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

First-Rate Truck Drivers, Second-Class Citizens, & Third-World Conditions

September 9, 2011

“We are not second-class citizens, we are first-rate truck drivers….Don’t the men and women who keep the economy moving deserve a shot at the American Dream?”

Yes, Karael Vallecillos, you do. But currently, this Los Angeles father with 11 years of experience as a professional port truck driver and his co-workers aren’t even allowed to use their company’s bathroom.

Karael works long hours away from his family in what the Labor Department calls one of the nation’s Top 10 dangerous occupations. He and his co-workers have filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging that their Australian-based employer Toll Group, a global logistics carrier for popular fashion and athletic brands Guess? and Under Armour, is interfering with their legal right to form a union.

Karael was recently interrogated by management for hours for a routine traffic citation – ubiquitous in the transportation industry – simply because they knew he and his co-workers began organizing. And why wouldn’t they? Toll Group, a powerful and highly profitable powerhouse, subjects its truck drivers to inhumane treatment, including foul-smelling outhouses that lack running water and are rarely cleaned. “We just want our hard work to be valued.”

The charges, which range from intimidation, harassment, and retaliation on behalf of seven employees, came two days after an overwhelming majority of the roughly 75 truck drivers at Toll Group’s Southern California facilities attempted to present 59 signatures to top management on a petition they created to indicate their desire to collectively bargain to end their deplorable working conditions.

Community advocates, clergy, local residents, and labor, environmental and public health activists, liken their working conditions to the Jim Crow laws that governed the post-slavery South until the mid 1960’s.

“I never would have imagined, in 2011, that a foreign company would force their U.S. workers to use separate, unequal outhouses. The stench and unsanitary conditions are so appalling, the drivers 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,” said Father William Connor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Long Beach, CA, who accompanied the drivers in their rebuffed attempt to calmly appeal to their employer’s top brass. “I am deeply concerned that management respect the drivers’ right to decent working conditions and a living wage. The Church cares deeply about economic justice, which applies to the Toll situation.”

Father Connor added that he was disappointed that Toll’s Vice President of West Coast Operations, Rich Nazzaro, dismissed the workers’ pleas. The Pastor Emeritus vowed to work with Eric Tate, the secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 848 – the truck drivers’ choice for a bargaining representative – to support the workers’ efforts to unite.

You can help Karael and his co-workers achieve justice on the job, too. Click here to sign the solidarity petition, and forward to your friends and family who stand for dignity and respect in the workplace too.

Necessity is the Mother of Strange Bedfellows

March 8, 2011

What does the chairman of the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization; a corporate executive of a large East Coast terminal operator and transportation service provider worth $60 million in annual revenue, commissioners from two competing West Coast trade hubs, the president of the nation’s largest union of transportation and logistics workers, and a truck driver who hauls cargo in a polluting rig have in common?

They are each urging federal lawmakers to help protect and replicate the most effective “green-growth” initiatives to clean up port truck pollution in the nation. And they’re not the only ones: Check out what these men and women have to say in this impressive, “who’s who” list of loud and clear soundbites in favor of the Clean Ports Act of 2011.

From Seattle to New York City, from the Beltway to the Los Angeles Harbor, over 150 other organizations representing more than 15 million Americans want Congress to untie the hands of local governments so they can enact and enforce standards that would protect residents from toxic diesel pollution and lift hard-working port truck drivers out of the vicious cycle of working poverty.

From Washington D.C. – ¡Si Se Puede!

February 11, 2011

Alex Mejia has been working at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for the past 5 years. This past week he set out to our nation’s capitol in hopes of getting legislators to see the urgent need to fix our broken port system.

Alex is one of the thousands of port truck drivers currently misclassified as a “contractor” and he’s paying a high price for it. Alex is currently being forced to lease a new clean truck from the company he works for. Every week the company deducts the lease payment, cost of diesel, insurance and a parking fee from Alex’s pay check. By the time he cashes his check Alex is sometimes left with only $200 after a 75-hour work week.

Without the basic labor protections that are given to employees, Alex is forced to work an exorbitant amount of hours. He starts his day at about 7am and works until 1 or 2am the next day. By the time he delivers the last load of the day Alex finds it pointless to go home and try to sleep. Instead he parks near the company’s yard and struggles to get five hours of sleep before going at it all over again.

Alex knows that he is really an employee, but that he has been stripped of his rights because he’s called a “contractor.” This fight is about recognizing Alex, and tens of thousands of other port truck drivers, as the employees they really are.

Alex took this heartfelt video on his cell phone so he could send a message from Capitol Hill to his fellow port truck drivers across the country - ”Si se Puede!”

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UPDATE: Alex also got some media attention because of his visit to Washington, DC!

In an article making the rounds on the internet, Alex tells a reporter that “the [trucking] company switched me from being an employee to an independent contractor, and they didn’t give me a choice. They told me, ‘hey, there’s a truck right there. Either you drive this truck, or you go out the door.’”

But as the article notes, “truckers are fighting back,” and they have a large and growing coalition of activists in their corner!

Port Truck Drivers Take Their Case to Capitol Hill

February 10, 2011

This week a group of truck drivers, community residents, labor advocates and environmentalists made their way to Washington D.C. to participate in the Good Jobs Green Jobs Conference and speak out in support of the Clean Ports Act of 2011.

Among the group is Carlos Santamaria, who grew up in Wilmington, CA one of the port-adjacent communities most impacted by the diesel soaked air. Carlos knows first-hand that as long as trucking companies continue to wash their hands of all responsibility by renaming their employees “contractors,” families like his will continue to suffer the impacts of air pollution.

As a child Carlos witnessed his father, a port truck driver, struggling with the expensive maintenance of the truck he was forced to own in order to work at the ports. As an adult, Carlos himself worked as a port truck driver and lived through the nightmare of being called a “contractor” and forced to pay for a truck he simply couldn’t afford.

Carlos now dedicates his days to encouraging drivers to fight for their American Dream. And today he shared that dream with Sen. Dianne Feinstein while speaking out on Capitol Hill and making a compelling case for the Senator to support the Clean Ports Act.

Rep. Nadler Calls Trucking Industry Actions “Indefensible”, Intros Clean Ports Act

February 9, 2011

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) sent a strong and clear message to the trucking industry today by introducing the Clean Ports Act of 2011, H.R. 572.

“The Clean Ports Act represents a crucial modernization of federal law that would dramatically improve the quality of air for the estimated 87 million Americans who live and work near major container ports,” said Rep. Nadler. “It is indefensible that ports are being challenged from enforcing clean truck programs to replace highly polluting and outmoded diesel trucks. Such pollution profoundly increases rates of asthma, cancer, and heart disease and contributes to a growing public health crisis across the nation. I join American labor, business, environmental groups, consumer groups, and others to clean up our ports and protect Americans from unnecessary pollution.”

The bill, which has 50 original co-sponsors, would protect clean truck programs and reduce harmful air pollution from trucks in port cities on both coasts.

“Our collective failure to protect the public from diesel pollution is a moral outrage and a shame on our nation. Fortunately, the Obama Administration appreciates that Americans want and deserve clean air and the sustainable jobs that accompany it,” said Carl Pope, Chairman of the Sierra Club. In the case of Los Angeles, there’s a proven track record of success. “Congress should embrace this local green-growth model and take action to protect it.”