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News & ArtsTuesday, January 26, 2010
Economy Seattle's Port Truckers: Supported by McGinn, Spurned by the Port
Posted by Jake Blumgart on Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 7:04 AM
The last couple days have seen some interesting developments in the port trucker story that I reported last month.
First, a short summary of the issue. Through a quirk in federal law, most Seattle's port truckers have been labeled "independent contractors" by their employers. This legal technicality may not sound like much, but it shifts all of the expenses on to the drivers, forcing them to pay for their own trucks, gas, taxes, etc, leaving the drivers with less than half of their annual income. To top it all off, it is illegal for independent contractors to organize a union. These guys are getting a really raw deal, and they can't easily negotiate a better one. Surrounding communities are impacted by the cheap, old trucks these guys drive (its all they can afford), which pump pollutants into the neighborhoods surrounding the port, sending respiratory illness rates skyrocketing.
This problem is common to ports throughout the country because the quirk in question is a part of the 1980 nationwide deregulation of the trucking industry. (For a thorough, wonky explanation of the issue check out David Bensman's excellent analysis.) Over the years, a coalition of labor unions, environmental groups, low-income advocates, concerned community members, and local politicians of both political stripes have been building pressure on the feds to close the legislative loophole.
Which leads me to interesting development #1. On Friday, January 22, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn added his voice to the choir by writing a letter to senior Senator Patty Murray asking for her help in the upcoming legislative battle on Capitol Hill. Very cool. (The letter came at the end of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in D.C., where many of the mayors reportedly lobbied their congresspeople in a similar fashion.)
Interesting development #2 is less cheery. Yesterday, Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani went down to San Diego to petition members of the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) to back him up in his lobbying efforts against the truckers. I don't know much beyond the meeting itself right now, but I'm going to look into it today, and I'll hopefully be able to get some follow-up for you.
Yoshitani's stance against port reform has been clear for some time. The Port of Seattle has given K Street lobbyists, specifically McBee Strategic Consulting, $60,000 in Port money (i.e., taxpayer money) to combat closing the “independent contractor” loophole. Yoshianti has also entered into an alliance with the reactionary American Trucking Association (ATA), which has slowed down progressive change in ports nationwide by blocking LA’s Clean Trucks Program, which would have required trucking companies to take responsibility for the drivers and their dirty rigs. (The court battle between ATA and LA is preventing any other ports from enacting similar legislation, which is why the battle has moved to the halls of Congress.) The weird thing is that Yoshitani is technically a public employee, hired by the port commissioners, some of whom have come out in favor of Clean Truck legislation. So why is he being allowed to run around undercutting his bosses ? Sounds like a job for newly elected, pro-reform port commissioner Rob Holland!
Correction: The policy meeting was held in Tampa, not San Diego.
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SEATTLE:
Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club
Community Coalition for Environmental Justice
Council on American-Islamic Relations, Washington Chapter
Church Council of Greater Seattle
International Longshore & Warehouse Union, Local 19
Martin Luther King County Labor Council
People for Puget Sound
Puget Sound Sage
One America
Seattle/King County Building and Construction Trades Council
UFCW, Local 21
Unite Here, Local 8
Washington Community Action Network
NATIONAL:
Honorable Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City
Honorable Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark
Honorable Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles
Honorable Ronald Dellums, Mayor of Oakland
Honorable Stacy Ritter, Mayor of Broward County (home to Port Everglades)
Honorable George Miller and 23 CA members of Congress
Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives
Bay Area Air Quality Management District (CA)
Change to Win
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Natural Resources Defense Council
Sierra Club
Port of Los Angeles
Port of Oakland
Port Authority of New York & New Jersey
You write in a scab paper. When are you going to call Liz or Yoko at the Guild and organize the Stranger?
Did you know McBee Strategic Consulting is the firm where former Airport Director Gina Marie Lindsey (after whom the Gina Marie Lindsey Arrival Hall at Seatac is named) worked after Seatac?
And did you know McBee is the firm where Micky D (Mic Dinsmore) arranged for an internship of the daughter of Congressman Norm Dicks? This was mentioned in the Seattle Times a few days ago.
Tay should stay away from McBee if he wants to avoid being another Micky D.
Older trucks are held to far less stringent emissions requirements than newer ones, especially those built since 2007. For some pollutants, the new standards are at least an order of magnitude tighter than for trucks built in the late '80s and early '90s. Here's a summary I found in maybe thirty seconds of searching.
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The trucker situation is basically a way for the ports and shippers to earn money by exploiting the truckers. There's no second issue here. The truckers can't improve their earnings because the ports set fees unilaterally. When fuel costs skyrocketed, the port was able to have truckers absorb that. When truckers have to idle for hours because of security issues, the port lets truckers absorb that.
Eventually, either it will be unaffordable for people to be truckers (it sounds marginally better than McDonald's now with worse hours and worse benefits and worse working conditions), or the cartel of ports has to be broken, and the law changed.
When that happens, shipping costs will go way up, which is fine, because they are artificially subsidized by the truckers (and our too-low gas taxes in this country). The reason that China and other countries have "cheap import goods" is partly because of how they control currency in their countries, not allowing them to float; partly because of the US demand for selling debt to finance our unsustainable way of life; partly because big businesses, including the ports, have juryrigged the system so that the real cost of delivering goods (including environmental impact) is offloaded on to other businesses and to taxpayers.
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It seems the real issue is that they want to be paid more. That's understandable, and a union would probably help. The tradeoff would probably be that a lot of them would then lose their jobs, and go bankrupt because they can't pay for their trucks, but the ones who remain would make a living wage.
I wish they wouldn't present this as an environmental issue. The way to help the environment is to require higher quality trucks. Paying the truckers more might or might not cause them to buy more expensive trucks.
thanks also to mcginn.
Well, where is the Commission? And not just Holland. Bryant, Albro, Creighton, Tarleton, all of them campaigned on making the Port open. Like on so many issues, that seems like empty talk from the Commissioners right about now. Why are they letting Yoshitani work to strip the port of its ability to set environmental and safety standards on the trucks? And why are they letting him do it under a veil of secrecy?
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The fact is, they cannot set or negotiate fees, are told where and when to do what they do. The only way they are "independent" is that they are required to own their own gear.
As for forming shipping companies, it is to laugh, the naivete. If they formed such companies, the port will simply not hire those companies and hire other drivers who were less organized.
As I understand what you are saying, the move to Independent Contractors, while looking like it gives employees more freedom, actually constrains them in novel ways, such as the inability to organize through price-fixing laws.
Fascinating.
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Surely it's time someone ran up a FOIA on all union-busting financials, communications, and memos, and posted them online?
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