Sharecroppers on wheels

Advance Business Capital Columnists

Truck driver Alex Mejia says he often sleeps in his vehicle, grabbing some fitful rest before a new dawn breaks and he is once again hauling cargo at the Port of Los Angeles. The routine marks another working day that could last eighteen hours, much of it spent waiting — for a job order, a load, an operational trailer chassis — before getting back on the road. 

Hard Times for Port Drivers 

Alex is among about 10,000 port drivers who provide a lifeline at the nation's busiest port complex, hauling containers from the seaport to far-flung warehouses and distribution centers for clients ranging from small firms to giants such as Wal-Mart, Costco and Rite Aid. Many say they have long endured extended hours, high stress and relatively low pay, even in the days when business boomed with galloping multibillion-dollar commerce with Asia. 

Life was supposed to get better for them with the coming of the city's much-ballyhooed Clean Truck Program, which is widely credited with helping to upgrade local air quality. The Los Angeles program has been hailed as a national model for cutting air pollution at diesel-choked port communities from Seattle to Miami. 

The concept — to replace smog-spawning clunkers with newer and cleaner rigs — promised to slash emissions and offer a new deal for beleaguered port truckers, many of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America. 

Green Truck Program Stalled 

It hasn’t worked out that way. 

In some respects, the Clean Truck Program has been a notable success. It has reduced average drayage truck emissions by approximately 80%; banned more than 10,000 older, heavier polluting trucks; provided nearly $70 million in port subsidies; and leveraged $600 million in private investment in clean diesel and natural gas fuel trucks. The result is that 94% of port cargo gate moves are being made by clean trucks, making Southern California the preeminent market for alternative fuel truck technology. 

But the plight of Alex Mejia and drivers like him has only gotten worse. 

What happened? Under the city’s plan, Mejia and other drivers were meant to go from being independent contractors to direct employees of the trucking firms that serve the port. L.A. invested millions of dollars in subsidies and incentives to encourage companies to purchase green trucks and accept the drivers. 

As employees, drivers would be paid by the hour and could be eligible for benefits like health insurance and retirement. And it would be the responsibility of employers, not drivers, to pay for the upkeep and costs such as fuel, registration and insurance. 

Resistance by Trucking Companies 

But the trucking industry obtained an injunction in U.S. District Court against the provision requiring companies to make port drivers employees. Trucking firms argue that it would be burdensome, costly and illegal under federal law to force carriers to hire thousands of port drivers. The industry's legal battle to block the employee driver requirement could end up in the Supreme Court. 

Pushing hard for the L.A. plan is the City of Los Angeles and organized labor. "These drivers are slaves to their trucks," says Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. "They can never get ahead." 

Not so, says Josh Owen, president of Ability/Tri-Modal Transportation Services, which has worked the port area for more than half a century. "That's 100% propaganda," says Owen, a vice-president of the California Trucking Assn. "Our truckers are making a really good living. They're doing great." 

The Motive for Misclassification 

Trucking companies can’t be entirely faulted for acting in their own interests. They’re hostage to the big shippers who are their main customers. These businesses negotiate rock-bottom rates with the much smaller and more numerous drayage companies. Competition for business is ferocious and the only way for trucking operations to keep fees low is to reduce their labor costs. Hiring “contractors” has become a basic survival strategy. 

Right now this strategy remains viable because the companies have successfully blocked it in court. L.A. and the Teamsters are fighting for an early ruling. However, until the situation is settled, misclassification will continue while the plaintiffs hope to stall resolution as long as possible. This is an issue that has ramifications beyond Los Angeles. Every port city in the nation is waiting to see how it is resolved. 

Ending Misclassification 

Should the courts rule against trucking companies and make the misclassification provision enforceable, both port drivers and the nation will benefit. If all L.A. drayage companies have to classify their contractors as employees (which most of them effectively are), then labor costs will rise for all drayage companies. No single business would have a labor advantage. Shippers would be unhappy (and retail prices would inevitably rise) but they would have no choice except to accept higher freight rates. 

The hard truth is that the drayage strategy should end, not only as a matter of worker fairness but also to retain America’s role as a shipping power. As evidenced by the example of Rotterdam in Part 3 of our series, our ports are slowly slipping behind other countries’ facilities. To remain competitive, we must improve the efficiency of our ports and the environment of our port cities. 

The Clean Ports Act 

According to the authors of the groundbreaking study, The Big Rig: Poverty, Pollution and the Misclassification of Truck Drivers at America’s Ports, the most direct way to correct the squalid and unfair mess of our current drayage system is for Congress to pass the Clean Ports Act of 2010. The Act would eliminate the legal basis for the injunction against L.A.’s Green Truck Program. Ports currently do not have clear power to establish rules for the vehicles that service them. In other words, they haven’t the ability to improve environmental pollution, traffic congestion, highway safety, or operational efficiency. Once Clean Ports has been passed into law, not only the Port of Los Angeles but all American ports will be able to control drayage companies and their practices. 

Along with this legislation, the authors of The Big Rig urge that federal agencies such as the EPA, DOE and DOT, which already provide funding to reduce diesel emissions, require all companies that receive funds to hire contractors as employees and discontinue the practice of leasing trucks to O-Os. 

These two simple measures will have a huge impact on the twin scourges of American ports: drivers’ income and vehicle emissions. The reality is that port drivers don’t have the money to buy and maintain trucks that meet federal standards. At present, drayage companies and their drivers are engaged in a shabby charade of “independence” that satisfies the letter of the law but fools no one. 

Back to Max 

This series began with a portrait of port truck driver Max Galvin. It’s fitting that we should give him the last word.

Max became a driver eighteen years ago, back in 1992. He scrimped to save a few thousand dollars to purchase a 1978 Wide Freightliner, which he sold three years later to a fellow port driver. With that money he purchased an International that was already eleven years old. He drove it for seven years. He applied insurance money from an accident to buy his third vehicle in 2002, this time a 1994 Freightliner rig that he used until 2008. 

In 2009, Max’s company began deducting $404 weekly payments for a truck they require him to lease from them, and he is also contractually required to handle the cost of vehicle maintenance. 

A father of two, Max is proud of the work he performs despite the conditions that have persistently kept the American Dream out of his reach. He speaks fondly of the other men and women who rise early to gather at his company’s truck yard and refers to them as his co-workers, rather than as competitors. He believes the majority of them also clock 50-60 hours a week and knows several who are facing eviction and bankruptcy. 

Fateful Decision 

Finally, after nearly two decades on the job, Max has reluctantly decided he could no longer “afford to work” as a port driver and handed back the keys of the truck he had been leasing through his company. Since April of 2009, he has paid $35,148 in lease payments, the equivalent of an entire year’s income. 

Max’s new full-time job will be looking for another opportunity that will keep a roof over his head and food on the table for the family. Will it be in the same industry? He believes telling his story will result in near-certain blackballing, forcing him out of port trucking altogether. He has no retirement. At the time he stopped working, he said simply: “I’m a truck driver. A good one. This is all I know. But I give up. This is killing me.” 

The End 

This is the end of our four-part series. We’d like to conclude on a happier note but it would not be honest. The truth is, the great majority of port drivers are in situations much like Max’s. They are “paying to work” and the job is killing them. For them, the American Dream has not died. It was never born. 

Sources for this article include The Big Rig: Sharecropping on Wheels, Testimony of Jose Corarrubias, House Transportation Committee Hearings, PortIndustryStudiesUnivofChicago/DavidBensman, LATimes.com, TruckersNews and OntheHill.com

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