to 7 or 8 p.m., often without meal breaks. No surprise: Business leaders’ answer to the port backup is to eviscerate environmental and labor regulations.Īvalos told me through an interpreter that a normal workday for him stretches from 5 a.m. Avalos has been driving for 20 years, the last 10 for XPO Logistics, a major national shipping company with extensive operations at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.īusiness Column: The real victims of the port logjam are its neighbors and workers. They’re workers such as Domingo Avalos, 57. Their work issues are older and more serious. Truck drivers are in the news today chiefly because of the Canadian protests, but that’s irrelevant to the real issues American truckers face. And under federal law, they’re not eligible to unionize - that’s a right afforded only to employees. Typically, they work on 90-day renewable contracts, which means they can effectively be fired at will, with no recourse to the protection against arbitrary treatment enjoyed by employees. They don’t get retirement or healthcare coverage, or reimbursement for their work expenses. They just don’t get the benefits - access to employer-owned equipment, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance, employer contributions to Social Security and minimum wage protection. The problem is shipping companies that misclassify drivers as independent contractors despite consistent rulings over the years by judges and regulators that have determined they’re employees in all but name. The problem is a system that steals wages by the millions from drivers. ![]() They’re not the problem in the port backups. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
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