Dateline: Los Angeles/Long Beach

Drivers Simply Cannot Pay

January 21, 2008

Working for low wages has always meant truck drivers are forced to skimp on expensive truck maintenance in order to provide for their families. As the LA Times reported, when repairs did happen, they occurred as patchwork like using hand-held electric “hot knives” connected to pickup truck batteries to rethread old bald tires. These tires are literally ticking bombs that put the lives of these truck drivers and those of us sharing the roads with them at great risk. Still, because the trucking companies themselves refused to take responsibility for the equipment used by their workers, driver had no choice but to cut corners.

Since the implementation of an incomplete clean truck program, the economic situation for drivers has only worsened. Well-capitalized port truck companies have now passed the cost of the new clean trucks directly to their drivers. As the most recent investigative piece from the LA times reported, the burden of fronting all the operating costs has resulted in drivers receiving poverty wages like $3 dollar checks for weeks of work, drivers working even more hours than before often exceeding federal regulations for hauling, and drivers sleeping in their rigs just outside the port to get more hauls.

While new clean trucks have replaced clunkers, truck drivers remain at the mercy of greedy trucking companies whom refuse to recognize drivers as employees. Until companies start obeying labor laws and stop misclassifying drivers, the economic reality will never change at the ports and today’s new trucks are destined to become tomorrow’s polluting machines.