THE CAMPAIGN FOR CLEAN AND SAFE PORTS

CLUE-CA affiliates in Los Angeles and Oakland are working with the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports to address the California Ports' interconnected economic justice and environmental challenges. In Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland, interfaith leaders are working to bring an authentic faith voice to the issue.

The coalition of port truck drivers, environmentalists, environmental justice advocates, labor, public health, faith and community organizations are promoting sustainable economic development at the Ports of Oakland, Long Beach and Los Angeles.  The Port trucking system contributes to a public health crisis forcing truck drivers to toil in sweatshop working conditions. Truck drivers at the ports are independent contractors who earn less than $7 per hour and lack health insurance (only 10 % have health benefits). Their aging trucks increase air pollution and have been linked to higher local asthma rates.

Prior to the deregulation of the trucking industry in 1980, port truck drivers enjoyed a middle class standard of living. Today, big box retailers and steam ship lines are fueling a race to the bottom, forcing trucking companies to compete by undercutting each other and paying drivers less. Since deregulation, many trucking companies shifted employees to “independent contractor” status. The trucking companies now pass the cost of owning and maintaining trucks onto drivers and avoid paying payroll taxes, Social Security, Medicare and workers’ compensation.  The result is a workforce that lives in poverty and does not have the resources to operate clean trucks.

Port diesel pollution is associated with high rates of cancer and asthma.  Diesel pollution is five times higher in West Oakland than in other parts of Alameda county. 

The California Air Resources Board conducted a Health Risk Assessment study of West Oakland that found that West Oakland residents are about 2 1/2 times more likely to get cancer than other people living in the Bay Area.  The elevated potential risk levels are primarily due to on-road trucks. 

According to the American Lung Association, one in five West Oakland children has asthma, and the West Oakland area has the highest asthma hospitalization rates in California. 

After clearing expenses, many truck drivers make as little as $8 an hour and receive no benefits.  They can barely support their families and cannot afford health care let alone truck replacements, upgrades and maintenance required to meet new State mandated environmental standards.

A broken port trucking system forces drivers to sit idle in their trucks for hours everyday while their trucks spew out toxic diesel emissions that the truckers and residents of the surrounding port communities are forced to breathe.

The Port of Oakland is an economic engine for the entire San Francisco Bay Area.  But West Oakland residents living in the neighborhoods next to the Port, who are primarily low-income, receive all the health risks of truck pollution, but few of the economic benefits.  Trucking companies offer no effective local hire programs for West Oakland residents.

Responsible trucking companies who treat workers with respect and use less polluting trucks are being put at a competitive disadvantage by trucking firms and big box shippers who drive rates down by abusing the broken system.

We are working to make the Port trucking industry more efficient, reduce air pollution, improve the quality of jobs and stimulate greater economic opportunities for residents living in surrounding port communities.  CC&SP strongly supports the adoption of a comprehensive Clean Trucks Program by the Oakland Port Commission that would:  

• require all port trucking firms to enter into concession agreements that incorporate environmental, community and labor standards;
• grant "independent" drivers employee status giving them the right to join a union and organize for better working conditions;
• require trucking companies to operate only clean emission trucks;
• require trucking companies to provide off-street parking for trucks outside residential neighborhoods;
• create a strong local hire program for community residents most impacted by Port pollution; and
• support small, local businesses to meet the standards.

This year promises to be an exciting time as CLUE Los Angeles and the East Bay Interfaith Committee for Worker justice enter the final stretch in holding the Ports accountable to workers and the community. The Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports is on the road to transforming the broken trucking system to create good jobs and clean air.