Post by dockworker on Apr 12, 2009 7:07:52 GMT -5
Study: port truckers’ low pay, cargo process, cost public billions; safety issues noted
. A recent study by Rutgers University of roughly 5,200 port drivers who lease or own their own trucks found their average yearly income was just $28,000 after expenses. (Associated Press)
By DOROTHY COX
The Trucker Staff
4/10/2009
So you think the current freight crisis and economic crunch is bad? A recent study by two Rutgers University professors found cargo haulers at the Ports of New York and New Jersey have an average income of about $28,000 a year after expenses, with no health insurance or pension benefits.
Not only that but the report concluded that the truckers’ low pay and the mechanics of the port process “impede” New Jersey’s logistics system and add “billions of dollars to the cost of doing business in New Jersey,” costs which are passed on to the public.
The report also said that because of low pay and long wait times to have chassis repaired, time which isn’t compensated, an eighth of those surveyed said the last time they had been given an unsafe chassis they took it out on the road. The study estimated that this could mean 10,000 unsafe chassis leave those ports to make freight deliveries every year.
Thirty-five percent said they had been given an unsafe chassis more than 10 times last year.
Mandated procedure is to have a chassis fixed before the driver takes it on the road, but because of the wait time more than a third of the drivers said that they tried to fix the chassis themselves.
Spurred by the report, The Associated Press interviewed port haulers at Kearny, N.J., and found even lower salaries than those noted in the study: 52-year-old Kenel Hyppolite told AP he made about $20,000 a year after expenses while Rafael Prestol, 51, said he made only about $16,000 a year. “I’m not proud of being a trucker anymore,” Prestol said, while fellow hauler Orlando Marcano, also 51 and a U.S. Army veteran, said, “I lost my pride two or three years ago.” Marcano makes an estimated $23,000 a year. “Trucking was never good,” he said, “but it’s gotten worse since I started driving in 2001.”
The Association of BiState Motor Carriers (formerly Bi-State Harbor Carriers), which comprises representatives of the Port Authority of NY-NJ and trucking companies and firms that service the ports, took issue with the study, saying it “fails to reflect reality.”
“Unfortunately, this report … fails to recognize the impact of the ‘globalization’ of the shipping industry and how shipping lines and terminal operators throughout the world have come to dominate the operations of ports throughout the United States.
“In the real world shipping lines and terminal operators wield significant power over wait times, trucker wages and condition of equipment. This control has led to significant adverse impacts on the operations of trucking companies and port facilities ….”
The Association also questioned the validity of the hourly rates cited and the claim truckers aren’t compensated for wait time.
The group said the report’s conclusions derived from a sample of 299 truckers was “a stretch” given that more than 7,000 truck moves take place in the ports on any given day.
The Rutgers study concerned itself solely with port truckers at New York and New Jersey, the largest port complex on the Eastern seaboard. But low pay for cargo haulers is not exclusive to that region.
Port haulers at the Port of Miami and at ports on the coasts of the Carolinas, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana and California have complained of low pay for years, well before the current freight crisis. Some formed picket lines in years past, many times to protest fuel prices.
Not that lack of freight and other economic woes aren’t hurting port drivers. Everyone in the cargo industry is suffering from shipping lines to carriers to independents, Sean McShane, president of Fords, N.J.-based Transportation Made Simple (TMS) told AP.
Jim Stewart, a trucker and board member of the Intermodal Owner Driver Association Inc. in Savannah, Ga. (porttrucker.com), told The Trucker haulers at that port are only working two or three days a week; “they’re not making enough to survive.” A former port hauler, he said some port companies are hiring drivers knowing they have no work for them. “That’s why you see guys getting rid of their trucks or parking them on the side of the road.”
The Rutgers study was based on interviews in March and April of 2008 by six Rutgers students, who under the supervision of co-authors David Bensman and Yael Bromberg conducted a random survey of 229 truckers bringing containers to and from the Ports of Newark and Elizabeth and the Global Terminal in Bayonne. They also surveyed 70 drivers contacted at local focus groups, at a truck stop and at a rally to protest diesel prices.
In summary, the report also found that:
• Some 7,000 port truckers deliver and pick up containers at the Ports of New York and New Jersey daily. Nearly three-quarters of those are independent contractors who have their own trucks and who are assigned loads by a single trucking company which pays them on a per-load basis. The remaining port truckers are employees of trucking firms.
