News Updates

By Steven Greenhouse
Published in the New York Times on February 25, 2010

The Teamsters Union and environmental activists have formed an unlikely and outspoken alliance aiming to clear the air in American ports, and perhaps bolster the Teamsters’ ranks in the process.

The Port of Los Angeles has put the burden of buying new vehicles on carriers, not drivers. New trucks can cost $100,000 to $175,000 each.

The labor-green alliance is getting under the trucking industry’s skin by asserting that short-haul trucking companies working in ports — and not the truck drivers, who are often considered independent contractors — should spend the billions needed to buy new, low-emission rigs that can cost $100,000 to $175,000 each.

The Teamsters union says seaport air is so dirty largely because port truck drivers earn too little to buy trucks that would belch out fewer diesel particulates, tiny particles that contribute to cancer and asthma. Working with environmentalists, the union helped persuade the Port of Los Angeles to adopt a far-reaching plan that bars old trucks from hauling cargo from the port and puts the burden of buying new vehicles on the trucking companies, not the drivers.

The battle has intensified as federal officials press ports to adhere to clean-air regulations. Seaports from Newark to Miami to Seattle are confronting the same issue: who should pay for the cleaner trucks?

“We think if you have the big trucking companies own the equipment and maintain it, the trucks will be cleaner,” said David Pettit, director of the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Southern California Clean Air Program. Noting that both trucks and ships contribute to port pollution, he said, “we got involved because the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the single biggest contributors to air pollution in the L.A. area, and that’s because of diesel pollution.”

Environmental groups are happy to have the Teamsters’ political muscle behind efforts to clean up the ports, while the union likes having environmentalists backing its goal: requiring port trucking companies to employ their drivers directly, rather than as independent contractors because employees, unlike contractors, can join unions. The Teamsters are eager to unionize the nation’s more than 40,000 port drivers.

The labor-green alliance achieved a major victory in late 2008 when it helped persuade the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, a former union organizer, and the city’s port to require trucking companies to employ their drivers directly, making the companies bear the cost of buying new rigs.

Angry that this move increased their labor costs, trucking companies sued to block the policy. A federal judge on Thursday announced she would hold a civil trial beginning April 20.

Last April, the Federal District Court judge in the case, Christina A. Snyder, granted an injunction suspending the mandate while letting stand the ban on pre-1994 trucks. The judge said the suspended rules were pre-empted by a federal law that regulated trucking.

The American Trucking Associations, the industry group, wants to maintain the current structure in which most port drivers are considered independent contractors responsible for buying their own trucks. The group also wants the seaports to subsidize purchases of new trucks, whether by drivers or the companies.

The industry does not hide its dismay about the labor-environmental coalitions that have sprouted in various cities.

“A lot of these groups are just front groups for the Teamsters, and it’s really horrible that they’re attacking these drivers and saying they can’t possibly finance newer trucks and don’t know how to maintain them,” said Clayton Boyce, a spokesman for the American Trucking Associations. “That is a total falsehood.”

But Rafael Prestol, a truck driver at the Port of Newark, disagreed, saying he could not possibly afford a new truck. When he became a driver in 1978, his salary was $425 a week, but some weeks, he says, he still nets the same amount — just $425 — after fuel and other expenses.

“If we invest $100,000 in a new vehicle and we’re making $2,000 a month or less, it doesn’t make sense,” said Mr. Prestol, who blames trucking deregulation for pulling down drivers’ pay. “And what guarantee do you have after you buy a new truck that you’ll continue to get work?”

In addition to Mayor Villaraigosa, the Teamsters and environmentalists have lined up other backers, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, Mayor Corey Booker of Newark and other mayors, senators and representatives.

Teamsters across the country are mourning the loss of Jaime Ortiz, an organizer for the national Port campaign. The 32-year-old was tragically killed in an automobile accident on Wednesday, February 10.

“There is no more important calling in the labor movement than that of an organizer, and Jaime Ortiz pursued his role in the best of the Teamster tradition – with great intelligence, energy and dedication,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters General President. “A son of Teamsters, he made all of us, his brothers and sisters, proud.”

“Jaime Ortiz was a dedicated, compassionate and smart young organizer. We, as his brothers and sisters in the Mighty Army of Teamster organizers, will dearly miss our fallen comrade,” said Jeff Farmer, Teamsters Organizing Director. “We send our love and solidarity to his family.”

Ortiz’s funeral and memorial service were held this Wednesday and Thursday in California and were attended by hundreds of family, friends and co-workers.

“Brother Ortiz worked tirelessly to improve the lives of port truck drivers and all working people,” said Rome Aloise, International Union Vice President and President of Joint Council 7, which sponsored Ortiz’s work for the Port campaign.  “His parents, Alejandro and Leticia, work at H.J. Heinz and have been active members of Teamsters Local 601 in Stockton, California for over 30 years. Jaime leaves his parents and two siblings in deep sorrow over his untimely and heartbreaking passing.”

