NLRB Says Trucking Companies Are Illegally Misclassifying Port Drivers to Stop Unionization
Logistics companies are reportedly engaged in illegal union busting at the LA and Long Beach ports — including by misclassifying employees as independent contractors. The NLRB wants the employers to reclassify drivers and compensate them for lost income.
Aerial view of containers piled at the Port of Los Angeles on January 19, 2022, in San Pedro, California. (Qian Weizhong / VCG via Getty Images)
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has started prosecuting a case against several trucking companies that operate out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for misclassifying port truckers as well as threatening and interrogating said drivers about their organizing with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
A complaint issued by Region Twenty-one of the NLRB on March 17 alleges that Container Connection and several companies affiliated with Universal Logistics Holdings, Inc. (ULH), a Michigan-based transportation and logistics company, misclassified hundreds of port truckers.
“Since at least August 5, 2020, Respondents have informed misclassified employee-drivers that they are independent contractors, thereby inhibiting them from engaging in Section 7 activity and giving them the impression that they lacked the protections of the Act,” wrote NLRB regional director William B. Cowen in the consolidated complaint.
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