The 36-year-old Lopez, a Long Beach resident from Nicaragua who has hauled containers to and from Long Beach port terminals ports for 13 years, wants port officials to pass the Clean Trucks Program, which he believes would give him and the other 16,000 independently contracted port truck drivers a better life. As an independent contractor who gets paid by the load, Lopez spends about two-thirds of his annual income of $100,000 on his truck. He works 60 to 65 hours a week, without any benefits to speak of, and he feels exploited by a "broken" system.
The ports' proposed Clean Trucks Program would subsidize the cost of new trucks to trucking companies, which, in turn, would be required to hire truck drivers as employees (with benefits) and assume fiscal responsibility of maintaining the trucks. "For myself, I would have a better life as an employee because I wish to have medical insurance and vacation," says Lopez. "If I get sick I have to go to Tijuana to take care of myself."
In July, a coalition of environmentalists, union representatives, and business and religious leaders presented a petition signed by 5,000 truck drivers seeking employee status to the Long Beach Harbor Commission. Their independent status, they argue, is misleading because they still depend on a specific company to hire them and give them permission to access the terminals. They are not free to switch between employers on any given day.
Long Beach and Los Angeles ports have taken on a pioneering task of increasing goods movement efficiency while also cutting in half port-related emissions within a five-year period. The crusade will require a balancing-act between concerns of environmentalist, truck drivers, and the shipping and trucking industry. The Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP) has been as widely criticized by the trucking and shipping industries for its upending of the status quo, as it has been praised by environmentalists for its groundbreaking goals and clean technologies.
Douglas Reber, owner of Overweight Container Logistics, a small trucking company with two employee drivers, is an opponent. "I think it is a foolish bet for [the ports] to assume that the owner operators are going to choose to become employees. That's a union con job. If [the ports] give me a bailout plan, I'll pack my bags and go. They're going to knock me out of business."
One of the main objections that trucking companies have with the CAAP is its concession plan, in which companies wanting to operate in the ports must sign a contract and meet financial standards that include having a minimum number of employee drivers. The ports have yet to set the rules, but the plan is likely to do away with some of the 1,300 businesses now operating at the ports. Critics argue that the ports favor this outcome because it would be easier to manage fewer businesses.
"Requirements for financial standards have no relationship to a trucking company's [ability] to perform cleanly and legally within the port environment," says Fred Johring, president of Golden State Express Inc., a trucking company that employs 22 owner-operators.
Earlier this summer, the port commissions postponed a decision on the CAAP to allow for an economic impact study of the effects of a concession plan. A vote is possible by the end of the month.
"If you price it a little bit too high, the cargo moves somewhere else or less of it moves through here, and you have damaged the system," says Art Wong, associate director of communications for the Port of Long Beach.
According to truckers and trucking company representatives alike, the fastest way to reduce port emissions and increase efficiency would be to reduce time spent waiting in line at the terminals by opening them up 24-7. In the current system, in which terminals are open from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. and close down for lunch and other breaks, truck drivers wait in line with their engines idling for more than half of the workday.
"We're an embarrassment when you compare our efficiency with that of Hong Kong and some of the overseas ports," says Johring. He says that the Port of Hong Kong operates around the clock and reimburses trucking companies for overtime spent waiting for a haul. "We need to be more aware that holding up the drivers in the terminals is a constraint on capacity."
The plan to reduce the ports' environmental footprint and, at the same time, increase capacity, places the two ports "green philosophy" at the national (and even international) forefront of environmental port policy. Shipping and trucking businesses are uneasily awaiting what could be a paradigm shift in operations, though port officials point out that the five-year plan also gives companies enough time to adhere to new standards.
"What the ports are doing is allowing all the people who work in and around the ports to get ahead of the curve, before [state or federal environmental] regulation would come," says Bill Van Amburg, senior vice president of Calstart, a consortium representing green fuel and technology industries. "They've really raised the bar."
Originally published in Los Angeles CityBeat on 09/06/2007
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