More labor disruptions likely on West Coast

Drivers, upset about pay and working conditions, threaten more job actions against steamship lines and railroads.

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 11/1/1999

Drivers that provide drayage services at the Port of Seattle struck an American President Lines terminal for a day last month, and more disruptions are likely in Seattle, the nearby Port of Tacoma, and perhaps elsewhere. The drivers are demanding recognition for their union and a contract that will provide them with better pay and benefits.

The drivers, primarily owner/operators, haul containers between the ports and railheads. They have been frustrated by their inability to draw attention to what they consider to be unfair working conditions. As a result, about 600 of the approximately 1,000 drivers at the ports have joined a union, Local 174 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, according to Seattle Union Now (SUN), a cooperative of the AFL-CIO and local labor unions. The union has prepared what it calls its "10 points of justice," a document that outlines the drivers' demands.

Although the drivers' chief demands are union recognition and fixed pay scales, they also have protested against the long periods they often must wait for loads. Because the drivers are paid by the load rather than by the hour, any waiting time is unpaid. "The whole system treats their time as having no economic value whatsoever," says Gretchen Donart, communications organizer for SUN. A union-sponsored survey of drivers earlier this year found that the average driver at the ports made $8.51 an hour with no benefits.

Drivers also are frustrated by the difficulty of identifying a single management entity they can deal with. "The drivers in legal theory only are self-employed," says Donart. "They have to deal with layers and layers of hiring. Terminals, ship lines, brokers, freight companies--all of those have fingers in the pot." She says the drivers in Seattle and Tacoma want a single contract that obligates all participants in the industry.

Mixed Results

The one-day strike against APL represents a subtle but important shift in strategy by the drivers. During the summer, drivers at the two Washington ports and at the Port of Vancouver in British Columbia staged wildcat strikes in protest of working conditions at those ports. In an announcement prior to last month's job action, SUN said drivers intended to focus attention on the steamship lines and the railroads. The union also sent a letter to APL asking the carrier to consider hiring the drivers directly.

Assessments of the new tactic's effectiveness varied. According to Donart, the strike slowed freight movement at the terminal significantly. She adds, "I think there will be more chaos here and all over North America until the '10 points of justice' are addressed."

But APL saw it differently. A spokesman for the ocean carrier says the one-day strike did little harm to its operations. The carrier did not have a ship in port or a train waiting on strike day. Despite the disruption, he says, trucks were arriving and departing about once a minute. The APL spokesman adds that he thinks it's ironic that the union targeted the APL terminal. "We offer the best gate time in the Pacific Northwest," he says. "The average gate time is 18 minutes."

The Port of Seattle agreed with APL's assessment of the strike. The protest had little effect on operations, says a port spokesman. Even during the more widespread action in August, the port remained fully operational, he adds.

Both APL and the port questioned the truckers' shift in strategy. "We certainly recognize the right of the drivers to organize," the APL spokesman says, "but we're disappointed that they targeted APL and the Port of Seattle. This is an issue we strongly feel needs to be addressed through the proper channels, and that's through the trucking companies the drivers work with. We don't employ truck drivers and we don't intend to do so."

A spokesman for the Port of Seattle had a similar reaction. "It's really a labor-relations issue between the trucking companies and the owner/operators," he says. "We have sympathy for the owner/operators," he adds. "They've been at the bottom of the food chain ... for a long time."

The Port of Seattle, while insisting that it has no standing to negotiate with the drivers, nonetheless has convened a series of meetings with the steamship lines, terminal operators, railroads, trucking companies, organized labor, and some owner-operators. Port officials called the meetings in hopes of determining ways to streamline operations at the port's truck gates. A similar effort currently is under way at the Port of Tacoma.

The Seattle port spokesman says those meetings have resulted in immediate improvements in terminal operations and that participants have committed to making more improvements. The initial efforts at Seattle included a decision by the Union Pacific Railroad, Stevedoring Services of America, Hanjin Shipping Ltd., and several terminal operators to extend the hours their facilities are open.