Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW. The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines.

Before sunrise on a Monday morning, outside a sterile office park in Compton, a convoy of small, beat-up cars, none of them newer than 1995, arrives at the offices of the trucking firm Calko Speedline. One by one, the car's drivers emerge, ranchera and mariachi and est?s escuchando a Piol?n por la ma?ana! competing from their radios. They buy coffee from the taco truck that follows them in, and assemble in small groups, huddled in circles among their big rigs - hulking red, green, blue and white mammoths lined up along the curb, their diesel-burning engines grumbling into action one by one.

Disclaimer - this campaign is not an official campaign of the IWW nor is this report confirmed.

December 17, 2007
300 troquer@s based in South Gate and Mira Loma went on strike against HUDD et al.
These workers were mostly young latino migrants with a very visible participation of women truck drivers. Most of them had been in the harbor about 5 years with maybe as few as 10% going back to the CWA days of 1996 and only a handful that were present during the 1980s.

HUDD

Disclaimer - The opinions of the author do not necessarily match those of the IWW.  The image pictured to the right did not appear in the original article, we have added it here to provide a visual perspective. This article is reposted in accordance to Fair Use guidelines. 

By Tatiana Prophet - Victorville Daily Press, November 14, 2007 - 8:16PM

HESPERIA — Bobby Powell spent $650 to fill up his big rig the other day, while it normally costs him $450. That’s enough fuel for about a day and a half of driving.

“I’m not making near the money I was,” said the truck driver as he passed through Hesperia on Wednesday afternoon.

Like many truck drivers, Powell owns his own truck and pays for his own fuel.

Fuel prices are just one of many concerns facing independent owner-operators at the close of this year.

Another is the new identification card required to pick up and drop off cargo at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles — the Transportation Workers Identification Credential — which officials plan to roll out as early as December.

Economist John Husing, a consultant to the ports, said the TWIC card might exclude between 15 and 22 percent of truck drivers — for either a criminal record or immigration violations, according to a survey recently conducted.

On top of that, the ports are considering new environmental regulations that would ban all trucks manufactured before 1989 at the ports, according to several sources.

The ports are in meetings to determine what kind of subsidy, if any, might be offered to truckers so they can buy new trucks.

“Nobody knows because the program’s not finalized,” Husing said. “There are major issues that have not been decided yet: Will the drivers be allowed to continue working as independent operators or will the drivers as part of the clean truck program be required to sell their trucks or become employees?”

Port truckers are some of the lowest paid in the industry, Husing said. Many truckers live throughout Southern California, including the High Desert.

And while the problems are many, the solutions are certainly not unified.

One union, the Industrial Workers of the World, is calling for a truckers shutdown on Monday from Dallas to Los Angeles to commemorate the death of Joe Hill, a union organizer who was hanged in Utah in 1915.

“There’s all these meetings going on behind closed doors, and everybody’s interests are being represented at these meetings, and there’s nobody there representing them except us,” said Jay Brophy, a representative of IWW.

The Teamsters Union supports making all drivers employees of the freight companies once again, Husing said, as they once were. Brophy, of the IWW, agrees.

“They have to pay for the fuel, they have to pay for the maintenance, the company doesn’t pay for their unemployment, worker’s comp, income tax, all of this is left on them.”

Stuart Hoynak, another trucker stopping off in Hesperia, does not mind being independent, nor does he mind being fingerprinted for a TWIC card.

“That I understand,” he said. “We got to be safe. They should document everybody. I feel it’s a security measure.”

What he does mind are the fuel costs.

“It’s hard for everybody,” he said. “I mean, it’s a major cut in pay. We don’t get paid for sitting unless the wheels are turning. And every fuel hike is hundreds of dollars out of our paycheck, not a couple of pennies. So right now with the price of fuel, we’re losing anywhere from 1,000 dollars-plus every week. ... When the fuel goes up sometimes an average of 5 cents every two days. There is no reason. There is no reason. It’s crazy. Everybody’s making a lot of money.”

Art Wong, spokesman for the Port of Long Beach, said he was not aware of a shutdown being planned.

But he acknowledged that big changes are ahead, both with the clean trucks initiative and the TWIC card.

“It will be a big change no matter what we do. Even if we leave it alone, everybody’s going to have to get new trucks, and even if we offer grants, I don’t know if these guys are going to be able to afford new trucks.”

About 40 percent of all goods entering the United States come through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Any strike related to the ports can cost millions in lost time.

