Only Full-Time Truckers Will Be Truckin' at L.A. Port
By the year 2012, only full-time truckers working for a company will be allowed to pick up cargo at the Port of Los Angeles.
The Port of Los Angeles Harbor Commission voted on March 20 to gradually prohibit independent truckers who own their own rigs from calling at the port. The program will phased in through 2012.
The Los Angeles port’s plan differs from the Port of Long Beach’s decision recently to let independent truck drivers haul cargo from the docks as part of the ports’ Clean Truck Program, which begins Oct. 1.
Through a new $70 per 40-foot container fee, the two ports are raising $1.6 billion to replace old trucks with newer, more environmentally friendly vehicles that emit less diesel fuel.
“The passage of L.A.’s Clean Truck Program puts us on the road toward cleaner air for the benefit of all Southern Californians,” Los Angeles Harbor Commission President S. David Freeman said in a statement.
Most trucking companies that call at the ports use independent truckers who earn about $10 to $12 an hour. The industry estimates there are anywhere between 16,000 and 17,000 freelance truckers who work at the waterfront.
Under the Los Angeles port plan, many fear that full-time truckers will be organized by the Teamsters union and that wages will increase to at least $20 an hour.
The American Trucking Associations believes the port doesn’t have the right to make these kinds of decisions because the trucking industry operates under a federally deregulated, competitive, open-entry business model.
“L.A. port and city officials have now guaranteed that the next venue for the proposal will be in the courts,” said Curtis Whalen, executive director of the Intermodel Motor Carriers Conference, which is affiliated with the American Trucking Associations.
—Deborah Belgum
