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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAn Open Letter from America’s Port Truck Drivers on Occupy the Ports
http://cleanandsafeports.org/blog/2011/12/12/an-open-letter-from-america%E2%80%99s-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports/Dec. 12, 2011
We are the front-line workers who haul container rigs full of imported and exported goods to and from the docks and warehouses every day.
We have been elected by committees of our co-workers at the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma to tell our collective story. We have accepted the honor to speak up for our brothers and sisters about our working conditions despite the risk of retaliation we face. One of us is a mother, the rest of us fathers. Between the four of us we have six children and one more baby on the way. We have a combined 31 years of experience driving cargo from our shores for Americas stores.
We are inspired that a non-violent democratic movement that insists on basic economic fairness is capturing the hearts and minds of so many working people. Thank you 99 Percenters for hearing our call for justice. We are humbled and overwhelmed by recent attention. Normally we are invisible.
Todays demonstrations will impact us. While we cannot officially speak for every worker who shares our occupation, we can use this opportunity to reveal what its like to walk a day in our shoes for the 110,000 of us in America whose job it is to be a port truck driver. It may be tempting for media to ask questions about whether we support a shutdown, but there are no easy answers. Instead, we ask you, are you willing to listen and learn why a one-word response is impossible?
We love being behind the wheel. We are proud of the work we do to keep Americas economy moving. But we feel humiliated when we receive paychecks that suggest we work part time at a fast-food counter. Especially when we work an average of 60 or more hours a week, away from our families.
There is so much at stake in our industry. It is one of the nations most dangerous occupations. We dont think truck driving should be a dead-end road in America. It should be a good job with a middle-class paycheck like it used to be decades ago.
We desperately want to drive clean and safe vehicles. Rigs that do not fill our lungs with deadly toxins, or dirty the air in the communities we haul in.
Poverty and pollution are like a plague at the ports. Our economic conditions are what led to the environmental crisis.
You, the public, have paid a severe price along with us.
Why? Just like Wall Street doesnt have to abide by rules, our industry isnt bound to regulation. So the market is run by con artists. The companies we work for call us independent contractors, as if we were our own bosses, but they boss us around. We receive Third World wages and drive sweatshops on wheels. We cannot negotiate our rates. (Usually we are not allowed to even see them.) We are paid by the load, not by the hour. So when we sit in those long lines at the terminals, or if we are stuck in traffic, we become volunteers who basically donate our time to the trucking and shipping companies. Thats the nice way to put it. We have all heard the words modern-day slaves at the lunch stops.
There are no restrooms for drivers. We keep empty bottles in our cabs. Plastic bags too. We feel like dogs. An Oakland driver was recently banned from the terminal because he was spied relieving himself behind a container. Neither the port, nor the terminal operators or anyone in the industry thinks it is their responsibility to provide humane and hygienic facilities for us. It is absolutely horrible for drivers who are women, who risk infection when they try to hold it until they can find a place to go.
The companies demand we cut corners to compete. It makes our roads less safe. When we try to blow the whistle about skipped inspections, faulty equipment, or falsified logs, then we are starved out. That means we are either fired outright, or more likely, we never get dispatched to haul a load again.
It may be difficult to comprehend the complex issues and nature of our employment. For us too. When businesses disguise workers like us as contractors, the Department of Labor calls it misclassification. We call it illegal. Those who profit from global trade and goods movement are getting away with it because everyone is doing it. One journalist took the time to talk to us this week and she explains it very well to outsiders. We hope you will read the enclosed article How Goldman Sachs and Other Companies Exploit Port Truck Drivers.
But the short answer to the question: Why are companies like SSA Marine, the Seattle-based global terminal operator that runs one of the West Coasts major trucking carriers, Shippers Transport Express, doing this? Why would mega-rich Maersk, a huge Danish shipping and trucking conglomerate that wants to drill for more oil with Exxon Mobil in the Gulf Coast conduct business this way too?
To cheat on taxes, drive down business costs, and deny us the right to belong to a union, thats why.
The typical arrangement works like this: Everything comes out of our pockets or is deducted from our paychecks. The truck or lease, fuel, insurance, registration, you name it. Our employers do not have to pay the costs of meeting emissions-compliant regulations; that is our financial burden to bear. Clean trucks cost about four to five times more than what we take home in a year. A few of us haul our companys trucks for a tiny fraction of what the shippers pay per load instead of an hourly wage. They still call us independent owner-operators and give us a 1099 rather than a W-2.
We have never recovered from losing our basic rights as employees in America. Every year it literally goes from bad to worse to the unimaginable. We were ground zero for the governments first major experiment into letting big business call the shots. Since it worked so well for the CEOs in transportation, why not the mortgage and banking industry too?
Even the few of us who are hired as legitimate employees are routinely denied our legal rights under this system. Just ask our co-workers who haul clothing brands like Guess?, Under Armour, and Ralph Laurens Polo. The carrier they work for in Los Angeles is called Toll Group and is headquartered in Australia. At the busiest time of the holiday shopping season, 26 drivers were axed after wearing Teamster T-shirts to work. They were protesting the lack of access to clean, indoor restrooms with running water. The company hired an anti-union consultant to intimidate the drivers. Down Under, the same company bargains with 12,000 of our counterparts in good faith.
