by Tom Price

Hundreds of striking port truckers picketed terminals at the Port of Oakland between April 30 and May 6, demanding pay increases to cover skyrocketing diesel fuel costs. Truckers took other actions at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, parking on freeways and blocking traffic for hours. The drivers, who are mostly owner-operators, say they were forced to stop work because they couldn’t make enough to cover expenses.

“One day I work eight hours, after the whole day I lose $10. If I stay home I save $10!” driver Delph Jean said. “Not working this week I save $50!”

Striking truckers and their families march on the Oakland Port Authority office May 6.

Most drivers haven’t received a pay increase in 10 years.

On the Oakland docks, few container moves could be seen. Large stacks of cans stood by like stepped pyramids, waiting for some resolution to the truckers’ problems. APL reported a decline in truck calls from a normal 1,100 per day to 115 on May 3, according to the Journal of Commerce. SSA claimed traffic had fallen to 30 to 35 percent of normal.

In Los Angeles truckers parked their rigs April 30 on Interstate 5 near downtown. They formed a convoy on the Harbor Freeway, slowing traffic, and shutting down about 85 percent of port truck visits. Then they moved to a peaceful rally at a nearby park.

The truckers face a kind of shell game when they seek economic justice. As independent owner-operators they are contracted by trucking companies and paid by the load. The companies get their business from the shippers of the containers. The truckers have an employee-type relationship with the companies, but the shippers hold the real power in the industry and set the rates for hauling the cans. The truckers want the shippers to increase the rates they pay to cover the increasing fuel and other costs.

The truckers’ actions caused sufficient disruption that shippers and Port of Oakland officials met May 6 and agreed to a 30-day cooling off period. Many of the companies involved agreed to rate increases of about 20 percent, but it’s not clear the drivers actually will see any of it. Some drivers, dissatisfied with the agreement, returned to the picket line the next day, and the port got a restraining order that day forbidding gate blockages.

Other ports around the country reported work stoppages. Truckers in Norfolk, Virginia shut down about half the port’s capacity May 6.

While record-high fuel prices sparked the protest, other issues have simmered for years. The truckers want, among other things, a 30 percent basic pay increase, a fuel surcharge, an increase in pay for delay times and some way to bargain collectively. Many workers would like to join a union like the Teamsters.

“We would like to form a union, but the government won’t let us,” Oakland driver Cesar Lara said.

Federal law forbids driver unionization because the Dept. of Labor sees them as owner-operators, not employees.

“They’re treated like peons, and I don’t mean that in a negative way against them,” clerks’ Local 34 President Richard Cavalli said. “They’re workers, tied to a boss without a real worker’s relationship to an employer and without employee rights. They’re told they don’t have the right to form a union.”

Under various court interpretations of anti-trust law, if they tried to bargain collectively, it would be “price fixing.” The Teamsters have tried to help them out and have an organizing campaign underway.

“Port container haulers are the most exploited truck drivers in America,” Teamster’s Port Division Communications Director Ron Carver said. “They are essentially sharecroppers on wheels assuming all the risks of the business.”

Veteran trucker Daniel Lara and son Cesar ask for support.

Trucker representatives from the East and West Coasts, Gulf Coast and Great Lakes planned to meet in Washington, D.C. with Teamster officials June 13 to scope out their next moves.

Trucking deregulation began in the 1980s and was supposed to increase competition in the industry. But for port truckers, the competition was one-sided. They had to compete against each other for the lowest wages while the shippers maintained a constant price per container. In 1934 the ILWU faced down a similar shape-up system in the Big Strike.

“They have no leverage at all, except themselves,” Teamsters Union International Vice President and Port Division Director Chuck Mack said. “They’ve been left to the mercy of individual bargaining against large companies. The results are a reduction in wages and elimination of benefits. Deregulation makes them bargain against big trucking companies, steamship companies and shippers. There’s no way they have anywhere near equal economic power with those giants of the industry.”

Driver Lara remembered his support for the ILWU during the lockout two years ago.

“Now we need support with what we’re doing,” Lara said. “We’re barely making ends meet. If we can’t make a living, we can’t run the trucks. If we can’t run the trucks you [longshore workers] can’t do your work. If we can’t make a living then you can’t make a living. We need to strike so we can make a living, and get this country moving again.”