BREAKING: Truckers who haul for Wal-Mart and Forever 21 plan surprise strikes today
Source: Salon = By Josh Eidelson
Exclusive: Hundreds of workers will defy vengeful companies and laws that deny they're even employees
In labor’s latest challenge to a low-wage economy and a legal system that excludes huge swathes of the workforce, hundreds of non-union Port of Los Angeles truck drivers plan to stage surprise strikes against three companies Monday. The workers transport goods from the port to companies including Costco, Forever 21, Sketchers and Wal-Mart. They allege their companies — Green Fleet Systems, American Logistics International, and Pac 9 — illegally punished workers for organizing and exposing wrongdoing. While drivers striking at GFS and ALI (starting at 5 a.m. PST and 4 p.m. PST respectively) are legally employed by those logistics companies, the workers at the third company, Pac 9, are among the growing ranks of so-called “independent contractors” who legally aren’t employed by anyone at all. They plan to walk (or drive) off the job at 5 p.m. PST Monday.
“I’m demanding what a worker deserves,” Pac 9 driver Jose Galindo told Salon in Spanish in a pre-strike interview. Wal-Mart, Sketchers, Costco, Forever 21, GFS, ALI and Pac 9 did not provide comment on the workers’ allegations in response to Friday inquiries (Pac 9 referred Salon to a communications firm, which did not respond to a Friday request for comment).
The port truckers, backed by the Teamsters union, are the latest to take up tactics that have characterized a wave of low-wage, non-union strikes since 2012. ............
Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/18/breaking_truckers_who_haul_for_wal_mart_and_forever_21_plan_surprise_strikes_today/
Workers Unite! We need a national low wage workers union organized without regard to employers or sectors, an all-inclusive political front for all low wage workers.
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LuvNewcastle
(16,846 posts)HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)That one is very surprising.
MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)Costco the store front image I am sure is very different than Costco the logistic department.
beerandjesus
(1,301 posts)It sez the truckers work for Green Fleet Systems, American Logistics International, and Pac 9.
They ship to Costco, Wal-Mart, and others. But presumably, their employers are the target of the strike.
The headline is a bit misleading.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)
starroute
(12,977 posts)Do these truckers own their own trucks? Do they set their own hours and methods of operation? Those are the kinds of guidelines the government uses to determine who is or isn't an independent contractor. If the company furnishes the equipment and controls how it's used, the guidelines aren't fulfilled.
The IRS used to be pretty rigorous about cracking down on inappropriate use of the independent contractor category because it was harder to be sure of getting taxes out of those people than if they were on payroll. Have they started slacking off in deference to the corporations? It would be interesting to find out.
wercal
(1,370 posts)The big difference being the second 6.5% of social security, which is wrapped up into the Schedule C Self Employed form.
In order to make this claim, you have to fill out a fairly long and detailed form,
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fss8.pdf
Around 6 months later, we got a determination letter - my stepson's job working for a roofing company was indeed as an employee, so he was not responsible for the second half of SS. I assume they then went after the roofing company. This guy had been operating for around 5 years, and had given dozens of people a 1099 over the years. Most people just don't know, and assume their employers are doing the right thing. The misclassification as an independent contractor is one of the most abused aspects of our economy.
Most of the abuse I am aware of is not large corporations, however. Its small business. Car salesmen, florists, even mechanics...all misclassified. Now if Wal Mart owns their trucks and warehouses at the dock...then they are ripping people off by classifying them as independent contractors.
mountain grammy
(26,622 posts)This independent contractor scam is just that and hurts workers and Social Security.
wercal
(1,370 posts)Still a quasi-conspiracy theory....but I remain convinced that the Wal-Marts of the world would love to skip the Port of Los Angeles, and port Chinese goods in Mexico...and truck or rail into the US. This way they can work around strikes like this, and likely pay lower port fees.
Response to wercal (Reply #5)
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pam4water
(2,916 posts)FatBuddy
(376 posts)10-4
daleanime
(17,796 posts)
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)It is starting to feel like the 1920s all over again, wild cat strikes and all
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,010 posts)Monday mornings are the busiest at any port, but this past one in Seattle the trucks were parked. Drivers spanning the major companies that do the most business in the Puget Sound simply turned off the engines, got out of their cabs, and stopped hauling. They had somewhere else they needed to be.
Steely determination led roughly 150 port drivers to sacrifice income and risk retaliation to make the hour-and-a-half trek to swarm the State Capitol in Olympia.
Commerce at the Port of Seattle slowed to a trickle, and hasn’t picked up since.
This week the truck drivers – who toil under the guise of false self-employment – are making it their job to sound the alarm on occupational hazards, overweight containers, shoddy equipment, risks to motorists, and the culprits responsible for these rampant safety violations: their employers and their giant retail shipper clients like Wal-Mart, Sears, and Target.
The trucking bosses at Pacer, Seattle Freight, Western Ports and others were stunned, but the state troopers weren’t. Washington’s top cops testified before lawmakers right alongside the workers, detailing a dizzying array of dangers associated with the drayage industry: Chronic safety violations so serious that an investigative journalist discovered late last year that officers pulled 32% of rigs they inspected outside the terminals off the road — double the rate for trucks throughout the state. When specially trained troopers conducted more thorough inspections in 2011, King 5 TV reported, 58% of Port of Seattle cargo vehicles were yanked. And according to Captain Jason Berry’s testimony, an astonishing 80% have been put out of service during certain recent time periods.
http://cleanandsafeports.org/blog/2012/02/01/breaking-america%E2%80%99s-truck-drivers-shut-down-port-of-seattle-to-expose-dangers-of-the-job/#sthash.dRKleBz2.dpuf