In 2002, a dispute between longshoremen and terminal operators resulted in the loss of about $1 million a day for the Los Angeles/Long Beach ports, according to trade magazine Land Line.

By Gideon Dev.

Truckers in the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach are mobilizing to repeat their performance of a year ago, when over 90% of the trucks were off the road. The shutdown last year was a show of solidarity with the immigrant rights movement and expression of shop floor anger over work conditions. It gave immediate creditability to the protests and boycott in Los Angeles and throughout the nation.

However, despite success in preventing the reactionary HR4437 from becoming law, the immigrant rights movement has left much wanting. After a rising tide of historic marches whose crest was May Day 2006, the single largest day of protest in US history, there has been a visible dearth of organization to press the concerns of immigrant workers. What momentum there was in spring was lost in summer, as the corporate elite and their partners in government responded with the passage of S2611 by the Democratic Party, as well as the bipartisan ‘Secure Fence Act of 2006’. Highly publicized ICE raids continue to be made—with the expressed purpose of trying to pressure the Congress to approve bracero guest worker programs! Conditions did not change with the marches, but have been getting worse since.

The Los Angeles General Membership Branch (LA GMB) of the IWW has called for a complete shutdown of port trucking as well as solidarity from all related industries this May 1st, 2007. As of the time of this writing, the response and feedback from troqueros has been positive. Nearly all truckers have been encouraged by the news of solidarity from the ILWU locals in San Francisco and Seattle, who resolved to not work on May Day. We in the LA GMB were particularly heartened that their resolutions highlighted both our own involvement in last year’s May Day shutdown, and the current efforts of the March 25th Coalition, of which we are members. It was at the latter’s National Conference for Immigrant Rights that the call was made for a second ‘Great American Boycott’ on May Day, and that the LA GMB committed itself to putting the question of a May Day shutdown to the port truckers directly. However, it has become clear that the impetus for action by the troqueros this year will not solely be supporting the immigrant rights movement, or even reclaiming May Day as the workers’ day, but the condition of being exploited workers who drive international trade.

Written by Leslie Radford  - Friday, 27 April 2007

Independent truckers announce the LA port will shut down on May 1, the first victory for the 2007 May Day Mobilization for Immigrants' Rights.

PORT OF AZTLAN, April 27, 2007--The independent truckers of the Port of Aztlan, working with the Industrial Workers of the World, made good on their promise to shut down the Los Angeles port on May 1, in support of nationwide migrants' rights protests scheduled for that day and the truckers' struggle to organize.  This morning the Los Angeles Port Authority declared the port would be closed for a May 1 "holiday," thereby avoiding potential litigation from shippers facing dockers' and demurrage fees for goods left on the dock during the truckers' strike.

By Jill Dunn - etrucker.com, December 9, 2006.

The Industrial Workers of the World organized an owner-operator protest Dec. 7 over traffic tickets issued by the BNSF Railway at its Los Angeles-area facility.

More than 30 owner-operators held signs outside the Hobart, Calif., site, one of the busiest intermodal facilities in North America.

Ernie Nevarez, a protest spokesman, said truck traffic had been slowed by 90 percent. BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent differed, saying the event did not slow business and the Sheriff’s Department was directing traffic.

The company is, however, evaluating its ticketing policy, Kent said.

Truckers object to unjust tickets issued for violations such as running stop signs and speeding, Nevarez said. “If you talk back, you get kicked out for life,” he said.

Truckers can be barred from the facility for no more than one calendar year, and that only after the third ticket, Kent said. “You are not banned for life,” she said. Violators must attend a class after the first ticket, and the second ticket bars them from the facility for 30 days, Kent said.

BNSF Railway, a subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America. In March, BNSF announced a $26 million expansion of parking and stacking at the Hobart facility.

By Ernesto Nevarez, Port of Aztlan, Portofaztlan@yahoogroups.com - Turning the Tide: Journal of Anti-Racist Action, Research & Education, Volume 19 Number 4, July-August 2006

The City of Los Angeles has issued 9 Franchise Contracts to taxi companies which allow them to work LAX. These companies have permission to use about 3,000 drivers. Most are poor immigrants from a variety of countries, such as Iran, Russia, Congo, Pakistan, etc. The companies have banded together and have invented a non-standard workplace with characteristics that have been institutionalized and accepted as the "standard" and which the workers have fatalistically believed was their reality.  That was until the Nick Search Decision!

