Making the Case for Good Jobs & Clean Air in Washington, DC

Trucking industry exposed for “ripping off” workers and taxpayers; Department of Labor vows crackdown

December 2, 2011

What is the trucking industry response to claims that port drivers are actually employees who have been stripped of their basic rights by trucking companies? Robert Digges, a spokesman for the American Trucking Associations, tripped on his own tongue on a CBS national news segment when he tried protesting the idea that trucking companies are cheating workers – and it’s getting picked up on blogs like the Daily Kos.

“They (trucking companies) believe they get a more productive employee – excuse me a more effective worker – a worker who is efficient, who has some skin in the game.”

So, the industry that dismantled the Los Angeles Clean Truck Program finally lets the truth slip: port truck drivers are actually employees who have had their rights stripped from them by greedy port trucking companies seeking to pad their bottom line.

“As long as we are independent contractors (the company) doesn’t have to cover benefits, they don’t have to cover sick days, bereavement leave time, holiday pay. It just saves the company money,” said Dutch Prior, a port driver for Shippers Transport in Oakland.

While the scheme is a boon for port trucking companies like Shippers Transport, a subsidiary of the giant SSA Marine (half-owned by Goldman Sachs), it’s drawing the attention of the Occupy movement and the Department of Labor.

“These (practices) have astronomical impacts on local governments, state governments and federal government and also hurts good, legitimate businesses that are playing by the rules and for employees that are being ripped off,” said Hilda Solis, the head of the US Department of Labor.

Last year the agency collected more than $5 million for nearly 8,000 misclassified workers, but with 300 new investigators on staff the Department of Labor will be looking more closely at misclassification schemes.

On December 12^th the Occupy movement is organizing a shutdown of the West Coast ports while the Occupy protesters in New York take their case directly to Goldman Sachs on the same day (Goldman Sachs – half-owner of SSA Marine – has its own checkered history with paying taxes. It’s easy to understand why the Occupy folks are targeting the company in the coordination with the port shut down.)

The CBS Early Show segment is only the latest in a series of investigative news pieces on the port trucking industry generally and on Shippers Transport in particular.

Salon.com interviewed Leonardo Mejia, a truck driver for Shippers Transport who works out of Long Beach. “Mejia is part of the shadow economy, though not in the sense that that term is commonly understood: as an autonomous netherworld entirely off the books and underground, invisible to the taxman and mainstream society. Mejia’s shadow economy is something a little different; purposefully created from the top down, its growth driven by employers increasingly eager to shed costly, legally mandated commitments to their employees.”

New laws will help port truck drivers and other employees who are purposely misclassified by their employers, but enforcement of new and existing laws is key. Without strict enforcement from government agencies an imbalance of power exists which keeps truck drivers under the thumb of the giant trucking companies like Shippers Transport.

“There’s an imbalance of power in the market which enables the big shippers to control the cost of shipping,” According to Dr. David Bensman, a professor at Rutgers University and author of “The Big Rig”, a report about misclassification in the port trucking industry. “And as long as you have that imbalance of market power you are going to have intense competition and substandard industry practices.”

Had Enough of Pollution & Poverty? Pledge to End It.

September 30, 2011

A Word from Patricia Castellanos, Chair of the Los Angeles Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports

Our movement for environmental and economic justice was dealt a real blow by corporate polluters and anti-union interests this week. They convinced the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals panel that an arcane loophole in the law prevents the nation’s largest port from fully implementing the EPA-award winning LA Clean Truck Program.

Are you willing to stand with the nation’s port workers and residents who are pledging to not take this sitting down?  The nation’s 110,000 first-rate truck drivers who have long been subjected to third-world working conditions will be the first to feel the impact of this blow – along with the 87 million Americans who live and work in polluted port regions. Now they need to hear that we will fight back with them.

While top-notch attorneys representing the port and environmental groups like Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council succeeded in preserving many of the pioneering standards that helped introduce thousands of clean trucks into service, conservative judges put the brakes on the regulation that would stop the industry’s dirty tricks that brought diesel-soaked air and dead-end jobs to our communities in the first place.

If upheld, profitable, multi-national corporations like Maersk and the Goldman Sachs- owned SSA Marine will continue to disguise their truck drivers as independent contractors in a widespread scheme to cheat on taxes and force struggling blue-collar workers to buy and maintain the next generation of green trucks. Underpaid truck drivers and overburdened taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill for industry giant’s diesel mess!

Pledge to support these workers in their fight to make the global shipping and trucking industry pay to clean up their dirty diesel mess, and treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve! 

Thousands of truck drivers are standing up and speaking out, and they need to know we have their backs. Take the pledge to amplify their voices and ask your friends to do the same. Across the country, I, along with partners from over 150 organizations united in the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports, will personally share your show of solidarity with truck drivers in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, New York, Newark, Houston and Miami.

Your past support of the LA Clean Truck Program and the Clean Ports Act of 2011 demonstrates you care deeply about clean air and good, green jobs.  Let’s show these corporate bullies who trample on workers and pollute our communities just how much powerful we become when the going gets tough.

Brooklyn councilman wants “trucking companies on the hook” for the dirty diesel mess

September 14, 2011

Dirty port trucks aren’t just a California problem. And they’re not just a Newark problem either. In fact, Brooklyn, home to the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, is one of the most at-risk counties in New York for health problems resulting from diesel soot.

And while community activists and clean air advocates are celebrating a recent victory to reduce diesel emissions by installing shore side power for giant cruise ships docked in Red Hook, they’re also gearing up to fight for a better clean truck program from the Port Authority.

