Yesterday truck drivers and warehouse workers at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles announced that they plan to strike on Monday to protest how “greedy corporations” treat their employees.
Port Truckers Plan to Picket All Week
Around 100 employees are expected to participate in Monday’s strike against companies including XPO Logistics, Intermodal Bridge Transport, and California Cartage Co. The strike is expected to last all week, according to union members.
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A release from Teamsters Local 848 explains that the strike is meant to highlight the “exploitation by greedy corporations using predatory subcontracting schemes, including misclassifying employees as independent workers in order to lower wages, deny them benefits such as health insurance, unemployment, and workers compensation.”
Union members also took a swing at predatory truck leasing programs: “Trucking companies have lured drivers into abusive truck lease schemes and failed to pay them for time worked, resulting in driver strikes disrupting port operations and causing congestion.”
Teamsters Worry About The Cost Of New Zero Emission Goal
The strike announcement also comes the same week that they mayors of Long Beach and Los Angeles made public their intention to require that all trucks at the ports produce zero emissions by 2035. The union is worried that the financial burden of complying with the new zero emissions requirement will fall on the truckers.
This will be the 15th strike at the ports in the past four years. The port authorities say that they do not expect that it will have a major impact on operations.
XPO Logistics stated that many of its drivers do not want to be employees, preferring the independent contractor model.