Posted on 01/03/2007 5:05:44 AM PST by radar101
Salvador Abrica hooks up his first load at a warehouse in Wilmington, Calif., before heading south to San Clemente.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Fanning out from the mammoth ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, some 16,000 mostly Latino truck drivers crisscross Southern California's congested highways in their timeworn trucks, carrying freight that ultimately will make its way to every part of the country.
But a number of the drivers are undocumented immigrants, and they may soon find themselves out of work. So, too, freight may begin backing up across the country.
That's because the federal government, in its drive to boost port security, is on the verge of issuing guidelines for checking identities of the nation's 750,000 port workers, including 110,000 or so who work as haulers.
"We believe finalization is in the coming weeks. It's very soon," said Darrin Kayser, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, describing the government's plans for the security system.
Like any business pondering how it will get by without undocumented workers, the trucking industry is in deep debate about what could lie ahead.
"There could be a huge impact," said Curtis Whalen, an official of the American Transportation Association. "If you start getting whacked in the West, you will have an impact in Chicago because of less traffic flow."
Cargoes could go to other ports
Shippers could transfer their cargoes to ports other than Los Angeles and Long Beach or the New York area, where it is estimated that most of the undocumented drivers work. Trucking companies, already struggling with high turnover rates and a dearth of drivers, could be forced to increase their pay to find new drivers.
And that would hit consumers who have benefited from a freight system that has grown by leaps and bounds but kept costs down by pinching pennies all the way, especially those that wind up in the truckers' hands.
The ports in Southern California are a good example of that.
Competition depressed wages
From afar, the ports look like an incredible success: miles of massive cranes and docks jammed with freighters riding low in the water from all the containers they are carrying from Asia. Between 1990 and 2005, the number of containers arriving at the Los Angeles-Long Beach ports quadrupled, and that number is expected to triple in the next 10 years.
But the port drivers haven't shared in the bounty.
Not so long ago many port drivers in Southern California were Teamsters union members with pay and benefits. When the government deregulated the industry in 1980, small, nonunion companies flooded in. Rather than hiring employees, however, they turned to mostly independent operators.
Fierce competition between the workers, and the companies that hire them, has kept wages depressed.
"I've been working here for 17 years and I can't even buy a house," said Long Beach driver David Mendoza, 42. Mendoza, who drives a 1976-model truck that he bought 10 years ago for $12,000, pulled out one company's rate sheet and compared the rates to those from a sheet several years old: There was little difference between the two.
If anything, the quoted rates are often the ceiling price. Firms often whipsaw haulers against one another, pushing wages much lower. Many haulers are no different from day laborers who gather on streets and bid on jobs, except that they have trucks.
Drivers "have tried to organize walkouts to get higher wages, but they can never get enough drivers to agree to anything because somebody else always comes in and does the work," said Art Wong, a spokesman for the Port of Long Beach.
The median income for haulers is about $25,000 a year, experts say, but many have to work longer hours each year to make that kind of money. "It is really getting worse," grumbled Eduardo Galarza, 25, who said he made about $23,000 last year. He added that he hoped to find another job soon.
"There's a whole underground economy," said Ron Carver, a Teamsters official who has led a seven-year effort to organize port drivers nationally.
"There are companies who hire drivers who can't get any other job driving trucks. Drivers without documents, without licenses, or who are uninsurable. I've met them," Carver said.
Fifth of drivers are illegal
Kristen Monaco, a trucking industry expert at California State University-Long Beach, estimates that at least one-fifth of the drivers at the Los Angeles-Long Beach ports are illegal immigrants.
"It's an easy job to get into," Monaco said. "You don't have to speak a lot of English and you don't have to report to a lot of people. That also makes it easier for someone without papers to start driving."
Whalen, who oversees port operations for the American Transportation Association, blames shippers for making the situation more difficult, saying they set low ground-transport prices regardless of actual trucking costs. The situation is made worse, he said, by truckers whom he calls "bottom feeders" because they offer rock-bottom prices for hauling.
In turn, trucking firms that do pay good wages are being hurt, said Patty Senecal, a vice president with Transport Express and an official with the California Trucking Association. Many firms have simply quit working at the ports because they cannot compete, she said.
With the Liberals in control of Congress now, it ain't gonna happen. Unions have been extortion schemes, corruption forces, and Democrat-supported thugs and will continue to be so when their "donations" to the Democrats keeps buying their racket's existence. They priced themselves out of the market, replaced by illegals who work for much less and few benefits, and businesses that didn't go offshore have been importing illegal workers to pay offshore-type wages to fill the gap.
Until this country rises up and says "no more free passes" and absolutely refuses to grant amensty to the millions of CRIMINAL INVADERS, there's no end in sight.
Anchor babies should be recognized as NON-CITIZENS, which they are, and freebies to ILLEGALS must be eliminated.
Get in line with the rest of us, and gain citizenship the old fashioned way: EARN IT!
And what are these illegal alien truckers hauling? Crap from China and Asia.
Yeah...but they're only doing the jobs Americans don't want..... /sarcasm off
What a walking ball of corruption this man Whalen is.
I would add that this is not necessarily an "illegal immigration" problem at its root. The Port of Vancouver recently implemented severe restrictions on the types of truck operators that were permitted to do business there. In that case it wasn't a matter of "documentation" (most of the port drivers there are poor immigrants, but they are legal immigrants) but of ensuring a minimal standard of performance, licensing, insurance, etc. -- by prohibiting those truck operators with an extensive track record with the port authority from subcontracting work out to fly-by-night operators.
You bring up alot of good points. However, owning a trucking business myself, this article is BS.
With all the DOT regulations concerning insurance, driver CDL qualifications, inspections, etc. There is no way an illegal immigrant could be employed for a legal trucking company.
(An email alert, concerning enacting port security the dims are advocating -9/11 commission- will require all port workers and airline inspectors to be unionized. ? )
To your point - I'd have to agree with you.
As you can tell from their endless ranting against republicans, they could care less about national security. Faux patriots I call them.
"by prohibiting those truck operators with an extensive track record with the port authority from subcontracting work out to fly-by-night operators."
I do not understand how a modern company regulated by DOT standards could possibly allow a subcontractor to be undocumented. Insurance companies would pull coverage from a company fast and put them out of business.
Illegal, yes, but undocumented, no way.
Still, look at the investigations into major truck and bus accidents and especially, the bus fire near Dallas that killed all the nursing home evacuees. Somehow, folks are skirting regulations for years and getting away with it.
At least until someone dies.
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