Families with happy faces are bathing in a sea of american flags, proudly holding their union's banner and some signs, most of them telling us "Teachers are the real action heroes" and "Nurses are the real action heroes" (we loved these signs!). The longshoremen called and ca. 4000 demonstrators of at least 15 unions came to this years Labor Day march in Wilmington, Los Angeles' heavy industry area. Among them our little black contingent. "Very american", I thought, when I saw the country flags everywhere - the US is indeed a unique country. But then we have to understand: The people are here to celebrate Labor Day, not Mayday like the rest of the world, and, as IWW pointed out "Labor Day is older than Mayday" ("in the US", I completed). Very american are also the oldtimers, the Harley Davidsons, the heavy trucks and the military cross country vehicle, which demonstrated along with the teachers', nurses', longshoremen's, teamsters', domestic workers', firefighters', librarians' etc. unions.

And IWW, together with the troqueros, taxi drivers and us, SCAF (Southern California Anarchist Federation). To be accurate: We were not officially there, as we didn't have the time to discuss the open questions of our Labor Day support and to be officially registered; nevertheless our dozen members outnumbered the four IWW members. This was also the first time we, especially our labor collective, met with the truckers, the troqueros, and their allies, the taxi drivers, so there were still misunderstandings as to who and what we are. As soon as we arrived, a taxi driver approached me and listed all the problems they had in common with the troqueros, like tickets, gas prices, uniforms, certified vehicles etc. in great detail, when I still was figuring out, who the troqueros and the taxi drivers were and all questions about their alliance.

Obviously the man wasn't informed on the details about SCAF either (for instance that we have a labor collective, but also others like the women's collective, of which I'm a member), so he finally asked for our leader and again dropped a brick; I showed him a member of the labor collective, the Si Se Puede-collective by highlighting, that as anarchists we don't have a head. The troqueros in contrast are very aware, what our black and red/black flags meant and most of them are members of IWW - the "other union" (la otra union) as they call it. "We are not politicians, business unionists, but only real workers, nothing more and nothing less", they stated when explaining, that they don't want to sell out to the "pimps" of the other unions and organize themselves.

This stance obviously doesn't please the other unions and so before we began marching two "teamsters" from the union of transportation, co-sponsors of the march, asked again me, member of the Mujeres Libres, no formal representative of our chapter or particular supporter of this march, if we had a permission to march. "We are with the IWW", I answered, which they didn't understand, as they seemed never to have heard of such a union (the troqueros were also with IWW, as the organizers of the march failed to return their request for marching). But before the increasing vocal animosities could develop, the teamsters took flight - anyway we would have marched, with or without their approval, and they kind of knew it. And we didn't disturb their party anyway, being at the very end of everything, squeezed between enormous trucks.

The start was imminent and we only had to overcome a last obstacle: For some reason the police wanted to have a chat with us and for some reason our people let themselves get involved. Fortunately our women strongly recommended to ignore them (que vivan las mujeres!), so they eventually drove away. The way was free for marching and we put together some chants, not to let the march look like a funeral with our black clothes on. The spectators liked them and us a lot, wherever we passed, they applauded and cheered; we figured, that it probably was more the chants ("la lucha obrera non tiene fronteras", "obreros unidos jamas saran vencidos" etc.) and the nice diversity of our people, along with our wonderful banner ("dignity and respect for the working class" and "dignidad y respeto para la clase obrera" respectively) provoking the positive sentiments of our audience and not the black flags - we doubted, the people even knew, what they were all about.

So we reached Banning Park, the final destination, at 1pm and were looking for some vegetarian alternatives among the hot dogs and hamburgers. The comrades from IWW had their little table among all the other represented unions and organizations, and SCAF joined the Troquero meeting at the park corner. The troqueros have proclaimed the Saturday before Labor Day as the first Dia del Troquero, and had met with all troquero groups from the different companies in the harbor (the new formed "Allianza de Troqueros Unidos") to organize a national strike. They are associated with truckers from the harbors all the way from LA to Seattle and with troqueros from Central America. Labor Day should mark the starting point for a big strike and therefore the moment was rather solemn, so the troqueros and we stood in a circle and everybody, who felt like it, held a speech (not me, as I'm, again, with the Mujeres Libres, and there was no woman except ours far and wide); the men promised friendship and solidarity and mutual aid to each other and applauded at the end. The panadero served carne asada to us and a troquero assured us, whenever we need it, the panadero can bring us mountains of bread, also for the vegetarians (how sweet!). So we left the park with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction and I hope, that this was the starting point for a good collaboration between our Si Se Puede collective and the troqueros and for a nationwide truckers strike. The future will show!