Dateline: New York/New Jersey

A Dirty Old Truck for Your Children’s Future

March 16, 2011

You don’t have to be an economist or an environmentalist to understand how unsustainable – and nonsensical – the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s plan to replace a mere 700 trucks out of a dirty fleet of 7,000 is. Just ask Serge.

The truck driver with a decade experience worried about taking on thousands of dollars of debt, but did exactly what the Port Authority said. He went to the Truck Replacement Center to apply for federal taxpayer-funded grants or other public money to help replace his dirty ’93 rig with an EPA 2007 emissions compliant vehicle. But Serge didn’t qualify. Poor credit is common amongst the nation’s 110,000 port truck drivers who toil in poverty, netting $28,793 a year before taxes.

He then did what no father should be forced to do to keep their job: withdraw $7,000 from his four son’s college savings account. Since Serge paid out of pocket, he can eke on by with a slightly less dirty truck (a 1996 model) thanks to the port’s weak environmental standards. His “new” clunker broke down twice in the first month and cost him an additional $1,500 in repairs and two weeks without work – or pay.

“I had to trade my children’s futures for a broken-down 15-year-old rig that could hardly count as green,” Serge said. “That’s why my co-workers and I will keep speaking out until the Port Authority forces the companies to clean up their act and start valuing the work we do.”

Dirty tricks and wage theft are part and parcel of hauling for port trucking companies that dodge taxes by disguising their workers as independent contractors. This widespread scam also lets the real polluters off the hook, while individual drivers are left to pay the bills for environmental disasters created by the powerful global shipping industry that exploits them.

Thousands of fellow truckers, consumers, environmentalists and labor advocates have sent e-mails to the Port Authority pointing to the error of their ways – you can add your name here.