up a conversation with a stranger, while others avoid people they don’t know like the plague. Then there are those who choose to text or email rather than make a phone call.
The point is that, just as people have different communication preferences, you have numerous options for effectively advocating for your rights as a trucker. Additionally, the issues where you focus the lion’s share of your efforts can be unique, as well.
The fall meeting of the OOIDA Board of Directors highlighted the impressive number of ways board members advocate for truckers.
There are members of the board who also serve on boards at the local and county levels – the perfect places to fight for truck parking. There are others who mentor new drivers to help them acclimate safely and profitably. And some members routinely send tabbed copies of Land Line Magazine to their lawmakers, highlighting OOIDA’s stance on various issues. Many have their lawmakers’ direct numbers on speed dial. Others use the handy FightingForTruckers.com to regularly email their lawmakers. And that’s just a sampling of the options truckers have for addressing issues with a potential direct effect on their lives.
The effectiveness of OOIDA’s Washington, D.C., office is much stronger when an army of OOIDA members are regularly communicating with their member of the House of Representatives and their two senators.
How you participate in that army can take different forms. And there will be plenty of opportunities to do so with the change of administration that’s come with President Donald Trump’s return to office.
The following pages will get you up to speed on your options and motivate you to get involved. If you’ve never emailed or called a lawmaker or have been too overwhelmed to even know where to start, this how-to guide will make advocating for your rights a lot less daunting. LL