Reading Room Document

Actions which may be taken in connection with truckers

The OLC issued this brief memo to explain what actions could be taken by the Attorney General against independent truckers during an 11-day strike in 1974. Frustrated with increased oil prices following the 1973 embargo by oil-exporters, truckers blockaded roads in protest, an action that culminated in two deaths and the addition of a fuel surcharge in the truckers’ pricing. The OLC concluded that, with the information provided, little action could be taken under several enumerated statutes, but that there might be recourse in general injunctive authority or in a civil rights action.

February 5, 1974