Port of LA Will Phase in Clean-Truck Mandate

The Port of Los Angeles says it will phase in the requirement for employee drivers in port trucking now that the country's largest port has approval from a federal judge to implement portions of the clean-trucks program under legal fire from the trucking industry. 

The port on Tuesday filed its form of judgment with U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder indicating how it intends to implement the requirements, an indication of the potentially rapid impact of Judge Snyder's Aug. 26 ruling upholding the concession and employee-mandate requirements in the plan. 

In an address Wednesday to the California Trucking Association in Long Beach, Christopher C. McNatt of the Pasadena, Calif., law firm Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary, said events will unfold quickly over the next several weeks.

By The Numbers: Containerized Ocean Trade - Southern California Ports.

Employee drivers, unlike the independent contractor drivers that work at most container ports today, can legally be organized by unions such as the Teamsters.

The American Trucking Associations, which two years ago filed the lawsuit challenging the port's clean-truck concession requirements for motor carriers, now has seven days to comment on the port's form of judgment.

Judge Snyder by the end of next week should formally enter the judgment, and that will start a 14-day clock ticking, McNatt said. During that period, a temporary injunction prohibiting the port from enforcing its concession requirements, including the employee-driver mandate, will remain in effect. Judge Snyder issued the injunction last year on directions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Harbor truckers in mid-September should learn more about the timetable the port will develop to phase in its employee-driver mandate and other concession requirements. The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners is scheduled to meet on Sept. 16, and it is expected to announce its timetable at the meeting.

In a memo Monday to the harbor commissioners, Geraldine Knatz, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said port staff will recommend to the harbor commission the next steps in the process, and that timetable "may include reasonable extensions of time for compliance" by the harbor trucking industry.