Green Fleet Bows to Pressure in Advance
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
Truckers at four major companies in the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complex went out on an indefinite strike on April 27.
A last-minute agreement with a fifth company, Green Fleet Systems, averted its inclusion in the strike.
“We had no choice but to go on strike again because my company is continuing to violate the law,” said Humberto Canales, a driver with Pacer Cartage. “The courts have ruled that I am an employee and that their illegal deductions from my paycheck must stop. But they keep fighting me so I am fighting back.”
“We are here to make sure that these companies stop their lawless behavior,” added Hector Flores, a driver with Long Beach-based Intermodal Bridge Transport. “They cannot keep engaging in wage theft…We demand re-classification to employees. We know what we are doing is right and we are not going to stop striking until these companies stop breaking the law.”
“Six hundred thousand working men and women in Los Angeles stand behind the port drivers fighting to stop wage theft and the ability to have a voice on the job,” said Rusty Hicks, executive secretary and treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “Our ports are the economic engine for our region. Our drivers deserve a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.”
Pacer is owned by XPO Logistics, as is Harbor Rail Transport, another company being struck, along with Carson-based Pacific 9 Transportation, or Pac-9, and Intermodal Bridge Transport.
“These are some of the biggest companies that serve the ports of LA/Long Beach,” Teamster spokeswoman Barbara Maynard said.
The companies have also been flashpoints for wage-theft litigation. The industry as a whole faces an annual liability of $850 million in California alone, according to an estimate from the National Employment Law Project. Legal actions filed so far are only the tip of the iceberg, but are intimately connected with the strike.
In March 2014, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, or DLSE, found seven Pacer drivers in San Diego to be illegally misclassified employees and awarded them a combined total of $2.2 million. Pacer appealed, but a tentative superior court ruling upheld the ruling. Pacer Cartage also faces a class action lawsuit alleging willful misclassification of about 662 drivers, with estimated liability amounts to over $5 million. The company’s continued intransigence and lawbreaking are root causes of the strike. These are echoed in the actions of the other companies involved.
Ambulatory strikes—picketing when company trucks arrive at other locations, and continuing until they leave—were ongoing as far away as the Inland Empire and the U.S.-Mexico border. There, drivers picketed Pacer Cartage trucks bringing cargo to Toyota’s Otay Mesa facility to transfer them to Toyota Mexico’s manufacturing plants. Officials at both ports downplayed the impact of the April 27 strike on overall operations. This is due, in part, to some terminal operators avoiding ambulatory strikes by refusing service from the struck companies.
“Cargo continued to move through the port today without delay,” Port of Los Angeles spokesman Phillip Sanfield said.
But a press advisory the next day from Justice for Port Truck Drivers explained something different.
“Few terminal operators were allowing struck companies to pick up and drop off containers, mitigating impact on port operations—but causing major disruption to the operation of the trucking companies and their retail clients whose cargo was left sitting on the docks.”
Retail clients impacted reportedly included WalMart, Toyota, Costco, Target, General Electric, Forever 21, Louis Vuitton, CVS, Procter and Gamble, Macy’s, Family Dollar and JC Penny.
The groundwork for the current wave of wage theft litigation was laid in the fall of 2012, when the
, or LAANE, hosted a legal workshop that resulted in hundreds of wage and hour claims being filed with the DLSE. Individual and class action lawsuits followed.
In August 2013, Green Fleet drivers, facing retaliation for their claims and union organizing efforts, went out on strike. Three months later, in November, drivers at Pac 9 and American Logistics International, joined the Green Fleet drivers in their second strike. Drivers from other companies later joined in as well. In April 2013, drivers at Total Transportation Services Inc., or TTSI, struck alongside drivers from Green Fleet and Pac 9.
Then, in November, 2014, Green Fleet entered into “confidential discussions” with the Teamsters on the verge of a threatened strike, which began with drivers from Pac 9 and TTSI, later joined by drivers from Pacer, Harbor Rail Transport, QTS Inc., LACA Express and WinWin Logistics. By the end of a relatively brief strike, all the companies were involved in discussions with the Teamsters. But most of those discussions have failed to bear fruit, resulting in the current strike.
However, Green Fleet is a notable exception. Along with the Teamsters Port Division, they issued the following joint statement:
“We are pleased to announce that Green Fleet Systems, LLC, and the Teamsters Union have entered into a comprehensive labor peace agreement designed to ensure that Green Fleet’s drivers have an opportunity to exercise their rights under the National Labor Relations Act and, if they choose, to select an exclusive representative for purpose of collective bargaining. This agreement also allows for the orderly conduct of business and insures that Green Fleet’s loyal customers will continue to receive their deliveries timely and without interruption.”
Notably not being struck this time is TTSI. There are rumors of a settlement in the works, but no official comments as of press time. The drivers have also launched a national petition asking Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia to ban law-breaking for profit from the ports.
“As stewards of our nation’s two largest port complexes, where roughly 40 percent of our country’s imported goods land on our shores, I call on you to end the port trucking industry’s profiting from lawbreaking,” the petition reads, in part. “Wage theft has enabled port trucking companies to get away with preventing their drivers from qualifying for ANY assistance that everyday Americans rely on.”
When asked how long the strike would last, Maynard said it was up to the drivers, but added, “It’s really up to these companies to say, ‘Yes we’re willing to follow the law,’ and only when that happens is this really going to end.”