Port truck drivers will walk picket lines at an Otay Mesa freight drayage company for a third day today as their counterparts striking against the same firm in Los Angeles will be joined by former employees of a retailer to which it ships.
Drivers working at the ports in San Diego, Los Angeles and Long Beach began the strike Monday in hopes of getting employers to abide by a recent ruling that the truck drivers are being misclassified as “independent contractors,” which they claim allows companies to pay them less than minimum wage, a spokeswoman for the drivers said in a statement.
The failure to pay drivers as employees has created an annual $850 million in liability for the industry stemming from wage and hour violations. A single driver can end up being shortchanged up to $60,000 a year, the statement said.
The drayage firms being targeted by picketers are: Pacer Cartage, with offices in San Diego and Commerce, which hauls containers for Walmart and other major retailers to rail yards; Pacific 9 Transportation, with offices in Carson and Long Beach; Harbor Rail Transport, with an office in Rancho Dominguez; and Intermodal Bridge Transport, with an office in Long Beach.
Around 90 drivers at Pacer Cartage’s San Diego location are among the employees still being considered independent contractors. Last year, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement awarded seven San Diego drivers $2.2 million, but the ruling was later appealed. A judge has since filed a tentative ruling upholding the DLSE’s decision, according to the statement.
This afternoon, striking Pacer Cartage drivers in Los Angeles plan to picket at Union Pacific’s Los Angeles Transportation Center. They will be joined by allies, including former employees from Walmart’s recently closed Pico Rivera store, according to the statement.
Picketers at the company’s San Diego yard were targeting trucks bringing cargo to Toyota’s Otay Mesa facility just north of the U.S.-Mexico border intended to be transferred to Toyota’s Mexico manufacturing plants. They caused a significant disruption to the company’s cross-border operations, the statement said.
The labor dispute began in Los Angeles and Long Beach three years ago when drivers sued the drayage companies over the so-called misclassification, and filed various claims and class action suits for wage theft.
Drivers for Shippers Transport Express have since been reclassified as company employees, but other drayage companies have not followed suit.
