Port drivers at Pac 9 Transportation to begin indefinite strike – the sixth for Pac 9 drivers – at 6AM PST to protest misclassification; declare intent to not return to company until they are properly classified as employees and provided safe trucks to drive  LOS ANGELES (CA) – Port truck drivers from trucking company Pacific 9 Transportation (Pac 9) will go on an indefinite strike to protest misclassification at the company. While on strike they will continue their legal fight to recoup stolen wages and many will support their families by working at one of four Teamster companies — Eco Flow Transportation, Shippers Transport Express, Toll Group, or Horizon Lines. The strike begins at 6AM PST on Tuesday, July 21, 2015, at the company’s yard in Carson, California, and will spread to marine terminals at our nation’s largest port complex as Pac 9 trucks enter those facilities. What: Picketing at Carson-based Pacific 9 Transportation and at Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach marine terminals Who: Striking port truck drivers from Pac 9 Transportation and their co-workers in support from Teamster companies (during non-working hours only) Where: Starting at Pacific 9 Transportation, 2045 E. Carson St., Carson, CA 90810 When: Starting Tuesday, July 21, 2015; starting at 6:00 AM PST “I’ve been a port truck driver for five years and I have never worked for a company that treats their workers like Pac 9. The company refuses to recognize us as employees, refuses to provide us with safe and reliable trucks, and refuses to improve our work environment. We are on going on strike again, this time indefinitely, because we are tired of the misclassification,” said Pac 9 driver Pedro Martinez. “I’m tired of the misclassification and abuse, and I won’t keep paying for that truck because it’s too dangerous. This has to end; we deserve respect. That’s why I’m going on strike and have applied for a position at Eco Flow, the new company that recently went union,” said Fariborz Rostamian, a misclassified Pac 9 driver for ten years. “Pac 9 drivers have courageously withstood retaliation and mistreatment by their employer for over two years, but these drivers refuse to back down from their fight for justice.  The Teamsters Union continues to support their efforts every step of the way,” said Fred Potter, Teamsters Port Division Director. Misclassification, wage theft, and tax fraud has infested the port trucking industry. Misclassifying employee drivers as independent contractors is the strategy that the industry has used to steal from the vast majority of the more than 10,000 port truck drivers that serve the ports of LA/Long Beach – and ports across America. Drivers have filed claims for wage theft and sued, and change is starting to come as companies like Shippers Transport Express and Eco Flow Transportation have done the right thing and converted to an employee model. But at Pac 9, like at many companies, the owners are refusing to comply with the law and end misclassification. With 40 drivers’ wage and hour hearings scheduled in upcoming days before the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), Pac 9 would rather fight the losing battle in court than dispose of their illegal business model. That’s why drivers at the Ports of LA/Long Beach have gone on strike six times – and now a seventh time (sixth for Pac 9 drivers) – to improve conditions for themselves, their families, and all drivers.