For days, a convoy of truckers blocked roads that serve the Port of Oakland, paralyzing a major West Coast freight hub already strained by global supply chain disruptions.
The protest aims to send a message to Gov. Gavin Newsom: Keep drivers out of California’s labor law, which they say threatens their livelihoods.
The truck drivers, mostly independent owners and operators, are demonstrating in opposition to Assembly Bill 5, a law passed in 2019 that would require gig workers in several industries to be classified as employees with benefits including minimum wage and overtime pay labor.
Along with a coalition of trade groups, the truckers want Mr. Newsom to issue an executive order to delay the 2019 law’s application to their jobs and bring workers and industry to the table to negotiate a way forward.
A representative for Mr. Newsom said the state “will continue to partner with truckers and ports to ensure the continued movement of goods to California residents and businesses, which is critical to all of us.”
Smaller protests were staged last week in the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
In a statement, Danny Wan, executive director of the Port of Oakland, said he understands the frustration. But he warned against more delays around ports, a vital link in the supply chain already bleeding from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s Covid-19 lockdown.
“A prolonged shutdown of port operations in California for any reason will harm all port businesses and cause California ports to suffer further losses of market share from competing ports,” he said.
When Mr. Newsom signed the measure into law, it drew immediate rebuke from companies like Uber and Lyft, whose leaders argued the law would change their businesses so badly it could destroy them.
The state law codifies a 2018 California Supreme Court ruling that said, among other things, that people should be classified as employees if their work is a regular part of a company’s business.
Both Uber and Lyft, along with DoorDash, quickly lobbied for a ballot measure that would have allowed gig economy companies to continue treating their drivers as independent contractors.
California voters passed the measure, Proposition 22, in 2020, but last year a California Supreme Court judge ruled it unconstitutional. Uber and Lyft quickly appealed and were exempted from complying with Bill 5 pending legal proceedings.
But this was not the case with truck drivers. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by California truckers who, under the new law, are treated as employees of the trucking companies they do business with.
Nearly 70,000 California truckers work as independent owner-operators, transporting goods from ports to distribution warehouses. The ride-hailing companies and protesting drivers argue — as Uber and Lyft have — that if Assembly Bill 5 were to apply to them, drivers would have less flexibility in when and how they work.
Supporters of the law say companies could simply hire the drivers as full-time or part-time employees and continue to offer them flexible schedules.
Most port truck drivers in California are independent operators and do not work for one company. A smaller number of drivers are unionized and are represented primarily by the Teamsters.
Matt Schrap, chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, a trade group for trucking companies serving West Coast ports, said “the frustration is that there’s no way for people to have independence.”
“That frustration turns into action,” Mr Schrap said.
Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a former state legislator who was an architect of the labor bill, dismissed the idea that applying the law to the trucking industry would be a disservice to drivers.
“These trucking companies have a business model that misclassifies workers,” said Ms. Gonzalez Fletcher, who is about to take over as head of the California Federation of Labor. “The way they operate is illegal.”
The truckers’ protests come as the International Longshoremen’s Union is engaged in contract negotiations with the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping terminals at 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle.
Farless Dailey III, president of Local 10 of the coastal union, said that for their own safety, his members did not attempt to go through the truck blockade.
“They don’t get paid when they don’t come in,” he said. “But we’re not going to put our members in danger of going through the line of truck drivers.”
Port officials said the largest marine terminal had been closed since Monday because of the protests. Three other smaller terminals were operating but with limited capacity.
Christopher S. Tang, a distinguished professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management who studies supply chains, said the shutdown at the Port of Oakland shouldn’t — for now — cause major problems for consumers.
“The impact will not be significant in the short term,” he said. “Many retailers have stockpiled.”
On Thursday, German Ochoa, a truck driver who lives in Oakland, arrived at the port as he has every day this week.
As semi truck horns blared in the background, Mr. Ochoa said on the phone that he was standing side by side with other truck drivers. Some held placards that read “Take down AB 5!!!” and “AB 5 Has Got to Go!” he said.
“It takes away my independence,” Mr. Ochoa said. “It is my right to be an independent driver.”
Noam Scheiber contributed reporting.
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