The child of immigrants, Ortiz grew up working in the fields with his parents. Through this, he learned the value of hard work and the importance of standing up for worker rights. It is through his parents’ membership later on in the Teamsters that Ortiz realized the opportunities that organized labor could provide for a better life for workers. He made fighting for worker justice his life’s work, bringing this passion to his career with the Teamsters. 

“He impacted so many of us because he was such a giving, loving person, and I learned a lot from him,” said Valerie Lapin, Communications Director for the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports in Oakland, and a personal friend of Ortiz. “He was well liked, humble and went beyond the call of duty in his work with the drivers.”

Ortiz had also recently worked in New Jersey on the campaign to organize Continental Airlines fleet service workers, but he never had the chance to witness the fruits of his labor. He passed away the day of the successful vote.

Jaime Ortiz will be remembered as a remarkable son, brother, colleague, friend and champion for working men and women. 

“This is a huge loss, not only for all of us, but for all the workers whose lives he touched,” said Lapin, who worked with him every day for two years. “When he looked in the faces of port drivers, he saw his parents, immigrants just like them. And he wanted each and every one of them to enjoy the same benefits that the union provided his family. And that’s what drove him.”

A memorial fund has been set up to assist the Ortiz family. Donations can be made to:

Jaime Ortiz Memorial Fund
c/o United Labor Bank
Attn: Ricka Lucia
100 Hengenberger Road, Suite 110
Oakland, CA 94621-1447
 
Jaime Ortiz’s obituary, published in the Modesto Bee.

LONG BEACH - A new study on the health impacts of pollution caused primarily by trucks, trains and ships servicing the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles finds children living closest to harbor trade corridors suffer from respiratory ailments significantly higher than previously thought.

The study, published online Wednesday in the American Journal of Public Health, estimates 9 percent of childhood asthma cases in Long Beach are attributable directly to the distance in which sufferers live to freeways and roadways connecting the harbor with inland distribution centers. It was also found at least 1,400 cases of asthma-related bronchitis episodes in the city were caused by ship emissions, notably nitrogen oxide (NOX) fumes.

In Riverside, another hub of goods movement studied in the report, the percentage of asthma cases linked to roadway proximity reached 6 percent, though overall childhood asthma rates in both cities are several percentage points higher.

"The traditional approach to estimating the burden of air pollution-related disease markedly underestimated the true effect," said Rob McConnell, a professor of preventive medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine. "Our results indicate that there is a substantial proportion of childhood asthma that may be caused by living within 81 yards of a major road in Long Beach and Riverside. The impact of roadway proximity on the overall burden of asthma-related illness is remarkable. Air pollution is a more important contributor to the burden of childhood asthma than is generally recognized, especially to more severe episodes requiring visits to a clinic or emergency room."

The new study's findings show that kids living and/or attending school in close proximity to major trade corridors like the Long Beach (710) and Terminal Island freeways suffer asthma rates significantly higher than students across town and in neighborhoods further distanced from the port. In Long Beach and Wilmington, several schools, including Hudson K-8, Cabrillo and Banning high schools sit within close proximity - sometimes just feet - to major truck and train corridors like the 710, 47 and Harbor (110) freeways, as well as the heavily used Alameda Corridor rail expressway, which accommodates freight trains stretching up to two miles in length. The Hudson playground, for example, abuts a heavily used truck route regularly packed with diesel trucks delivering containers to a busy rail yard on Sepulveda Boulevard in West Long Beach.

Previous studies estimate children in port-adjacent neighborhoods suffer from overall asthma rates roughly double the national average.

However, health impacts extend beyond children and teenagers.

Surveys by the South Coast Air Quality Management District and California Air Resources Board estimate as many as 4,000 long-time residents around San Pedro Bay die prematurely each year from air pollution-related illnesses that include cancer, heart disease and respiratory illness exacerbated by port-generated emissions.

Trade corridors serving Los Angeles and Long Beach - the nation's busiest international trade gateway - stretch from the waterfront to inland cities east of downtown Los Angeles and are among America's most congested, as evidenced by the thousands of diesel trucks and miles of freight trains snaking through cities from Long Beach to Riverside and beyond. It's a corridor infamously labeled the "diesel death zone" by regional air quality regulators.

The collaborative study, which combined research from the University of Southern California, the Environmental Protection Agency and epidemiologists from Spain and Switzerland, encouraged additional research and measures to slash pollution from port industry, which air quality regulators list as the single largest fixed source of pollution in California, where extensive studies on the topic have been conducted. Other major port cities such as New York/New Jersey, Oakland, Seattle/Tacoma and Houston are believed to suffer from similar health-related effects.

Researchers believe the new data can be useful as port authorities move forward on expansion projects expected to accommodate a doubling of trade through the Long Beach and Los Angeles by 2020. By shifting trade corridors away from neighborhoods and schools, asthma rates and healthcare costs may be reduced significantly, McConnell said.

