150 Truckers Convoy to City Hall in Protest Over Pay, Equipment

Air horns blasting, a convoy of about 150 trucks rolled into downtown Los Angeles from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles on Friday afternoon, as drivers complained of poor pay and unsafe equipment.

The protest was organized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which has invested heavily in a nationwide campaign to organize drivers at all ports in the United States and Canada. Similar protests were staged Friday in Seattle; New York; Baltimore; Charleston, S.C.; Savannah, Ga.; and Jacksonville, Fla.

The convoy briefly slowed traffic, but the turnout was far below what organizers had anticipated. “We’re learning,” said Ed Burke, who is coordinating the Teamsters port campaign on the West Coast. “This is going to be an uphill battle.”

At both ports and at Los Angeles City Hall, drivers handed officials copies of a “bill of rights” that demanded pay for waiting times, safe and road-ready equipment, and extra pay for overweight containers.

Harbor officials said they sympathized with the drivers but couldn’t do much to help them.

Shipping representatives in both ports said the demonstration had no impact on the movement of cargo.

Several drivers said the failure of a 1994-97 organizing campaign by the Communication Workers of America, which included a strike, made them leery of jumping into another effort. “It’s very hard to get people excited,” said Celso Raymundo, who has been driving containers from the port since 1993. “A lot of guys didn’t want to waste their time. We’re waiting to see what comes out of this.”

That effort failed in part because the drivers are considered independent contractors, which makes them ineligible to form a union. Teamsters officials said they have found a way around that obstacle, but would not be specific. One possibility would be if the Teamsters formed a company that would act as the drivers’ employer of record.

The CWA effort also was confined to the Los Angeles area; Teamsters organizers emphasized that their campaign is nationwide.

An estimated 11,000 drivers work at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, nearly all of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America. Most own their own rigs and are paid by the trip.

Drivers on Friday said they often spend two or three hours waiting for a container to haul but are not paid for that time. One driver said he may earn $110 to take a load from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles, and he may spend four or five hours on the trip.

Drivers also said rates have remained stagnant despite increases in costs. Deisel fuel alone jumped from $1.04 per gallon a year ago to $1.45 per gallon this week.

“I made $21,000 last year,” said driver Lorenzo Modesto. “I start at 6 in the morning, and sometimes I don’t finish until 9 at night. No vacation. No medical. No disability.”