'These parties continue to mislead the citizens of Los Angeles and Long Beach by claiming that ATA is trying to kill the Ports' Clean Truck Program,' Boyce said. 'ATA has supported the Clean Truck Program, including the Ports container fee for financing the replacement of older trucks, the banning of older trucks and the Ports Drayage Registry, and continues to do so. ATA has opposed only the Ports' Concession Plans, especially the Los Angeles ban on independent owner operators.'
The deception goes beyond public relations 'spin' and may have two purposes, Boyce said: to lower public expectations for the Ports' unsuccessful defense of the lawsuit; and to distract from the reason that Los Angeles, but not Long Beach, bowed to union influence and banned owner-operators. Requiring that drivers be trucking company employees will allow unions to organize the drivers. 'In short, the public's health, safety and security are not at risk in the ATA litigation,' Boyce said. 'This litigation is about removing unconstitutional and illegal red tape, and about protecting the rights of the owners of small businesses that the Port of Los Angeles has trampled.'
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District ruled unanimously on March 20 that all or part of the Concession Plans are an unconstitutional interference in interstate trade. The judges' opinion made very clear that ATA does not oppose the environmental components of the Ports' regulations. The judges' opinion also pointedly criticized the Port of Los Angeles' owner-operator ban, which would rob thousands of small business owners of their livelihoods. Owner-operators are drivers who own or lease their own trucks. They are small business owners, and many small trucking businesses must contract with owner-operators to serve their customers.
The judges' opinion said: 'As to smaller companies that cannot afford the vast increase in capital requirements for the purchase of equipment and personnel expenditures needed to turn independent contractors into employees, the result would likely be fatal. And that means that those smaller carriers, and their employees, and even independent contractors who depend upon them, will be out of work. One wonders why it should be thought that they should just put up with the loss any more than employees of a company should be forced to abide their wrongful termination and the resulting emotional damages and stress that termination causes.'
'We see little safety-related merit in those thread-paper arguments, which denigrate small businesses and insist that individuals should work for large employers or not at all. ' It is a rather blatant attempt to decide who can use whom for drayage services, and is a palpable interference with prices and services,' the opinion said. The judges sent the case back to the U.S. District Court for a ruling on whether all or parts of the Concession Plans will be barred.
Pacific Merchant Shipping Association President John R. McLaurin, in an article posted at www.foxandhoundsdaily.com and headlined "Being Wrong Is Never Having To Say You're Sorry,' also criticized the Port. 'Events leading up to the Ninth Circuit decision highlighted some of the worst and most vicious qualities about California's political process. The Court focused on the ports 'concession agreements' and did not address the environmental components of the program ' something never challenged by the American Trucking Associations,' President McLaurin wrote. 'Proponents of the (Clean) Truck Program
