Dateline: New York/New Jersey
September 14, 2011
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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.”
Dateline: Los Angeles/Long Beach
September 13, 2011
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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.
Seattle’s The Stranger reports that the, “pranksters slipped a revised agenda (pdf) underneath the doors of all 900 rooms at the Westin Hotel, promoting mock sessions like The ‘Green Washing’ of the Cargo Supply Chain Award, Handout Happy Hour, Integrating Jim Crow into Today’s Workplace….The entire mock agenda is pretty well done—an informative mix of snark and pointed critique.”
While the merry pranksters and their mock agenda didn’t end all of the environmental and economic injustices at the ports, it’s just one event of many that activists are planning this week to shine a bright light on the real-world consequences of a dirty and broken port industry.
Dateline: Los Angeles/Long Beach
September 10, 2011
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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.
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Dateline: Los Angeles/Long Beach
September 9, 2011
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“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.” (more…)
Dateline: Oakland
August 16, 2011
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A band of Oakland port trucking bosses said they were for clean air…before they were against it. And one another.
First the West State Alliance, a group hell-bent on fighting the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports, struck out in trying to persuade state regulators at the California Air Resources Board to gut port diesel truck standards to dramatically reduce toxic pollutants. So they pleaded their case to the Alameda County Supervisors, who recently held a public hearing to talk about it.
But their strategy backfired when disagreement within the industry ranks bubbled to the surface.
On the “hot air” side you had trucking company owners saying life-saving environmental standards should be delayed. (These are the same companies that force truck costs onto the backs of their individual drivers through tax evasion and wage theft schemes, more wonkily known as “employment misclassification.”).
“Our hope as an organization is that the CARB staff and Board can revisit their Dec. 17 decision [not to delay the Phase II emission-related upgrades for port truck requirements] as a matter of internal policy,” Ronald Light, Executive Director of the West State Alliance, told FleetOwner, an industry publication. We hope they will see the merits of a delay.” And if they don’t get their way, they’re threatening to take legal action.
Trucking company owners admitted that drivers are under water from paying high interest rates on loans and carrying large debt. What do you expect when drivers only make $25,000 a year? You think they can buy and maintain $100,000 trucks or even $20,000 retrofit filters.
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