Councilman Brad Lander, who represents port-adjacent communities in Brooklyn doesn’t believe the Port Authority’s current plan is effective because it forces hard-working, low-income truck drivers to foot the bill for clean trucks.

“They’re treated as independent contractors when they’re really employees of the truck companies,” said Councilmember Lander. “We need to have the trucking companies on the hook.”

“That burden of buying a new truck is placed entirely on the drivers,” said Brad Kerr, a board member of the Columbia Waterfront Neighborhood Association. “They make very little money.”

In fact, the failure of the Port Authority’s efforts may be the reason why the agency continues to withhold important information about their program. They have not responded to an information request by Councilman Lander and most recently they refused to provide updated information to the media.

The Port Authority hasn’t just failed to clean the air and protect the residents, but the agency has also forced low-income truck drivers to take on huge debt just to keep their jobs. In some cases it has pushed drivers out of the industry altogether.

Bronx truck driver Kirby Reyes, 38, was forced to quit his job as a port trucker after 11 years. He now transfers garbage from the city out of state, a job he says he hates. “Why take a loan for $100,000? “ Reyes said. “The interest is too much.”

Port Convention Attacked by Pranksters Armed with ‘Snark and a Pointed Critique’

September 13, 2011

Port officials and shipping industry leaders attending the annual American Association of Port Authorities convention woke up to find themselves the unwitting victims of a prank by environmental, faith, labor and community activists.

Outhouses and Injustices: Australia’s Toll Group Degrades America’s Truck Drivers

September 10, 2011

The ugly laws that relegated black Americans to second-class citizens for nearly a century in the post-slavery South were struck down over 45 years ago. Appallingly, that hasn’t stopped the Australian-based corporation that currently handles cargo for popular apparel and athletic brands Guess? and Under Armour from conducting business practices in Southern California that smack of Jim Crow.

Just as African-Americans were forced to use separate, inferior public restrooms and drinking fountains, Toll Group, a global transportation and logistics powerhouse, explicitly bars its truck drivers from using the clean and stocked indoor facilities; these roughly 75 men and women who haul imports for the fashion and footwear retail customers must share a trio of foul-smelling, unsanitary port-a-potties that lack running water outside in the company yard. Every Toll Group employee and manager is also free to use the break room during rest and meal periods, except the mostly Latino-American workers whose job it is to haul giant containers from port terminals to local warehouses.

Perhaps this multinational corporation is turning up the exploitation because many workers are too afraid to speak out when unemployment is so high. But these brave truck drivers began organizing themselves to put a stop to Toll’s inhumane treatment and now they need our help.

When the Los Angeles heat rises, or when the outhouses simply haven’t been cleaned after several shifts, drivers say they are so disgusted by the flies, the stench, and unsanitary conditions that they are better off relieving themselves outside. Female drivers don’t even have that option — they must put themselves at risk for infection by holding it until they can find a nearby fast-food chain or gas station. Workers on the night shift, like Jimmy Martinez, say it gets so dark, there’s not a chance he would enter.

On Wednesday, he and two other co-workers, Orlando Ayala and Luis Alay, attempted to speak to Toll’s top brass on behalf of 59 employees who work long hours to make their company profitable (Just last week it posted a rising net profit of $281 million). Their goal was to present a petition signed by the overwhelming majority of port drivers simply asking for equal access to clean and safe indoor restrooms and the break room; and the freedom to form a union without employer harassment and intimidation so they have the strength to end the humiliating environment and win improvements on the job.

The workers were accompanied by two advocates, Father William Connor, Priest Emeritus of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Long Beach, and the elected leader of the local union of transportation workers, Eric Tate of Teamsters Local 848. Outside, their co-workers, children and spouses hoisted signs in support of their efforts along with several dozen local residents and members of the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports, an alliance of environmental, public health, faith, labor, and community groups. Port drivers from other companies nearby honked their horns in solidarity.

Inside, one of Toll’s senior executives, Vice President Rich Nazzaro, grew more defiant in the face of the workers’ calm show of unity. He flip-flopped on his previously stated open door policy by refusing to discuss remedying the injustices before refusing to accept the petition the drivers brought to him. The head of West Coast Operations even dismissed the pleas of the priest, saying that the moral and religious values of human dignity and respect may apply in church, but not in the workplace!

The situation in Los Angeles is a drastic contrast to how Toll Group treats its truck drivers in Australia. They aren’t discriminated against, nor is their profession devalued. Aussie drivers earn a fair wage for a hard day’s work, health care, and paid time off to spend with their families. That’s all their American counterparts want, but the ask is too much for a company with revenue that recently climbed 18 percent to a whopping $8.6 billion.

So what’s it going to take to get Guess? and Under Armour’s carrier to treat its workers with dignity and respect? Like the four students who first sat down in non-violent protest to order coffee at a “white only” lunch counter one February 1960 afternoon in Greensboro, N.C. ignited a series of growing sit-in actions that led to Woolworth’s reversing its policy of racial exclusion, Jimmy, Orlando, and Luis know that speaking truth to power is not enough. They are sparking a real movement with their co-workers, other drivers, and the community to end the pervasive injustice at their company and across the entire port trucking industry.

Already, Toll’s Australian employees and the union that represents them are publicly to speaking out against the segregation exhibited by their joint employer. Now in the U.S. the workers are asking supporters and consumers like you to sign onto the solidarity petition to management that local residents are now circulating. On this Labor Day, please add your name and spend another minute to forward it to as many friends as possible.

Thank you for your support.