Six container terminals or their affiliates at the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach are being sued by approximately two dozen owner-operator truck drivers under the accusation that the terminals deliberately disrupted demonstrations earlier in the year, reported JOC.com.
The Teamsters had apparently been in conversations with the terminal operators, stating that if they disrupted demonstrations, the unions would ensure picketing did not occur at those particular terminals; the non-unionised drivers were not allowed access while the unionised ones were allowed to pass through freely.
a statement included in the suit, reads as follows: “Plaintiffs are informed and believe that the Teamsters, together with the defendant terminals, conspired and continue to conspire to destroy the businesses of the plaintiff owner-operator drivers, who for up to three days were denied access to defendants’ terminals and therefore were denied his/her constitutional rights to earn a living”
The Teamsters are an organisation founded in 1903 and it represents the rights and working conditions of blue-collar workers in the United States and Canada; there are currently 1.4 million members under 21 Industrial Divisions including professional and non-professional individuals and private sector and public sector individuals.
October container volumes were down 6.2% at the Port of Long Beach compared with the same month last year, as the fallout from the Hanjin bankruptcy continues to settle.
A total of 581,808 TEUs moved through docks in October, 2016. Export TEUs were 1.2% down, relatively flat compared to last October, to 126,770 TEUs. Total imports were 296,711 TEUs, 3.7% off. Empty containers experienced the largest drop of 13.8% to 158,327 boxes.
