TruckingIndustry.news

Port Truck Drivers Strike, Yet Again

by Jana Ritter - Published: 4/29/2015

The  on-going dispute over wage theft claims has fired up again and West coast port truck drivers from Los Angeles down to the Mexican border are striking for the third straight day since Monday.

Wage Theft Strike

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Truck drivers working at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego began their strike Monday in order to get their employers to start obeying the recent ruling that they're being misclassified as “independent contractors.” According to a spokesperson for the striking truck drivers, the independent contractor classification has been allowing companies to pay the truck drivers less than minimum wage and that this can end up shorting a single truck driver out of $60,000 in pay each year.

The 4 major firms currently being picketed against include Pacer Cartage, Pacific 9 Transportation, Harbor Rail Transport and Intermodal Bridge Transport. But the effects of the strike go much wider and are directly impacting a number of major retail giants such as Wal-Mart, Toyota, Costco, Target, General Electric, Forever 21, Louis Vuitton, CVS, Procter and Gamble, Macy’s, Family Dollar, and JC Penney. During the last three days, San Diego picketers have been specifically targeting trucks delivering cargo to Toyota’s Otay Mesa facility, which is to then be transferred to Toyota’s Mexico manufacturing plants. However the strikers' intentions are to disrupt the company’s cross-border operations, as they have effectively done in the past. 

                                                                            Justice for Port Truck Drivers                                                                 

Last November, Green Fleet Systems drayage firm also reached a “comprehensive labor peace agreement” with the Teamsters union. However, the other companies have been standing firm despite the strike continuing over he last three days and representatives for both the Los Angeles and Los Beach ports have even gone so far as to say that their business has hardly been affected and that freight is moving along just fine.

Perhaps its because the picketers at the port marine terminals have been stationed to only target trucks arriving from the four targeted trucking firms and the terminals simply reacted by discouraging those very firms from dropping off or picking up containers over the strike duration. That leaves 800 other trucking firms unaffected and thousands of other non-striking truck drivers still going on with business as usual.

While union officials indicated that the collective strike effort would continue until at least Friday, it has yet to be seen how far they intend to “drive-up” their actions.

What do you think would finally resolve this issue? Is strike action enough?


Trucking Unlimited
Trucking Unlimited
This has been going on for 3 years now...is strike action really effective enough?
Rodolfo S Garza Jr.
Rodolfo S Garza Jr.
It's not effective enough. A Nationwide over the road Strike would work. Even if the train took the freight you need the trucks to get it to the stores.
Brian Seefeldt
Brian Seefeldt
Less Old shit boxes rolling down road held together by duct tape and tortillas
Colby Metcalf
Colby Metcalf
They don't know what work is
John Gerondidakis
John Gerondidakis

Michael Jahns
Michael Jahns
Looks like a few never missed a lunch break...
Michael Gravatte
Michael Gravatte

Michael Gravatte
Michael Gravatte

Michael Gravatte
Michael Gravatte

Dan Guise
Dan Guise
lol and really they dont work drive junk but they wanna strike lol wtf
Sandy Miller Basham
Sandy Miller Basham
Dang if they got shorted $60,000 what did they make? I might want to go out there and try to get a job.....
Rodger Caquelin
Rodger Caquelin
Over paid the way it is shut down the ports send them boats back to china
Giovanni Sedita
Giovanni Sedita

Giovanni Sedita
Giovanni Sedita
I think with start riotig
Chris Cobb
Chris Cobb
Pat Cobb
Pat Cobb
Pat Cobb
Oh no it's effecting Walmart let's all drop what we are doing and give a shit lol
Chris Cobb
Chris Cobb
Exactly
Pat Cobb
Pat Cobb
It surely won't effect our trucks lol
Chris Cobb
Chris Cobb
No we don't run cheap enough to haul for Walmart
Pat Cobb
Pat Cobb
Lol that's right
Chris Cobb
Chris Cobb
But they got the money so they can bitch and get something accomplished
Pat Cobb
Pat Cobb
No joke about that