Category Archives: Ports

More angst in trucking at Los Angeles and Long Beach.  Are terminals really locking out certain trucking companies who are locked in struggles with employees who are seeking employee and union status?

Source: HTA complains of illegal activity during drayage protests | AS Daily Newsletter | AS Daily | American Shipper

It’s illegal of course, but clearly those drayage firms are not able to offer the same guarantee of service as others who are not experiencing conflict.

The question, from a labor economics standpoint, is whether the terminal actions are somehow putting them in league with the unions.  Remember, earlier when the Clean Trucks program was under discussion, the ports wanted to make everyone a union driver, working for a large company.  That way, the ports thought they could insure the firms would buy new trucks to modernize the fleet– they had sufficient capital, and that would reduce the need for subsidies.    But owner-operators complained bloody murder, the case went to the US Supreme Court, and it was ruled that drivers could not be compelled to be union members or employees.

So terminal operators had better be careful.  It seems to me that the current situation could be interpreted as a sort of tacit collusion with the Teamsters’ union.  Teamsters have a major share of the unionized drivers, and certainly are the biggest labor union player in the debates at these ports.