Raucous rally at LA City Hall that included delivery of petition signatures calling on Mayors Garcetti and Garcia to end indentured servitude at the ports LOS ANGELES, CA – A week-long strike by Port of LA/Long Beach truck drivers and warehouse workers culminated in a large and raucous rally on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall. Striking workers and their allies then proceeded into LA City Hall to deliver nearly 10,000 petition signatures calling on Mayor Eric Garcetti, as well as Long Beach Robert Garcia, to end indentured servitude at the ports they oversee.  The drivers and warehouse ended their strike on Friday afternoon, when they made unconditional offers to return to work at their place of employment (though the drivers themselves are not considered employees by the trucking companies that employ them). Truck drivers and warehouse workers, with the support of the Teamsters, have been on an unfair labor practice strike since Monday morning to protest years of injustice and wage theft by their employers. "Corporations have pushed tens of millions of American truck drivers, warehouse workers, and service sector workers into poverty through greedy subcontracting schemes designed to increase CEO pay. One of the most insidious corporate schemes is to misclassify employees as “independent contractors” to dodge payroll taxes, lower wages, avoid paying benefits to workers, and to evade the laws that protect American employees,” said Fred Potter, Vice President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and Director of the Teamsters Port Division. “Ground zero in the fight to end toxic subcontracting is the Teamster-led fight to restore employee rights – including the right to become Teamsters – to approximately 12,000 non-union drivers at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach who are misclassified as independent contractors. These drivers have been waging a battle to tear apart this rigged system through widespread lawsuits and government complaints, plus organizing lawful unfair labor practice strikes protesting the fraudulent system. Drivers are currently on their 15th strike in the last four years.” “My boss says I don’t work for the company, that I’m not their employee. That’s ridiculous. I only work for them, I don’t have my own customers, and dispatch tells me where to go when. The government has ruled over and over again that we are all employees and the companies are stealing from us. How much longer is this going to be allowed to continue at the ports?” asked Domingo Avalos, XPO Cartage, a division of global giant XPO Logistics. “I went on strike for my family, to put a stop to the mistreatment. The Port of Los Angeles must be a better landlord and take responsibility for what’s going on here. Both the Port and Mayor Garcetti know what’s happening on port property – they need to demand Cal Cartage change and follow the law,” declared Victor Gonzales, California Cartage Warehouse For years, port trucking companies have misclassified drivers as independent contractors, thus evading laws providing protections to employees -- such as minimum wage, overtime, health and safety, unemployment benefits, and workers’ compensation laws. Especially heinous is the practice — as recounted in a recent USA Today investigation — of “forcing drivers to finance their own trucks by taking on debt they could not afford. Companies then used that debt as leverage to extract forced labor and trap drivers in jobs that left them destitute.” Source: Justice for Port Truck Drivers