Last week, the City of Los Angeles filed three lawsuits against some of the largest port trucking companies in the nation: CMI Transportation, K&R Transportation and California Cartage Transportation Express. All three companies are owned by a New Jersey logistics firm, NFI Industries. The lawsuits were filed after a scathing USA Today report on the abuse surrounding the industry. The litigation demands that the companies halt the systematic exploitation of their contract workers and seeks restitution of the money and property that the companies attained as a result of their practices. The companies also face civil penalties up to $2,500 for each infraction
The companies are accused of misclassifying hundreds of workers as independent contractors instead of employees, although the three companies exert almost complete control over the schedule of the drivers. They do this to avoid federal and state laws that require companies to pay employees minimum wage and offer benefits.
This forces the drivers to absorb thousands of dollars in costs while taking home only pennies. In some cases, the drivers make nothing in pay and owe the company money at the end of the pay period. These law suits are the culmination of several long-running disputes between drivers and the trucking companies. Over 1,000 California port truckers have filed labor complaints in civil courts since 2008, and since then, the labor commissioner’s office has awarded over $46 million to port tuckers. Since the beginning of USA Today’s investigation, drivers for these companies have filed three more class-action lawsuits and established 23 more cases with the Labor Commission.
City Attorney Mike Feuer called their practices “disgraceful” and vowed to continue the city’s investigation into unfair labor practices in the ports. One councilman said that port trucking in California is the modern-day equivalent of the exploitative sharecropping industry in the late 1800s. Senators are calling it “brazen disregard.” As a result of the USA Today articles and the lawsuits filed by L.A., goods manufactures, shippers, and six major retailers so far, have launched internal audits of their supply chain. Two of those retailers have discontinued their partnerships with their trucking companies.
For more information, check out the USA Today editorial, or these articles:
http://labusinessjournal.com/news/2018/jan/08/city-attorney-files-lawsuits-against-local-truckin/
http://beta.latimes.com/business/la-fi-port-trucker-lawsuits-20180108-story.html
Written By: Shayla Powers