* California - Striking L.A. port truck drivers take picket line to rail yard
-- Striking port truckers seeking recognition as employees rather than as independent contractors for their companies picketed a rail yard on Wednesday as they called again on the mayors of Los Angeles and Long Beach to weigh in on drivers' behalf... Hundreds of drivers launched a strike on Monday against four trucking firms they accuse of defying federal and state labor enforcement decisions and a court ruling that found the truckers had been victims of wage theft through misclassification... Many truckers end up earning less than minimum wage due to company paycheck deductions for truck-leasing charges and other costs that can leave a typical driver short-changed by $60,000 a year, according to Teamsters union officials backing the strike... The four companies - Pacific 9 Transportation, Intermodal Bridge Transport, Pacer Cartage, and Pacer sister firm Harbor Rail Transport - are among the largest drayage operators doing business in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach... Those companies represent fewer than 500 of 13,600 trucks registered to haul cargo in and out of the harbor complex... But the dispute's outcome has implications for hundreds of companies and thousands of truckers serving the twin ports, which rank as the nation's two busiest and together handle 43 percent of all containerized cargo entering the United States... Picketing in the truckers strike has been confined mainly to truck and rail yards outside the ports, with little or no cargo disruptions reported so far...
(Photo from the Teamsters) -- Los Angeles, CAL, USA - Reuters, by STEVE GORMAN / Eric Walsh - Apr 29, 2015Labels: strikes and protests
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