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Importing injustice * USA - How deregulation and Wal-Mart poison the Port of Oakland's neighbors and force poverty wages on truckers
Under the present system, there is no way to track the independent port truckers...
Oakland,CAL,USA -The San Francisco Bay Guardian, by Joseph Plaster -July 17, 2007: -- ... Beyond the environmental and economic benefits of making truckers employees of the companies, the change also might improve port security. The federal Transportation Worker Identification Credential program, expected to be implemented in the fall, will check the identities of the nation's 750,000 port employees, 110,000 of whom work as truckers... Employees are easier to track, and they are also better for port security in other ways. Among low-paid port truckers, turnover rate is extremely high, according to the ATA... Well-paid truckers also would lead to safer ports. In a 2005 report trucking expert Michael Belzer, an economics professor at Wayne State University, showed that "a substantial fraction" of independent operators actually loses money each year, resulting in "a high risk of unsafe operations among those earning the least money"... Driving past another long line of trucks idling outside a gate after lunch break, Doug Bloch the coordinator for the coalition in Oakland, pointed out one truck. A placard on the back of the rig read, "End sweatshops on wheels"... The current port system "just heaps abuse and abuse on these truck drivers and this community," Bloch told us. "The big businesses like Wal-Mart don't pay the cost of polluting Oakland. It's the truck drivers and the community that pay the cost. People pay with their lives"... The coalition places the blame for the current situation squarely on giant retail shippers such as Wal-Mart and Target and is calling for them to be held accountable for the full environmental and labor costs of the cheap goods they sell — a call the corporations are strenuously resisting... Bloch says the coalition's target is the shipping companies, not the trucking companies. "The shippers are hiding behind the trucking companies," he told us. "On the one side there are the giant shipping companies, like Wal-Mart and Target, huge global companies that demand low prices from trucking companies. On the other side are tiny trucking companies, immigrant truckers, and communities of color. Wal-Mart's slogan is 'always low prices,' but 'always low prices' means one out of five children in West Oakland with asthma and drivers making $8 an hour who can't support their families"... "You can't fix the environmental problems without fixing the problems of the driver," he said. "And now you have labor and the community coming together, and that's powerful"...
* Truckers, activists 'storm' meeting for safe work conditions - Low pay, poor maintenance means more smog, group says
Oakland,CA,USA -Inside Bay Area, by Erik N. Nelson -18 July 2007: -- A group of union and community activists led independent truckers on an orderly, polite "storming" of the Oakland Port Commission on Tuesday, saying the only way to reduce truck exhaust now choking West Oakland is to require strict working conditions for truckers... A new work arrangement would mean trucking companies would own and maintain fleets of trucks, thereby reducing emissions that come with poor maintenance. Many of the trucks currently serving the port are maintained by the truckers themselves who activists say can't afford to properly maintain their vehicles...
Labels: independent port truckers debate
posted by Unknown @ 11:31 AM
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