Los Angeles port sticks to employee-only truck plan

Los Angeles port sticks to employee-only truck plan Los Angeles city and port officials are indicating they plan to move forward with a mandate eliminating independent owner operator status for more than 13,000 port drayage drivers and requiring port-servicing trucking firms hire only per-hour employee drivers.
   The mandate is part of a contentious $2 billion truck replacement program that until last week had been developed and implemented jointly by the Los Angeles port and the adjacent Port of Long Beach.
   On Friday, Long Beach port officials broke ranks with their Los Angeles counterparts, announcing that Long Beach port commissioners would vote Tuesday to approve the final portion of the truck program without the employee-only mandate.
   Los Angeles port officials issued a brief statement on their Web site Friday afternoon saying, 'The long-term sustainability of a green port drayage system is an integral part' of the truck program.
   Since the truck program was first introduced to the public in March 2007, references to a 'stable' or 'sustainable' drayage workforce have become common euphemisms used by officials from both cities and ports when referring to the employee-only component of the truck plan.
   Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who appointed all five of the Los Angeles port commissioners, relied on similar language in criticizing the Long Beach proposal and describing the future direction his commissioners would take.
   “While the clean air and clean truck initiatives that the ports are putting forward share many of the same elements, Los Angeles’ plan is comprehensive, sustainable and will achieve our goal of cleaning the air,” Villaraigosa told the Long Beach Press-Telegram Friday.
   Los Angeles City Councilmember Janice Hahn, whose district covers the Los Angeles port, was more direct in her comments to the paper Friday regarding the inclusion of an employee-only mandate in the Los Angeles truck plan.
   “If we do not find a way to give these truckers the wages and benefits they deserve, we will be facing a collapse of the trucking industry and, in turn, a collapse of the goods movement industry,” Hahn said.
   The truck plan, as part of the two ports' jointly developed Clean Air Action Plan, seeks to replace the more than 16,800 drayage vehicles that service Long Beach facilities and those at the neighboring Los Angeles port. Studies have shown that more than 80 percent of these drivers are independent owner-operators.
   In December, the two ports jointly approved the first component of the truck plan. The progressive multi-year ban, set to take effect Oct. 1, will begin by barring entry to the ports of all pre-1989 model year trucks. Two additional ban deadlines will eventually bar all per-2007 trucks, unless retrofitted to 2007 emission standards, from the ports by Jan. 1, 2012.
   Last month the two ports instituted a second component of the truck plan, approving a $35-per-TEU fee on trucks entering or leaving port facilities. The tax money collected, projected to be $1.6 billion, will be used to pay for the truck plan.
   Remaining components of the plan still to be approved by the ports include details of how trucks would be replaced, mechanisms for collecting the container tax, and the adoption of a licensing business model.
   Under the licensing model, trucking firms would be required to obtain a ports-provided license for each vehicle wishing to access port facilities. To obtain a license, trucking firms would have to agree to meet certain port-defined criteria. One of the criteria under the original plan would require the trucking firms to hire per-hour employee drivers instead of per-load independent contractor drivers.
   Long Beach decided Friday to adopt the licensing model but allow trucking firms to use employees or independent owner operators, or a mix of both.
   However, because the adjacent ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are universally considered one port by labor and industry, with trucks routinely moving between the different facilities of each, sometimes on a daily basis, it is unclear how different plans adopted by the two ports would be implemented.
   Officials from both ports have said that viability of the program would be endangered if the ports do not move in unison, adopt identical plans and implement identical regulations throughout the port complex.
   Los Angeles officials, with three weeks left before a report on their idea of a licensing model is due back from the port-hired Boston Consulting Group, also announced that a decision on their final portions would not be immediately forthcoming. A brief statement issued Friday on the port's Web site said movement on the rest of the truck plan would take place within the 'upcoming weeks.'
   The agenda for the weekly Los Angeles port commission meeting on Thursday does not include any mention of the truck plan. ' Keith Higginbotham