What’s Up, Dock? : Trucking Dispute Prompts Changes at Local Ports

Three weeks after a labor dispute involving independent truckers rocked the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, tensions have eased--at least for now.

Thousands of truck drivers, who had unionized and then picketed the ports to dissuade nonunion truckers from working, are themselves out of work for the moment. But shipping volume at the nation’s busiest port complex is back to near normal, steamship lines said, in no small part because there are fewer drivers to snarl port roads and terminals.

But even though the truckers’ boycott seems on the verge of fizzling out, their revolt has prompted steamship lines, freight movers and port officials to rethink the future. With ever-larger waves of imports and exports projected through the end of the decade, people in shipping now are pressing forward with renewed urgency in their efforts to increase efficiency in terminals and truck yards.

The California Trucking Assn. is backing an Assembly bill that would force terminals to stay open longer. Freight brokers are researching a centralized computer system to track cargo. And steamship lines are prodding dockworkers to use more automated equipment and to work more flexible hours.

But each plan would require someone--steamship lines, port authorities or retailers--to spend more money. Thus far, each proposal has met with considerable resistance from one or more sectors of the freight business.

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The truckers’ problems, meanwhile, are far from over. Of the estimated 4,200 unionized drivers who were hired by a new trucking company, only a few dozen have been paid. Executives from the new firm contend they have effectively been “locked out” of the port marketplace.

And hundreds of drivers who left their old companies to join the unionization bid may find they are no longer welcome on the harbor truck circuit--in part because trucking companies now say they can move most of the freight with fewer workers. Having already muddled through at least three weeks without income, however, some truckers have peeled off from the rebellion to reenter the active labor pool.

Many more will be considered excess labor next summer, shippers concede, when the first of three planned state-of-the art terminals will allow cargo containers to be taken off ships and loaded directly onto railroad cars instead of truck chassis.

“We need to do some real soul-searching,” said Jay Winter, executive secretary of the Steamship Assn. of Southern California, which represents the steamship lines. “We’ve got to figure out what to do so that, in another month, we’re not back where we started a month ago.”

The harbor’s truck circuit used to work like this: The 200 trucking companies that service the ports contracted with the estimated 6,500 drivers, who were considered independent workers. They owned their tractors; were responsible for fuel, repairs and insurance; and were paid by the load.

Tensions flared three weeks ago when drivers stayed off the job, complaining that their wages were so low and the terminals managed so poorly that it was impossible to make enough hauls in a day to earn a living. They also charged that some companies had been bilking them by taking vehicle insurance and other deductions from their paychecks for nonexistent coverage.

Thousands of independent truckers were swayed by an offer they couldn’t resist: $25 an hour, which would cover the time they spent waiting in line to make their pickups at port terminals, plus benefits, insurance and a chance to sell or lease their trucks, which would be replaced with late-model used rigs.

That offer came from Donald L. Allen, a former insurance agent who has said he has $125 million from British venture capitalists, but has not provided any documentation of his support. Allen initially had planned to lease his drivers to other trucking companies, not unlike a rental agency, but rival trucking companies insist Allen’s $69-per-hour rate is more than double what they now pay, and thus the drivers he hired have been without work since the boycott began. Executives at the new firm, Transport Maritime Assn., now say they will have to sue in order to win fair access to the terminals.

Although shippers remain skeptical of Allen, many concede that their terminals need to be made more efficient, in order to accommodate more containers and to avoid truck delays. Last year, construction crews began the largest development project at any U.S. harbor.

At the Los Angeles port, a $600-million program will erect a 230-acre terminal for American President Lines and a dockside rail facility on Terminal Island. At the Long Beach port, Hanjin Shipping Co. is slated to open its $250-million, 170-acre terminal early next year, with a dockside rail yard and a 20-lane truck entrance. China Ocean Shipping Co. is expected to open its own $200-million, 130-acre facility in 1998, also with on-dock rail access.

Truckers complain that the existing terminals are open for too brief a workday.

The terminals, operated by clerks and dockworkers who are members of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, are now open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Their union contract with a shippers’ organization allows for a 15-minute break at about 10 a.m., an hour lunch at about noon and a 15-minute break about 3 p.m. But some shippers and truckers contend that in practice, dockworkers routinely take longer breaks and slow the passage of cargo.

An Assembly bill backed by the California Trucking Assn. would force the terminals to operate from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. But lawmakers shelved the bill after shippers, who would have to pay the longshoremen for an extra shift, protested that the plan amounts to state intrusion in the marketplace. And terminals that already offered extended hours, called “hoot owl” gates, found that very few truckers took advantage of them, at least until the boycott.

At the Hanjin terminal, which offers a 3-to-8-a.m. hoot owl gate three days a week, officials reported that more than 200 trucks each day have used the extended shift, up from only 30 or so before the boycott.

What steps the terminals take, however, depends heavily on the outcome of contract talks that just began between the ILWU, which has announced its support for the truckers’ unionization bid, and the Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents the shippers in bargaining.

Kathy Wilkes, a spokeswoman for the dockworkers union, said the current contract would allow shippers to employ as many extra longshoremen for after-hours gates as they wish.

“There’s nothing wrong with their profit margins,” she said.

Wilkes noted that the ILWU had sought wider authority over harbor trucking in previous contract talks. PMA executives said it is too early in the negotiations to determine whether the union will again press for expanded jurisdiction.

Glenn Del Ross, general manager of the J.F. Moran Co. and director of the Los Angeles Customs and Freight Brokers Assn., said expanded gate hours will only work if enough truck drivers use them, and the truckers will only use them if enough importers keep their warehouses and distribution centers open longer too.

Many major importers wait until the latest possible moment to dispatch trucks to pick up their freight--a practice that turns trucks into rolling warehouses and slashes the importers’ storage costs, he said.

Another idea, pushed by the freight brokers, is a central computer system that would allow retailers to track their containers moment by moment, in order to improve pickup schedules and speed trucks through terminal gates. A similar system is in place at the port of Charleston, S.C., but even its supporters are uncertain whether it would work at the significantly larger Los Angeles complex.

“I’m optimistic about the idea, but L.A. is not Charleston,” Del Ross said. “If the port authorities put some money behind it, if they figured their very livelihood was at stake . . . it would take that kind of resolve from both ports, and they never agree on anything.”

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Increasing Tonnage

Officials are looking at ways to increase efficiency at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where tonnage figures are climbing. In millions:

LOS ANGELES

1995: 44.8

LONG BEACH

1995: 51.4

Sources: Annual reports; Jack Kyser, Economic Development Corp.; Pacific Maritime Assn. Researched by JENNIFER OLDHAM / Los Angeles Times