(Source: International Brotherhood of Teamsters press release, June 19, 2017)
PORT OF LOS ANGELES/LONG BEACH, Calif. — Today, port and rail drivers misclassified as “independent contractors” at XPO Cartage, Inc., part of XPO Logistics, Inc., began an “Unfair Labor Practice” strike to protest illegal job classification that robs them of their employee rights. Drivers are picketing XPO facilities in Commerce, Rancho Dominguez, and San Diego, and are picketing at America’s largest port complex, the twin ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, and the Intermodal Rail Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF), when XPO trucks attempt to enter marine terminals and the rail yard.
The drivers are on strike to protest unfair labor practices, including misclassification and retaliation, harassment, and intimidation for having filed claims for wage theft with the California Labor Commissioner’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. In addition to the port driver misclassification, XPO Logistics is also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on union busters in an attempt to deny its freight and warehouse workers from exercising their federally protected right to organize their union. The company’s freight and warehouse workers also struggle financially while its CEO, Bradley Jacobs, continues to make millions of dollars on the backs of his workers.
“We are here supporting the drivers in their struggle against this illegal misclassification scheme, which denies them of their rights and forces them to live in poverty,” said Fred Potter, a Teamsters Union Vice President and Director of the union’s Port Division. “Despite numerous court victories and other government agencies seeing through this scheme, the companies, including XPO, continue to fight the workers in court and deny these workers the justice they deserve.”
“We’re fed up with working so hard, making so little, and having no benefits,” said Jose Herrera, an XPO port/rail driver. “There’s nothing independent about us—XPO controls our work yet continues to fight us in court.”
“I’m here to exercise my rights as a worker for XPO. When XPO refuses to recognize that we are their employees, they deprive us of our rights. For that reason, I am here fighting today to reclaim the rights we are legally entitled to,” said XPO driver Antonio Herrera.