The ongoing battle over Southern California’s port truckers job status has taken a new turn with the formation of Eco Flow Transportation, an all-employee driver operation.
The latest move in a dispute over whether drivers should be contractors or employees was announced May 4 by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and trucking officials.
The Justice for Port Truck Drivers group, which seeks to convert drivers to employee status to facilitate union membership, called off a strike against four other port truckers May 1. Several hundred drivers participated, according to spokeswoman Barb Maynard, in an action against Pac 9 Transportation, Intermodal Bridge Transport, Pacer Cartage and Harbor Rail Transport.
“This is a real transformation, not only for our company but for the industry,” said Jonathan Rosenthal, who heads Saybrook Logistics, owner of Eco Flow and Total Transportation Services, another drayage fleet. “Drayage trucking needs to adapt to the changing trends.”
The statement said 80 workers already have joined the company.
Efforts to change driver status from contractor to employee have been continuing for several years at the port, where an estimated 10,000 drivers make about 35,000 container moves on average each working day.
To date, just a few trucking companies at the port have agreed to convert workers to employees.
The port trucking group, in statements last week, said the drivers have won multiple court and regulatory agency cases against companies such as Pacer Cartage for what they termed “wage theft.”
A spokeswoman for Pacer’s parent, XPO Logistics, the No. 12 company on Transport Topics' Top 50 list of largest North American logistics companies, said most drivers prefer contractor status.
“The misclassification of port truck drivers is not the gripe of a few drivers but a battle cry of a systemic problem,” Garcetti said in the statement.
The statement announcing the new firm’s creation also said the step would increase efficiency and continue pollution reduction steps at the two largest U.S. ports.
Teamsters Port Division Director Fred Potter said Garcetti and other government officials helped to create what he termed a “landmark port solutions agreement."
