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ATA: ‘pro-union groups’ misleading public again about port truck programs

ARLINGTON, Va. — A flurry of news releases touting ports’ efforts to promote clean and green trucks and condemning the American Trucking Associations for its successful attempt at halting several requirements of concession plans at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, is once again putting ATA in a position of defending its position and clearing the air on the lobbying group’s clean truck stance. 

Many of the releases were issued today through PRNewswire from such groups as the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, which has labor ties; the Center for Environmental Health; the Natural Resources Defense Council (which numbers actor Leonardo DiCaprio among its board of trustees); and the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports (also with labor ties), among others.

In a news release calling for LA’s Clean Truck Program to be “replicated in Oakland and beyond,” Center for Environmental Health Executive Director Michael Green said “ … We condemn the legal attacks by the American Trucking Associations, the Virginia-based industry lobby that threw a wrench into the LA program before it was fully implanted when it sued the Port. This threatens to stall or reverse the emissions reductions achieved and prevents effective clean-air plans from being enacted at polluting trade hubs around the country.”

ATA responded that “various union and pro-union sources, backers of the Teamsters’ effort to change federal law in order to organize port drayage truck drivers, are severely misleading the public and encouraging the waste of taxpayers’ funds to help organize unions.”

A federal judge halted parts of the concession plans, including one that would mandate that independent drivers become employees of trucking companies. The ruling sided with ATA, which had argued that ports can’t require companies to hire drivers as direct employees because it would stop independent truckers, the majority of whom haul cargo in and out of the ports, from working the harbor.

“The press releases contain blatant falsehoods about the Clean Trucks Program in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) support of those programs. The ATA has supported the Clean Trucks Program in both ports and its members have helped the ports replace older trucks with newer, cleaner trucks at a rate that is well ahead of schedule,” said the release ATA issued today.

“Both programs are successes in their current forms, yet neither port has enforced the restrictive concession plan requirements that the U.S. Court of Appeals declared illegal last March. The releases falsely suggest that the Clean Truck Programs cannot succeed without those concession plan requirements in place.

“The union-led effort uses a campaign for clean air as a cover for an all-out effort to destroy small independent businesses owned by independent truck owner-operators  and replace them with larger trucking companies whose employees can be more easily organized by the Teamsters,” said ATA Vice President of Public Affairs Clayton Boyce.

“Unions and their supporters are wrongly claiming that banning independent owner-operators is necessary to clean the air. The recent experience in the Port of Los Angeles, where clean air efforts are far ahead of schedule even though the L.A. ban on owner-operators has been enjoined, has shown that claim to be false.”

The releases — issued on the first anniversary of the Los Angeles and Long Beach truck plans — named by ATA specifically were from: the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC);

The New Jersey Environmental Federation; the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; the Teachers Association of Long Beach; the Center for Environmental Health, Oakland, Calif.; and the Puget Sound Sage, which ATA said “wants to ban owner-operators from the Port of Seattle-Tacoma.”

ATA cited a study conducted by the Coordinating Research Council and the Health Effects Institute that showed “current engine models produced 98 percent less carbon monoxide, 10 percent less nitrogen oxide, 95 percent less non-methane hydrocarbons and 89 percent less particulate matter than required by the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2007 diesel engine emission standards.”

The Appeals Court “belittled” the various environmental and labor groups’ position that a ban on owner-operators would negatively impact the Clean Truck Program, noting that the judges “saw little safety-related merit in those thread-paper arguments, which denigrate small businesses and insist that individuals should work for large employers or not at all,” ATA stated.

“Unfazed by the fact that clean air is not related to a driver’s employment status, the unions and environmental group supporters are asking Congress to change federal transportation law to effectively nullify the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision and the federal law that protects motor carriers, shippers and consumers from unnecessary and costly state and local regulations,” ATA continued in its response.

“The unions are willing to disrupt national transportation policy, undermine thousands of small businesses and place millions of dollars of unnecessary cost on freight transportation, just to allow them to better advance their organizing goals.”

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