Posts tagged truck drivers
Key shipping company shutters operations; bankruptcy uncertain
April 23, 2024 // The U.S. logistics industry has been battling with financial distress this year with companies filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy to liquidate, Chapter 11 reorganization, downsizing operations or just shutting down operations.
Trucking groups appeal AB5 ruling to Ninth Circuit
April 16, 2024 // California signed AB5 into law in 2019. The worker classification law is based on the ABC Test, which requires a business to demonstrate three factors are established before a worker can be deemed an independent contractor. The “B prong” of the ABC Test appears to prevent a trucking company from classifying a truck driver as an independent contractor regardless of the level of control or any other factors. The California Trucking Association and OOIDA contend that AB5 imposes undue burdens on interstate commerce in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause. In addition, OOIDA and the state trucking group have said that the law’s decisions on who it exempts violate the U.S. and California constitutions’ equal protection clauses.
Teamsters union, which led strike against Post-Gazette, accepts settlement and agrees to dissolve
April 12, 2024 // The settlement by Teamsters Local 211/205, which represents Post-Gazette truck drivers, has set off a firestorm among the four other unions who remain on strike, including the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh. The Guild represents the editorial staff, including reporters and photographers, and was pressured to join the strike in support of the Teamsters and the two other newspaper production unions at risk of losing its own union charter. "After 18 months on strike, standing on the picket lines all day and late into the nights with Teamster drivers represented by Local 211/205, it's extremely disappointing to see this unit fall for the company's divide and conquer strategy," said Zack Tanner, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president, in a press release.
Further appeals to block AB5 from California trucking seen as a long shot
March 19, 2024 // Appeals are possible of the decision Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California that emphatically rejected all the arguments by the California Trucking Association (CTA) and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. But several observers of the legal battle that has gone on for more than four years said that may prove too big a challenge to proceed. “I’m sure that some will advocate for the appeal and exhausting all efforts, but I’m certainly not bullish on the likelihood of success in the 9th Circuit,” an attorney who is not representing any of the parties and requested anonymity said of possible future CTA/OOIDA action. “It is time to ‘move on’ absent the political will to change.”
Rachel Greszler: 64 million Americans risk losing work under Biden administration rule
January 30, 2024 // The group Freelancers Against AB 5 compiled a list of more than 600 professions that have been negatively affected by independent contracting restrictions, and Americans for Tax Reform documents more than 600 personal testimonials of workers who’ve been harmed. Karen Anderson, the founder of Freelancers Against AB5, testified to federal lawmakers about children’s theaters and nonprofit youth sports clubs closing their doors; sign language interpreters unable to provide ADA-mandated services to the deaf; and professionals having to move out of state to maintain their livelihoods.
Opinion: Julie Su Keeps Failing Up, and Biden Doesn’t Care
April 10, 2023 // How in the world did Julie Su get nominated to run the federal Department of Labor? Su is a former civil rights attorney, former head of the California Department of Labor under Gov. Gavin Newsom, and head of California’s Department of Labor Standards Enforcement under former Gov. Jerry Brown. She was deputy director of the federal DOL and now is acting director as she awaits a tough Senate confirmation in the next few months. I had immediately thought that the Peter Principle might explain it. Coined by Canadian sociologist Laurence Peter in his 1968 book of the same name, it postulates that the tendency in all organizations is for “every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence,” as Investopedia put it. But that surely can’t explain Su, who already reached that level in her previous employment. Investopedia also mentioned the Dilbert Principle, named after the comic strip: that big organizations promote people precisely because of their incompetence. In other words, they promote them to get them out of the way. Su was California’s top labor official and ultimately responsible for the Employment Development Department when a major scandal rocked that unemployment insurance–disbursing bureau. “California has given away at least $20 billion to criminals in the form of fraudulent unemployment benefits, state officials said Monday, confirming a number smaller than originally feared but one that still accounts for more than 11 percent of all benefits paid since the start of the pandemic,” according to a 2021 Los Angeles Times report.
ATA Expresses Concern Over Labor Secretary Nominee Julie Su
March 17, 2023 // In a letter to U.S. Senate labor leaders, American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear expressed concern about the track record that Labor Secretary nominee Julie Su would bring to the job, specifically as it relates to the rights of truck drivers to be independent contractors. “California’s AB 5, which Ms. Su helped pass and implement as Secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, essentially outlaws their business model,” Spear wrote in a letter to Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.). The letter was copied to members of the committee.
Opinion: Biden Labor Nominee Julie Su is a Threat to Independent Contractors and Freelancers Nationwide
March 2, 2023 // Su, who is currently serving as Deputy Labor Secretary, has a demonstrated record of mismanagement of taxpayer resources and will wage war on the nearly 60 million Americans that engage in freelance work. Before DOL, Su worked as California Labor Secretary. Under Su’s scandal-tarred watch, California’s unemployment system paid out over $11 billion in fraudulent claims, totaling 10 percent of all benefits paid. Estimates show that a further $19 billion in claims were improperly distributed. An audit spurred by Su’s failed leadership showed that her work was a “high-risk issue” and “inefficient.” Su will also raise your taxes. Su will likely push a national version (such as the PRO Act) of AB5 if confirmed, breaking Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 per year.
Striking union workers confront truck drivers at Sysco warehouse in Plympton
October 6, 2022 // Sysco food service workers, who have been on strike since Saturday, confronted non-union truck drivers trying to enter the distribution center in Plympton early Monday morning. Police monitored the demonstrators who blocked trucks for a few minutes as they entered and exited the distribution center, voicing their complaints about non-union drivers taking the food trucks out.
Op-ed: ‘Translation Agencies Are Cancelling My Contracts’ — California’s AB5 Bill Starts to Bite
June 20, 2022 // In response to criticism from freelancers concerned about losing work, Assemblywoman Gonzalez stated on December 12, 2019, “These were never good jobs. No one has ever suggested that, even freelancers.” She later clarified: “I’m sorry if I shorthanded things they were expressed to me. All the freelancers I met with complained about the lack of standards on pay, timely pay, etc.” On December 17, 2019, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), represented by pro bono attorneys from the Pacific Legal Fund, filed a lawsuit against what they call AB5’s illegal discrimination against journalists. The suit comes on the heels of Vox Media’s December 16, 2019 announcement that the company would end contracts with approximately 200 freelance sports writers and editors due to AB5, replacing them with 20 new part-time and full-time. gig worker bill, interpreters, legal challenge, translators, Lorena Gonzalez, court and medical interpreter, Gloria M. Rivera, National Committee for Languages, Coalition of Practicing Translators and Interpreters of California, American Association of Language Specialists, Rae K. Farley, CART, Communication Access Realtime Translation, Renee Silverman, New Jersey’s Senate Labor Committee