11/25/2023 0 Comments U.s. truckers strike 2022Co-authored substantially by the unions, by reclassifying truckers as employees, the law would open up the port truckers for an expansion in the unions’ dues-paying membership base. This is not simply a defect in the law’s language. By some estimates, the latter option could incur costs of $20,000 per year for drivers already struggling to break even. This would force owner-operators to either sell their trucks and become direct employees of a company, move out of state, or start their own independent businesses and cover substantial administrative and insurance fees and paperwork. owner-operators cannot be contracted by a port trucking company to move cargo in and out of ports. But it would also affect an estimated 70,000 owner-operators in the trucking industry, allowing companies to hire them for contract work only if it “is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business,” i.e. The AB5 law affects a broad swathe of the state’s workforce, including Uber drivers who are also classified as independent contractors and therefore exempted from receiving a guaranteed hourly wage and benefits. At present, these truckers are dispatched on a contract basis by logistics companies, while truckers own and maintain their own vehicles. Owner-operators represent roughly two-thirds of California’s port truckers, and trucks, in turn, are the primary land-based method of moving cargo in and out of California's ports. This forced the Colorado governor to back down and reduce his sentence to 10 years. Late last year, truckers across the US organized a boycott of the state of Colorado against the 110-year prison term for Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a 23-year-old trucker, for a fatal accident. This week, dock workers at six major seaports in Germany launched their third strike this year, and dock workers in the United Kingdom voted this week to authorize strike action, demanding wages that keep pace with the high rate of inflation. Truck drivers in South Korea struck for eight days in June, virtually shutting down ports all over the country, against skyrocketing fuel prices and a payment structure that encourages dangerous driving to speed up deliveries. “We are working without a contract right now so we support the owner-operators and understand what they are trying to do,” George, an ILWU member with nine years, told FreightWaves.Īcross the US and the world, a mood of rebellion is taking hold among truckers and other freight workers. Meanwhile, the US is actively ratcheting up tensions with China over Taiwan, which could require rapid deployments of military-related materials from West Coast ports.īut the support for the truckers strike has not only revealed anger and discontent with the ILWU’s “strategy,” it also threatens to upend the well-laid attempts to bureaucratically strangle the class struggle on the docks. Most US weapons arming NATO proxy forces in Ukraine are shipped from seaports. This is motivated in large part by concerns that work stoppages at West Coast ports, which collectively handle roughly 40 percent of the country's imports and a comparable fraction of exports, could disrupt ongoing war efforts. Even though the PMA is demanding major concessions on automation and working hours, the ILWU issued a joint statement with the PMA last month declaring it had no intention of calling a strike. The Biden administration has been working closely with both parties to prevent a work stoppage on the ports. This is all the more significant given that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has kept 22,000 dockworkers across the West Coast on the job for nearly three weeks since their contract expired July 1. The action is set to continue through the week, and truckers are also discussing the possibility of a demonstration at the state capital of Sacramento.Īccording to FreightWaves, roughly 100 dock workers honored the picket line Tuesday, blocking the TraPac and Everport terminals and shutting down most container movement at the port. Operations were heavily impacted Wednesday. This grew Tuesday to between 9, according to FreightWaves. The protests in Oakland have grown significantly since Monday, when roughly 100 truckers took part. Similar actions have taken place throughout the state, and are being loosely organized through informal social networks and social media. Hundreds of truckers blocked the entrances to the docks with their trucks, bringing operations to a standstill. The truckers' main demand is the repeal of provisions in California State Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), which would eliminate much of the independent trucking industry on the docks. Truckers gather to protest AB 5 at Port of Los Angeles, Jįor the third consecutive day, hundreds of independent truckers protested Wednesday at the Port of Oakland.
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