Teamsters may muscle in while SoCal ports struggle

A new threat to U.S. West Coast port productivity surfaced yesterday as the Teamsters began organizing independent owner-operated truckers.

Just when shippers thought the port congestion problem at San Pedro Bay could not get any worse, another powerful union has begun to slow things down.

Port truck drivers in Los Angeles/Long Beach, Calif., continued their strike against drayage companies Pac 9 and TTSI. At issue – according to the Teamsters – is the continued “misclassification” of drivers as independent contractors.

In petitions currently being circulated, drivers are demanding the following:

• Stop misclassifying drivers as “independent contractors,” stop deducting business expenses from our paychecks like fuel, insurance, and truck inspections and repairs, and end wage theft.
• Remove obstacles to basic American workplace protections, including safety and health regulations, disability insurance, workers compensation, and unemployment insurance.
• Eliminate the illegal barriers to unionization, including misclassification as “independent contractors,” retaliation, harassment, and union busters (also called union avoidance consultants).
• Pay a fair wage for every hour worked, including waiting for dispatch to give us a load, sitting in traffic on the road to the company’s customer, and waiting in line at the ports.

The international Longshore and Warehouse Union may complicate things further if dockworkers refuse to cross picket lines. This raises another question for shippers to ponder: Will the ILWU try to bring these truckers into their domain? The unions have been fierce adversaries over the years, with both side claiming to defend the rights of the “worker.”