Posts tagged truckers
Behind the last-ditch effort to save a trucking company that owes $700M to taxpayers
December 1, 2023 // Estes Express earlier this fall offered $1.53 billion "stalking horse" bid for Nashville-based Yellow's shipment centers. That would easily be enough to repay around $500 million in debt held by senior lender Citadel — which purchased the notes from Apollo, post bankruptcy — plus other creditors and the CARES Act loan. Then we got a wrinkle, just ahead of the bankruptcy auction kicking off this past Tuesday. It was a bid led by the owner of auto trucking company Jack Cooper to restart Nashville-based Yellow, not just scoop up logistics properties or other assets. This new proposal, as reported by the NY Times, would repay private creditors immediately, but postpone the Treasury loan repayment to 2026 from 2024. It's this second deal that's being supported, at least in principle, by a chorus of U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Rep. French Hill
The FTC’s Indefensible Position on Collective Bargaining
April 19, 2023 // In remarks last week at the University of Utah School of Law, FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya argued that independent contractors should be allowed to bargain collectively. He acknowledged that courts have always treated collective bargaining by contractors as illegal under federal antitrust law. But he claimed that these courts have made a mistake: in fact, Congress never meant to stop small contractors, like truckers or plumbers, from forming a union and bargaining together. Bedoya’s interpretation would upset a century of careful balancing between antitrust and labor policy. It would also expose the contractors themselves to serious risks of abuse. And it would undermine well-established rules against collusion, price fixing, and other restraints on trade. To see why Bedoya is so wrong, you have to understand labor law and antitrust law’s tangled history. Let’s start with section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Adopted in 1890, section 1 banned all contracts and conspiracies in restraint of trade. It did not, however, define trade restraints. Instead, it incorporated common-law standards. Under the common law, unions were treated no differently from any other combination of buyers or sellers. If they conspired to fix labor prices, they violated the law. And collective bargaining could be seen as one form of price fixing. As a result, the law sometimes treated unions as, essentially, labor cartels.
Bill To Require Driverless Trucks To Have A Driver in the Vehicle is Backed by Labor Unions
April 18, 2023 // A bill to require driverless trucks to have a driver in the vehicle moved closer to a crucial Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee this week, but it wasn’t just a safety bill – labor unions are backing the bill in anticipation of a close vote. Assembly Bill 316, authored by Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) would prohibit the operation of an autonomous vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 10,000 pounds or more on public roads for testing purposes, transporting goods, or transporting passengers without a human safety operator physically present in the autonomous vehicle at the time of operation. While AB 316 was authored by Assemblywoman Aguiar-Curry, it was introduced with a bipartisan group of legislators, including Assemblymen Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale) and Ash Kalra (D-San Jose). While a few Republicans have been in favor of the bill as a way to keep jobs in rural areas, many Democrats have been in favor of the bill due to it protecting thousands of union trucking jobs and alleged safety benefits. “You don’t create a safer environment if you have a 10,000-pound vehicle out there without a human safety net,” noted California Labor Federation leader and former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who previously authored the independent contractor reclassification law AB 5, which truckers themselves had adamantly opposed.
Biden’s regulatory machine wants to stifle the freedom of the American worker
October 31, 2022 // Frankly, workers are not helpless. They are perfectly capable of choosing their own lifestyles and can evaluate their labor choices along with the compensation and benefits each provides. We currently have an economy in which, for the entirety of 2022, the number of job openings has nearly outnumbered unemployed workers 2-1. If these “gigs” were so horrible, these people would seek other employment. Moreover, the Biden administration’s mandated reclassification would significantly increase the cost of doing business for both small businesses and large companies such as Uber, Doordash, and others that provide unique economic opportunities for gig workers. This heavy-handed regulatory approach will discourage entrepreneurial innovation and result in added costs that will be passed along to the consumer.
Assembly Bill 5 is still wreaking havoc in California and across the country
October 24, 2022 // If you needed proof that AB 5 was a flawed piece of legislation from the very beginning, consider the fact that while the rules for who AB 5 applies to are a mere 325 words, they’re followed by almost 7,000 words worth of carveouts. While a 2020 Proposition which rolled back AB 5 with respect to app-based drivers was recently declared unconstitutional, other exceptions put in place by the legislature remain. As a result, politically-connected professions, like lawyers, doctors, and accountants are exempted from AB 5’s onerous requirements. Independent truckers, however, are not among these lucky carve outs, and the state is beginning to feel the consequences. Throughout the United States, approximately 350,000 truck drivers make a living as independent owner-operators—they own their own vehicles and haul loads as contractors for carriers.
Dems Desperate to Deliver Last-Minute Favors to Big Labor Bosses
September 13, 2022 // The NLRB waited 23 months – long after it had gathered the relevant information to issue a complaint – to file the preliminary injunction. The NLRB waited until a week before the JKF8 vote to tip the scales the hardest for the union – and admitted as much in its court filings. Not only did the NLRB intervene at the last minute to improperly influence the employees’ vote, but it did so to protect a workplace bully. While the left claims to care about worker’s rights, clearly only certain workers’ rights matter. The Biden NLRB is willing to promote workplace harassment so long as it furthers Big Labor’s goals. The Amazon case is one of many examples of the supposedly impartial NLRB delivering for Big Labor. Instead of pushing proposals like the PRO Act that would hurt workers, Congress should conduct robust oversight hearings into the NLRB’s conduct.
Shakeup Of Teamsters Local 492 In New Mexico Continues As Hollywood’s Teamsters Local 399 Takes Over Its Film Jurisdiction
August 31, 2022 // Their resignations come in the wake of last week’s announcement, first reported by Deadline, that following an investigation and audit of Local 492’s financial records, the executive board of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters had transferred Local 492’s jurisdiction over film and TV production in the state to Hollywood’s Teamsters Local 399. Sources tell Deadline that prior to the takeover, Local 492’s movie division had been run like a “dictatorship” in a state that has become a major production hub thanks to its generous tax incentives program. Local 399 has long preserved its jurisdiction over film and television work in the 13 Western States through its “Black Book” agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
Hundreds of truckers block Oakland terminal access to protest AB5
July 19, 2022 // By Monday afternoon, the SSA, TraPac and Everport terminals announced there would be no night shift hours as the protesting owner-operators were only allowing around two company trucks per hour into the terminal gates throughout the day. On average, 250 trucks an hour would flow through the terminals on a typical work day. Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association, who was in Oakland on Monday, lauded the demonstration. owner-operators, Kimberly Sulsar-Campos, vice president of Oakland-based Iraheta Bros. Trucking, Rafael Quintero, Joe Rajkovacz, director of governmental affairs for the Western States Trucking Association, Employment Development Department [EDD] audit, Larry Dhaliwal, LDT Transport, Robert Bernardo, TraPac, Bill Aboudi, drayage trucks
“Nonunion drivers are getting paid better than us:” Car haul truckers in US determined to strike Tuesday night
May 31, 2022 // We had a lot of guys leave because it’s better pay everywhere else. But there are perks to the union and that’s why I’m still here; the union is a family, but we got to get this pay right. “All of the other drivers who are nonunion are getting paid better.” Referring to the so-called Teamsters reformers in charge of the union, including new president Sean O’Brien, he said: “We are not elevating the appropriate people.
Amazon wants new delivery centers in the Bay Area. Big Labor might stop it.
February 23, 2022 // Labor unions have successfully stopped plans for new Amazon delivery centers across the Bay Area. Now they’re trying to do the same in downtown San Francisco.