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A hauling overhaul

Plan to check port workers' IDs may have big impact on stressed drivers who move freight worth billions

By Stephen Franklin and Darnell Little | Tribune staff reporters
December 17, 2006

LONG BEACH, Calif.

Not wanting to spend $600 on two new tires, Francisco Murasaya pulled his truck behind the line of drivers waiting to have treads cut into their rigs' bald tires.

But when a sweaty teenager finished crudely carving new treads on Murasaya's tires with a hot iron and demanded $12 for each tire, the driver angrily stormed off. "Twelve bucks!" he shouted. "No way! It used to be 10 bucks. I'm going somewhere else next time."

Two bucks is no small change for many of the 16,000 drivers who get by on the barest of margins hauling goods from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, among the world's busiest.

Fanning out from the mammoth ports, the drivers, nearly all of them Latino, crisscross Southern California's congested highways in their timeworn trucks, carrying freight that ultimately will make its way to every part of the country.

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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 for the American Transportation Association. "If you start getting whacked in the West, you will have an impact in Chicago because of less traffic flow."

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 pump up 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 this.

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 two 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 Teamster union members with pay and benefits. When the government deregulated the industry in 1980, small, non-union 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 David Mendoza, 42, who was taking a break at the spot where treads were being carved in bald tires. Though safety officials say only some tires can be grooved, and only by professionals, drivers contend that it's safe to use their cheap roadside system, and it's the only method they can afford with their stagnant wages.

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 than 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.

Faced with the need to clean up the air at the ports, port officials and others would like to see drivers get rid of their old smoke-belching rigs. But they struggle to find ways to come up with the millions of dollars that would be required to help drivers finance the purchase of newer trucks.

"We know that they can hardly afford to maintain their trucks," Wong said.

Lorenzo Modesto, a veteran port driver who looks far older than his 53 years, drives one of the relics officials would like to see disappear.

"I drive six days most of the time, 12 to 13 hours a day," said Modesto, who has taken part in wildcat strikes and other efforts over the years to bring attention to the port drivers' plight.

"That's not the way it is supposed to be. It's like being a slave."

Modesto drives a 1980-model truck that he bought four years ago for $2,000, but he is proud of the fact he keeps it in fine working condition, unlike many other rigs at the ports.

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.

Kristen Monaco, a trucking industry expert at California State University at 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, claiming 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.

The haulers claim they are little more than non-payroll employees of freight firms but are responsible for all the costs of their truck. Here's how their relationship with the freight companies works:

The driver provides the truck that hauls the freight. Drivers get their work assignments from freight companies, which tell them what to pick up and where to deliver it.

Their loads come in the form of containers that are bolted onto a chassis that is usually supplied and owned by a shipping line. Most of the time, these containers are hauled to warehouses within 50 miles of the ports at Long Beach and Los Angeles.

Quite often the chassis are in dire need of repair, says Monaco, the trucking industry expert at California State who has interviewed drivers for a study. Half of those she interviewed said they have been offered a chassis in bad condition, and one-quarter of these drivers said they have taken them on the road.

Mendoza, the driver who complained about rates not going up in recent years, said he stopped working recently for a company that wanted him to haul a chassis he didn't think was safe.

"If you say you won't do it, they give you lousy jobs the next time. So they are pushing you to do dangerous jobs," he said.

Mendoza said he is considering quitting altogether, and that would mark the fourth time he has done so.

Why drive a truck at the port if the job is so bad?

Because, say the drivers, there are few other good-paying jobs nearby, because they get locked into making payments on their trucks, and there's the hope that things will get better.

In the closely-knit Latino communities near the ports it is also a matter of people helping each other to get into the business, and then to survive.

One of these is Salvador Abrica, 35, who served eight years as a U.S. Marine ready for combat in Somalia and other places around the globe.

Not long after his military service, he began driving a truck at the port, yet he didn't like it and often took work as an over-the-road driver. But he returned to the ports because he preferred not being away from his wife and three children.

Having grown up blocks from the ports and refineries, it seemed natural to Abrica to become a port driver. It was the kind of work done by men from his neighborhood.

He refused to put in the long hours like others, however, and he says he has earned only about $25,000 a year. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make. But it angered him to see friends push themselves into exhaustion or go broke trying to make a living at the ports. As a result, Abrica, a massive man with the physique of a battle-ready soldier, recently decided to become an organizer for the Teamsters.

"I learned in the Marines what it means to defend myself and to stand up for the rights we have," he said.

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sfranklin@tribune.com

dlittle@tribune.com

11.2

The average number of hours Long Beach and Los Angeles port drivers work per day

$29,903

Their mean annual pay

92.9%

Percentage of these drivers who are Hispanic

Source: 2004 study of Drayage at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California State University Long Beach

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