Truckers End Strike at Port of Oakland

California truck drivers returned to work at the Port of Oakland, the fourth-busiest port in the U.S., ending a weeklong strike over soaring fuel prices after shipping companies agreed to boost drivers’ pay, a leader of the strike said Monday.

Irvinder Dhanda, a driver who negotiated with companies that hire the independent contractors to haul freight from the port, said a majority of the more than two dozen companies that hire drivers in Northern California agreed to raise their rates 25%, providing what Dhanda said was the drivers’ first increase in more than a decade. The drivers own their own trucks and are hired individually by the companies.

“We got a deal we wanted. They agreed to our demands,” Dhanda said.

Hundreds of drivers slowed traffic at the Oakland port after they stopped working, seeking to wrest increases in rates to compensate for the high diesel fuel costs. Drivers in Southern California last month participated in a one-day work stoppage at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the two busiest in the U.S.

A port spokeswoman said traffic seemed to have returned to normal. “It looks like a lot of independent truck drivers have returned to work,” Marilyn Sandifur said.

Diesel fuel prices reached a record average of $2.45 a gallon in California on Monday, according to the Automobile Assn. of America, one trading day after crude oil in the U.S. touched $40 a barrel for the first time since the 1990 invasion of Iraq, on concern about terrorism overseas and a drop in gasoline inventories.