IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Truck drivers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach walked off the job Monday in a dispute regarding wages and how they are classified as employees.
Member of the Teamsters Union voted Saturday to approve the strike, prompting several hundred drivers from four companies to strike, according to multiple reports.
The walkout, which comes two months after a separate labor dispute over working conditions at West Coast ports was settled, is not expected to interrupt all business at either location.
An estimated 16,000 truckers haul goods from both of those ports to warehouse-distribution facilities throughout Southern California, including the Inland Empire, which employs more than 100,000 people in logistics.
A Teamsters official claimed the striking drivers are the victims of “persistent wage theft,” and that they’re being treated as independent contractors and not as full-fledged employees, the reports stated.
The trucking companies have called the drivers an unhappy minority, and have said another strike in the immediate aftermath of the last strike could be disastrous for the economy. Also, dock workers in Los Angeles and Long Beach are still dealing with the backlog of shipments created
by the recent labor stoppage.
Much depends on whether the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents west coast dockworkers, votes to support the strike, said John Husing, Inland Empire economist.
“If they vote to support it we have an issue, and if they don’t, we don’t,” Husing said. “If they support it, then this could last for awhile and our logistics people won’t get called to work because there won’t be any [goods] to handle. But right now I’m not too concerned.”
The last strike affected 29 ports from Seattle to San Diego. Collectively, those ports handle about one-fourth off all the goods imported to the United States, including much of what is shipped here from Asia.
