Truckers protest diesel prices on 22nd Street

TAMPA -- Some 45 Tampa big-rig truckers assembled near Tampa's port this morning to protest an economic vise they say is tightening around them.

With diesel fuel approaching $4 a gallon, the truckers gathered this morning at Broadway Avenue E and 50th Street near the Port of Tampa, then rumbled up Interstate 275 for a stop off Fowler Avenue. They soon returned down I-275 to 22nd Street.

They parked around a pair of small cafes and complained that their rates haven't nearly kept pace with their rising fuel costs.

"I have two tanks that hold 150 gallons each. That's 300 gallons," complained driver Alex Hernandez, 43. "You can do the math. It costs me $1,200 to fill up."

"I personally think the oil companies are way out of line."

On Monday, Kenneth Beersingh hauled a load of fabric from the port to Lake Wales for $160, Beersingh said. He burned 25 gallons of diesel, costing nearly $100."Right off the top, $100," Beersingh complained.

He didn't know what could be done, but thought the economy needed to be released from the grip of "big oil."

"All I know is what I'm being squeezed for now is more than I can afford," Beersingh said. "I'm about to lose everything I have."

Many of today's protesters are independent truck owners who rely on brokers to arrange container hauling to and from the port. They complained about such middlemen more than the oil industry.

"The brokers, they raise the prices to the customers, but they don't pass it on to us," Hernandez complained.

"They ask you, 'What do you want to do?' " complained David Minaya of Riverview, one of the organizers of today's protest. " 'You want to stay home or you want to work for less?' "

-- Bill Coats, Times Staff Writer