California Truck Drivers Strike

By JoAnne Pow!ers

Truck drivers at three major California transportation companies went on strike yesterday morning at truck yards and marine terminals at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.  The indefinite strike over Unfair Labor Practices by the companies is an escalation following several earlier actions which lasted only one to two days.  The workers are striking over firings, intimidation and other retaliation against workers for engaging in legal union activities protected under the National Labor Relations Act.  While four billion dollars of cargo enters the nation through these ports every day to retailers such as Walmart and Home Depot, the workers struggle to make ends meet.

Nick Weiner, Campaign Director for the Teamsters’ Justice for Port Drivers campaign, says the companies misclassify the workers as independent contractors, keeping them in poverty, denying them benefits, and preventing them from bargaining collectively to improve working conditions:

[Nick Weiner]:    “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it looks like a duck…it’s a…it’s a duck.  These drivers are employees of the companies that they work for.  They are in no way independent.  Over the past year or so, government agency after government agency has determined the drivers are right.  It doesn’t matter what the companies say they are.  If the facts on the ground, the reality in how they’re treated is an employee, that’s how they are treated under the law.”