More truckers join strikes at LA-area ports, want classification as employees

Updated Apr 5, 2022

Update: The strikes at Los Angeles area ports have ended at three of the four drayage companies truckers were protesting against. Click here to read the updated story.

Port truckers have been striking at LA ports since July, demanding better wages, conditions and reclassification.Port truckers have been striking at LA ports since July, demanding better wages, conditions and reclassification.

Truckers  at a fourth Los Angeles drayage company began striking last week, continuing a months-long protest by port drivers at LA-area ports who want to be classified as employees, not contractors.

LA’s City Council also now is considering a resolution supporting wage laws for port drivers. The measure would also better encourage drivers and port-serving trucking companies to better work together to prevent work stoppages.

Gold Point Transportation truckers began picketing Oct. 30 at the company yard and the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. Jose Torres, an El Salvador immigrant, said he thought GPT had hired him as an employee. But when he filed his income taxes, his accountant told him the English paperwork he signed was a truck lease.

The GPT picketers join area drivers already on strike at Intermodal Bridge Transport, Pacific 9 Transportation and XPO Logistics. The Teamsters union, which organized the protests, says the companies have misclassified truckers as independent contractors instead of employees. Cal Cartage warehouse workers also began strike Oct. 28, after the union announced its partnership with the non-profit Warehouse Workers Resource Center.

The day before at Port of Los Angeles, Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa held a press conference on the IBT strike and the new partnership with the center, which strives to improve working conditions in the region’s logistics sector.