NORFOLK, Va. — One of the nation’s most powerful unions is making waves at the port of Hampton Roads, the Virginian-Pilot reported.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters hopes that organizing port truck drivers — one of the port’s few non-union work forces — will yield the truckers better wages and benefits.
Teamsters officials said the push is aimed at building membership among an underserved employment base.
“This is significant,” said David Vinson, president of Teamsters Local 822. “It gives us a toehold at the port.”
The Teamsters this week won certification at C & K Trucking Inc. of Portsmouth, according to the union, and will represent the company’s 30 or so drivers in future contract negotiations.
The port truckers average about $9 an hour in pay, and the Teamsters hope to negotiate a contract that increases local pay by 10 percent to 20 percent, improves benefits and establishes seniority, Vinson said.
But that might translate into trouble for port managers. Higher local costs to shippers — which could result if trucking companies try to pass along the cost of wage increase — might put Norfolk at a competitive disadvantage to other ports.
“Anything that causes our prices to go up or slows down our productivity is just not acceptable,” said Joseph A. Dorto, chief executive officer and general manager of Virginia International Terminals Inc., the agency that runs the marine terminals. “The shipping companies are all losing money, and we’re losing money.”
It was the Teamsters’ third successful organizing campaign at a port motor carrier in six months.
About a dozen drivers at Diamond T Transportation Systems Inc., a unit of Norfolk-based The Taylor Cos., voted the union in last May.
“The union can give you a voice,” said Jerry M. Hines, who has driven for Diamond T for three years and is the union’s shop steward. “Any successful business is successful because it listens to its people. They need to listen to us.”
And in August, about 22 truckers for Service Transfer Inc. of Chesapeake certified the Teamsters as bargaining representative.
None of the three trucking companies would comment on the organizing campaigns.
Labor has one year after a certification election to negotiate a contract with management and put it up to a worker vote.
The Teamsters’ international headquarters is preparing a campaign to sign up truck owner-operators at ports nationwide as well.
Most of the industry’s 50,000 port drivers are independent contractors, who do not fall under the regulations of the National Labor Relations Board, complicating the organizing process. Vinson could not give an estimate of the number of port drivers in Hampton.
Under federal law, the union may only undertake an organizing campaign after being invited by employees. And Vinson said Local 822 was contacted by drivers for the local companies who wanted to weigh representation by the Teamsters.
The Teamsters will represent all the drivers at the companies, but most haul cargo from ships that arrive at the port’s marine terminals in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News to rail connections or to customers within a few hours’ drive of Hampton Roads.
Vinson said the local port truckers’ average pay is about $9 an hour. That’s less than one-half the rate paid under the national agreement covering long-haul freight drivers at Teamster shops such as Roadway Corp.
And truckers in Hampton Roads can earn far less if they work on a per-load basis and hit snags like traffic or breakdowns.
“They have to maintain a commercial drivers’ license, there are delays, and they’re vastly underpaid,” Vinson said. “It’s not a good situation.”
Talks are under way with Diamond T, according to Vinson, and will begin with Service Transfer later this month.
In addition to higher pay, unionized drivers could benefit from the bargaining clout of the International Longshoreman’s Association, which represents the port’s 1,700 union employees from ship cleaners to crane operators.
“We believe that every worker should have an opportunity to join a union and have a sayso in the services they render,” said Edward L. Brown Sr., vice president of the ILA and of its Atlantic Coast District.
The labor/management clashes that shut down West Coast port operations for last summer may even bolster the Teamsters’ efforts, according to observers.
James A. Matthews III, a Philadelphia attorney who represents terminal operators in negotiations with the ILA, said the union for port workers on the West Coast is helping the Teamsters there organize truckers in exchange for Teamster support.
That could translate to the East Coast as well, according to Matthews, where union dues and other factors have traditionally made it difficult for Teamsters to get independent truckers to join.