Calif. Bill Redefines Drayage Drivers as Employees

Advocates of the unionization of harbor truck drivers opened a new line of attack with a bill in the California Legislature that would define drayage truck drivers as employees of the companies that arrange for their services.

John Perez, speaker of the California Assembly, and Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, chairman of the Labor and Employment Committee, introduced the bill, which must now proceed through the normal legislative process.

Labor advocates, led by the Teamsters Union, have lobbied at the local, state and federal levels for changes in laws that restrict the ability of unions to organize independent contractors.

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Most drayage companies at U.S. ports contract with owner-operators to haul containers. Federal anti-trust law prohibits unions from organizing independent contractors such as owner operators.

Labor advocates contend that harbor trucking companies exert sufficient control over the daily work routine of owner operators to constitute an employer-employee relationship, and therefore the drivers can be organized by unions.

At the same time, the Teamsters and their environmental allies have pursued a legislative approach to this issue. The Perez/Swanson bill, for example, "would deem drayage truck operators as employees of those persons who arrange for or engage their services."

The American Trucking Associations, which filed a lawsuit challenging the Port of Los Angeles clean-truck program as violating federal preemption law, is prepared to jump into the fray on this latest legislative effort, when the time is right.

"It's hard to view the bill as at that level yet," said Curtis Whalen, executive director of ATA's intermodal conference.

This legislation differs from previous efforts that have defined the employee-driver issue in environmental terms. The argument behind the environmental approach is that well-capitalized licensed motor carriers with employee drivers are best able to purchase and maintain costly new trucks that reduce pollution. "This bill is a straightforward approach," Whalen said.