Truckers hold pre-announced work stoppages at 3 firms in Carson, California over being misclassified as independent contractors and over management harassment of their attempts to organize with the Teamsters.
LA port truckers on strike
EDIT: Upon closer inspection, we found ourselves only able to conditionally support these top-down pseudo-actions, obviously orchestrated by PR firms and devoid of the agency of the rank-and-file. Additionally, we are disgusted at the Change-to-Win/Teamsters/Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports/clergy use of the U.S. flag and appeals to nationalism.
If you want the Madison Avenue spin on events, check this Los Angeles Times' story.
Yet the location is significant since the 3-track submerged Alameda Corridor runs through Carson. Additionally, the Union Pacific railroad's Dolores Yard is located in Carson. The trucking firms involved in these protests are Green Fleet Systems, Pac 9 Transportation and American Logistics International, all three in Carson, a small municipality that borders the city of Los Angeles district of Wilmington, where the Port of LA is located.
Truckers also had a symbolic one-day strike in August, that ended with a march on the media as union staffers and longhaired preachers accompanied the strikers to rally before returning to work.
Another group of self-organized troqueros are predominately Latino, have sympathies with the Wobbly tradition, and were members of the Ricardo Flores Magon Branch of the IWW in the 2000s. Several of them are presently organizing themselves as an autonomous Sindicato Industrial at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. We give our unconditional support to this form of working class self-activity, based on an uncompromising approach to class struggle and an amazing track record of wildcat strikes.
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