A 2007 study conducted by noted trade economist John Husing estimated the financial impact of hospital-related visits caused by port pollution in Southern California port communities will cost between $4.7 and $5.9 billion over the next 20 years, depending on trade growth and pollution-mitigation factors.

The new report, however, suggests that updated methodology may have severely underestimated previous financial and health-related impacts of port.

"This (proximity) results in a much larger impact of air pollution on asthma related symptoms and health care use than previously appreciated," McConnell noted.

According to a recent survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, an estimated 19 percent of Long Beach residents don't have health insurance, yet the rate increases substantially among residents closest to the port, where larger concentrations of minority groups reside and work. In addition, many of the thousands of drivers serving the ports - some 90 percent of whom are contract drivers paid by the load - are not provided health benefits by the motor carriers they rely on for work. These drivers, along with longshoremen and others working in the harbor, are most affected by diesel pollution, which contains tiny particles that can lodge deep in the lungs and contribute to cancer and other life-threatening ailments.

The threat is further exacerbated by the fact that many harbor truckers don't have health insurance.

Studies looking at driver wages estimate earnings after expenses for fuel, lease payments and vehicle upkeep average about $12 per hour, though that figure can fluctuate widely.

However, Husing's study estimated that if harbor-area trucking companies employed their drivers as sought under the Los Angeles Clean Trucks Plan (which is being challenged by the ATA in federal court), wages would rise to about $20 per hour and motor carriers - likely spurred by collective bargaining agreements - would be forced to carry health insurance benefits for their drivers.

Husing noted that this could raise transportation costs on the average freight container by roughly .1 to .2 percent - about $75 to $150 per container - a number based on the $70,000 median value of an average 40-foot container.

"In the end, you have to look at the fact that when (harbor) drivers are earning about $28,000 or $30,000 a year, it's simply not enough to pay for rent, utilities, new truck payments, insurance and (vehicle) upkeep and also buy health insurance for themselves and their families," said Coral Lopez, a member of the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports, a non profit organization of labor, environmental and community groups pushing for companies to hire drivers as employees and shift the burden of new truck purchase and maintenance on carriers doing business at ports across the country.

The coalition supports efforts under way in Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Florida, Oakland and elsewhere to require taxicab-style concession agreements requiring companies own and maintain new trucks in exchange for access to the marine terminals owned by state and local governments.

Long Beach does not support the employee-driver mandate.

But while such a model could mitigate the burden on taxpayers to fund uninsured patient's healthcare, it's the ports' environmental initiatives that may help ease overall health impacts on harbor-area communities, which are among the nation's most polluted, according to the EPA.

The ports' of Long Beach and Los Angeles jointly banned pre-1989 rigs on Oct. 1, 2008, and by 2012, only trucks meeting federal 2007 emission standards will be granted access to San Pedro Bay marine terminals. The effort is expected to slash truck-generated pollution by 80 percent, although rigs account for only 20 percent of overall port pollution, according to the AQMD.

The majority of toxic fumes emanating from the harbor are generated by freight ships, with lesser amounts emitted by yard equipment and locomotives. To lessen these impacts, the ports have begun implementing a number of initiatives that include requiring the use of cleaner fuels, dockside electricity for ships in berth and alternative-fuel cranes and forklifts, among other measures.

In a related matter, the Port of Long Beach, which had been party to the ATA lawsuit, signed a separate agreement with the organization in late October that extracted itself from the lawsuit by allowing industry to largely self-regulate compliance with the truck turnover plan.

The deal was slammed by the city's former environmental and labor allies - who packed Tuesday's City Council meeting to denounce the agreement as a "sellout" to the trucking and retail industries, which vehemently opposes employee driver mandates.

Port authorities defend the decision by noting that it could save Long Beach taxpayers hundreds of thousands in legal fees in the near-term while allowing the environmental goals of the Clean Trucks Plan to move forward in coming years.

Opponents of the Long Beach deal, however, note that unless companies take ownership of new trucks or driver wages increase substantially to ensure they can meet higher payments for these rigs - which cost between $100,000 and $200,000 - the clean-air effort will require continual port and taxpayer assistance for drivers who find themselves unable to meet lease, insurance and maintenance costs.

Currently, the port is offering heavy subsidies and low-interest loans to drivers to get them into new rigs - monies coming largely from federal, state and local grants and port profits.

"The public has already paid a heavy price with their health, and now we're asked to continue paying the price by supporting a subsidy system we believe will continue long into the future as drivers realize they can't afford new trucks and upkeep down the line without continued (financial) support," Lopez said. "A better approach is to let the companies take responsibility for the trucks and lift that burden off low-wage drivers. It just makes more economic sense."

This article, written by Kristopher Hanson, originally appeared in the Press-Telegram on November 4, 2009.