Despite our great hardships, many of us cannot or refuse to, as some of the most well-intentioned suggest just quit. First, we want to work and do not have a safety net. Many of us are tied to one-sided leases. But more importantly, why should we have to leave? Truck driving is what we do, and we do it well.
We are the skilled, specially-licensed professionals who guarantee that Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart are all stocked with just-in-time delivery for consumers. Take a look at all the stuff in your house. The things you see advertised on TV. Chances are a port truck driver brought that special holiday gift to the store you bought it.
We would rather stick together and transform our industry from within. We deserve to be fairly rewarded and valued. That is why we have united to stage convoys, park our trucks, marched on the boss, and even shut down these ports.
Its like our hero Dutch Prior, a Shippers/SSA Marine driver, told CBS Early Morning this month: If you dont stand for something, youll fall for anything.
The more underwater we are, the more our restlessness grows. We are being thoughtful about how best to organize ourselves and do what is needed to win dignity, respect, and justice.
Nowadays greedy corporations are treated as people while the politicians they bankroll cast union members who try to improve their workplaces as thugs.
But we believe in the power and potential behind a truly united 99%. We admire the strength and perseverance of the longshoremen. We are fighting like mad to overcome our exploitation, so please, stick by us long after December 12. Our friends in the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports created a pledge you can sign to support us here.
We drivers have a saying, We may not have a union yet, but no one can stop us from acting like one.
The brothers and sisters of the Teamsters have our backs. They help us make our voices heard. But we need your help too so we can achieve the day where we raise our fists and together declare: No one could stop us from forming a union.
Thank you.
In solidarity,
Leonardo Mejia
SSA Marine/Shippers Transport Express
Port of Long Beach
10-year driver
Yemane Berhane
Ports of Seattle & Tacoma
6-year port driver
Xiomara Perez
Toll Group
Port of Los Angeles
8-year driver
Abdul Khan
Port of Oakland
7-year port driver
dhill926
(16,333 posts)powerful statement.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)mrdmk
(2,943 posts)Had to leave because his wages were decreasing from one year to the next. I have been there and done that. It is a real bitch...
sarcasmo
(23,968 posts)It's really hard to stay in the industry when wages decrease every year. Your high school friend is not alone.
blindpig
(11,292 posts)Hiya Cal.
Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)Not getting online much these days, but I thought this letter was worth the read. Puts things in perspective, I hope, for some people who may struggle to see the big picture of these port actions.
There are reasons to debate this action, but there is no doubt that some powerful shit is going on today.
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)Huey P. Long
(1,932 posts)dana_b
(11,546 posts)#D12:
AnonymousPress Anonymous
#occupyoakland AM #portshutdown pickets a success! arbitrator rules in our favor! COME BACK FOR PM SHIFT #d12 #oo #ows v @occupyoakland
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Same trick is used in IT as well.
Remember Me
(1,532 posts)or at least that's what it was when I was self-employed
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)mdmc
(29,065 posts)Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)Huey P. Long
(1,932 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)senseandsensibility
(16,964 posts)eom
AntiFascist
(12,792 posts)socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)This "misclassification" business is going on everywhere. It is a way for the corps to not pay for ANYTHING that they would have to pay for if they actually hired these guys as employees.
ClayZ
(8,623 posts)FirstLight
(13,357 posts)that is some powerful stuff, right there...
We are not just supporting a movement for those OUT of work or homes...we are trying to HELP IMPROVE the lives of so many of our brothers & sisters who are at the mercy of the corporate machine...
can we get behind this movement now? As a people who deserve better? and a planet that demands us to be better?
Mist
(5,780 posts)as an "independent contractor" has meant lower wages for many in a variety of fields.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)I was at the evening picket for Occupy Oakland that marched from 14th and Broadway at 4 pm. The Teamster contract negotiator for the Local spoke at the rally and said that the morning picket had been supported by 70 of his guys who spontaneously joined in the picket when they saw the cops being jerks to the protesters. They parked their semitrucks on the picket line and didn't budge. He also said the Teamsters have been "Fighting Capitalism since 1903."
This isn't going away. Solidarity.
Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)Love to hear about the straightforward anti-capitalism talk. Even if not everyone here agrees with it, someone's gotta say that shit out loud
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Thank you for posting this letter.
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)to see how many of the independent owner/operator types are so virulently right-wing, as suggested by what gets posted on message boards, along with window and bumper stickers you see on some of their rigs.
I'm thinking that all of that exposure to that fucking poison on the radio all day long as they're driving down the road is a huge factor. It's great to see these drivers that signed onto this letter recognize the elements necessary for better working conditions.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)Very enlightening, thank you for posting that.
Julie
robinlynne
(15,481 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,328 posts)Thanks for the thread, Cal Carpenter.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Highly recommended