Port Truckers Plan Protest Over Pay, Delays

For more than a year, the independent truckers who carry cargo to and from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have protested what they considered long delays at the docks and paltry wages by forming big-rig convoys on freeways and gridlocking downtown streets.

And for weeks, hundreds more unionized drivers employed by the big trucking firms have been talking about a strike.

Today, is what shippers are calling “Crunch Day”--when the whole feud is expected to shift into high gear.

Shippers, workers and labor experts warn that planned job actions by both groups of truckers today could inflame a labor relations dispute that has arisen at both harbors, and will probably muffle the roar of commerce across the nation’s busiest docks indefinitely.

Terminals at both ports were open Monday, but thousands of independent truckers stayed home and the unionized drivers began picketing, causing significant slowdowns at the docks.

“This is going to affect, profoundly, the way freight flows across these harbors,” said Greg Stefflre, an attorney who represents a number of trucking firms.

In one action, an estimated 4,200 truckers who independently own and operate their rigs are expected today to officially begin working for a start-up firm, Transport Maritime Assn., as full-time employees whose services can be leased to other trucking companies. But trade officials predict that no companies will be willing to pay the new firm’s rates.

And in a second action, hundreds of truckers who are employed by other trucking firms have threatened a lengthy strike aimed at forcing company officials to recognize their union, Local 9400 of the Communications Workers of America. The directly employed truckers, and thousands of independent drivers, have held small demonstrations for the last few days.

Port officials said they are preparing to deploy their own police forces and call on other law enforcement officers today if confrontations break out between union and nonunion workers, or between Transport Maritime Assn. truckers and those wishing to continue as independent contractors.

Taken together, the two actions symbolize an escalation of the disputes that have plagued the trucking industry since it was deregulated in the 1980s, labor and trade officials say, and pose a risk to two of the Los Angeles area’s most important, not to mention profitable, resources.

Shipping industry officials said they expected many cargo carriers to reroute their ships to other West Coast ports, primarily Seattle-Tacoma and San Francisco, if the labor problems persist. Others speculated that more shippers who continued moving cargo through Southern California would launch in-house trucking lines, which could lead to a power struggle with the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, the dockworkers’ organization.

But Donald Allen, a former trucker and insurance executive who launched the Transport Maritime Assn., said his ultimate intent is to make the ports more efficient and increase business. He suggested keeping terminals open later to allow more pickups and deliveries.

Allen said he did not expect any violent confrontations today.

“There’s always some renegade hothead,” he added. “We’re telling our people, ‘Let’s do this the correct way.’ ”

Thousands of truckers have flocked to the start-up firm, Allen says, and shippers have voiced concerns that it will corner the market on drivers, forcing them to pay higher fees. But many carriers would prefer to ship elsewhere rather than pay more money, said Jay Winter, executive secretary of the Steamship Assn. of Southern California, the trade association of shippers at both Southland ports.

“It’s hurting this area,” he said of the labor feud. “You can get your merchandise from Seattle to Chicago almost as easily as you can from here. We all lose.”

Transport Maritime Assn., the “labor leasing” firm founded by Allen, does not plan to haul freight, but will provide drivers and trucks as a package to trucking companies servicing the harbors. The firm has pledged to pay its drivers $25 an hour, plus benefits, far exceeding the typical income of independent contractors who work on a load-by-load basis. It is also buying rigs from many of its employees.

In demonstrations for the last two years, independent truckers have protested what they contend are low wages and long lines to pick up cargo at the shipping terminals.