Union Truckers Protest at Harbor as Big-Rig Traffic Increases

Tensions sizzled outside freight terminals at the Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor complex Friday as hundreds of recently unionized truck drivers tried to persuade independent truckers to join them.

The union drivers, hired in recent weeks by a start-up labor-leasing firm, shouted at truckers who glided through terminal gates to make pickups, unimpeded by the lack of lengthy lines that typically snake through the port. Others handed out leaflets denouncing holdouts as hurtful to the cause of the union, Local 9400 of the Communications Workers of America.

Big-rig traffic increased noticeably over Thursday as trucking companies used rented tractor-trailers and outside drivers to move cargo. Port officials said their operations had been restored to about 70% of their usual level, but drivers who stood guard outside the terminal gates said it was no more than 20%.

Although the truckers said they barely scraped by as independent contractors, they have no income while they wait for the new company to call. Still, some vowed to hold out until trucking companies agree to lease their services through the new firm and until those companies officially recognize the union.

Oscar Ruiz, a onetime independent driver who said he joined the new firm this week, stood with more than 50 others outside the Hanjin Shipping Agency terminal at the Long Beach port. “There are a lot of people who are scared and nervous,” Ruiz said. “I’m prepared to go till the end.”

Meanwhile, trucking company officials are becoming increasingly skeptical about whether Donald L. Allen, an insurance agent who founded the labor-leasing company, has the financial backing he claims to have and whether he can keep his promises.

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Allen says he has $125 million from English venture capitalists, but has produced no financial documents to that effect. He said he has dispatched scores of drivers to make pickups, but has refused to cite which companies leased them. Thousands of newly hired drivers have not been called yet.

Before the most recent wave of labor troubles swept over the loading docks of the port complex, the nation’s busiest, the independent truckers leased their services directly to trucking companies and were paid per haul. But many complained that slow-moving lines at the harbor terminals have prevented them from making enough hauls to earn a living. Allen’s firm, Transport Maritime Assn., has attracted thousands of truckers with an offer to pay $25 per hour--said to be $7 more than the Teamsters’ contract--and to pay benefits.

To compensate for the loss of drivers who have flocked to the new firm and those who are staying away from the harbor area altogether, trucking companies have pulled drivers from out of state and shippers have diverted some freight to ports in Seattle and Oakland.

Allen said Friday that 4,200 formerly independent drivers have signed up with his firm, down from estimates of 5,300 earlier this week.

He said he would make financial documents available within a month. Responding to calls from trucking executives to release information--such as the name of the bank he is using and the names of investors--he said: “It’s none of their business. Everyone wants me to open up my books and show them what I’ve got. Would they do the same for me?”

If the harbor area trucking industry continues to “stonewall” by not leasing his employees, Allen said, he will compete directly with the trucking companies for customers.

An official from the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Motor Carriers, which tracks identification numbers that every big rig must have under the law, said there is no record of trucks operating for the firm. Allen, who said about 50 of his rigs made pickups this week, said that he express-mailed his application for the number and that it is being processed.

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A manager at Uniform Intermodal Interchange Agreement, a private group that certifies truckers to enter terminals and pick up freight, said that a few shippers from the port complex had called to inquire about Allen’s firm. But the manager said there was no record of the company having an interchange agreement, a sort of seal of approval that some terminals require before allowing trucks through their gates. Allen said it was up to the companies that lease his trucks to obtain their own agreements.