• Companies with 10 or less employees and 10 to 20 independent contractors are most common
• While independent contractors net about $28,000 a year (without health insurance or pension benefits), company employees earn about $35,000 with some health benefits but few pensions. In other terms, independents earn a little less than $10 an hour while employee drivers earn about $12 an hour
• Nearly 75 percent (73.5 percent) of the independent contractors’ families are “uninsured,” while about a fourth of these drivers said they get no medical care whatsoever because they can’t afford it
• Most drivers are men and most are from age 35 to 44. Latinos comprise two thirds of the total
• The typical trip for these drivers is a short haul of 75 miles or less one way with two to three trips made each day. On each trip to the terminal the wait time is about two hours
• The average port hauler has a truck that’s 11 years old; these vehicles are thought to pollute 10 times more than their newer counterparts
• More than half the independents over age 35 have finished paying off their truck leases while less than half below age 35 have them paid off. The median monthly lease payment was found to be $967 a month
• Neither the independent port haulers nor employee port haulers are allowed to make deliveries for companies other than the one to which they’re assigned
• Not surprisingly, fuel was the single biggest expense, but they also must pay for other things including repairs, vehicle maintenance, road taxes, bobtail insurance, tolls, traffic fines, radio/telephone bills and tax preparation. These expenses total more than $5,000 a month, while truck leases average an added $1,000 per month
• High levels of stress were reported, as were high blood pressure and asthma as well as work-related chronic health conditions and injuries. “When independent contractors are injured, their employers usually take no action. Health studies indicate the truckers’ heart and lung conditions, caused by exposure to vehicle exhaust, result in elevated mortality rates,” the summary stated
• Nearly two-thirds of the drivers said they would be “very likely” to join a union if they could while less than 10 percent said they were not very likely to join
• On average, drivers changed jobs about every two years while 15 percent said they changed jobs several times a year, with the main reason being low pay and disputes over pay
• The report concluded that these truckers’ low pay and independent contractor status “impede the efficiency of New Jersey’s logistics system, causing delays, unpredictable delivery times, highway congestion, terminal congestion, air pollution and missing or lost containers.” A “just-in-time” model has given way to a “just in case” model, adding “billions of dollars to the cost of doing business in New Jersey,” and
• These costs are being funneled to the public.
“Among the costs of moving freight that are being passed onto the public are the health care costs of drivers and their families, the damage done by diesel emissions to the health of residents of the metropolitan region as well as to the workers in the logistics industry and the costs of traffic congestion and traffic accidents on the main freight routes,” the report stated.
Dorothy Cox of The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at dlcox@thetrucker.com.
. A recent study by Rutgers University of roughly 5,200 port drivers who lease or own their own trucks found their average yearly income was just $28,000 after expenses. (Associated Press)
By DOROTHY COX
The Trucker Staff
4/10/2009
So you think the current freight crisis and economic crunch is bad? A recent study by two Rutgers University professors found cargo haulers at the Ports of New York and New Jersey have an average income of about $28,000 a year after expenses, with no health insurance or pension benefits.
Not only that but the report concluded that the truckers’ low pay and the mechanics of the port process “impede” New Jersey’s logistics system and add “billions of dollars to the cost of doing business in New Jersey,” costs which are passed on to the public.
The report also said that because of low pay and long wait times to have chassis repaired, time which isn’t compensated, an eighth of those surveyed said the last time they had been given an unsafe chassis they took it out on the road. The study estimated that this could mean 10,000 unsafe chassis leave those ports to make freight deliveries every year.
Thirty-five percent said they had been given an unsafe chassis more than 10 times last year.
Mandated procedure is to have a chassis fixed before the driver takes it on the road, but because of the wait time more than a third of the drivers said that they tried to fix the chassis themselves.
Spurred by the report, The Associated Press interviewed port haulers at Kearny, N.J., and found even lower salaries than those noted in the study: 52-year-old Kenel Hyppolite told AP he made about $20,000 a year after expenses while Rafael Prestol, 51, said he made only about $16,000 a year. “I’m not proud of being a trucker anymore,” Prestol said, while fellow hauler Orlando Marcano, also 51 and a U.S. Army veteran, said, “I lost my pride two or three years ago.” Marcano makes an estimated $23,000 a year. “Trucking was never good,” he said, “but it’s gotten worse since I started driving in 2001.”
The Association of BiState Motor Carriers (formerly Bi-State Harbor Carriers), which comprises representatives of the Port Authority of NY-NJ and trucking companies and firms that service the ports, took issue with the study, saying it “fails to reflect reality.”
“Unfortunately, this report … fails to recognize the impact of the ‘globalization’ of the shipping industry and how shipping lines and terminal operators throughout the world have come to dominate the operations of ports throughout the United States.
“In the real world shipping lines and terminal operators wield significant power over wait times, trucker wages and condition of equipment. This control has led to significant adverse impacts on the operations of trucking companies and port facilities ….”
The Association also questioned the validity of the hourly rates cited and the claim truckers aren’t compensated for wait time.
The group said the report’s conclusions derived from a sample of 299 truckers was “a stretch” given that more than 7,000 truck moves take place in the ports on any given day.
The Rutgers study concerned itself solely with port truckers at New York and New Jersey, the largest port complex on the Eastern seaboard. But low pay for cargo haulers is not exclusive to that region.
Port haulers at the Port of Miami and at ports on the coasts of the Carolinas, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana and California have complained of low pay for years, well before the current freight crisis. Some formed picket lines in years past, many times to protest fuel prices.
Not that lack of freight and other economic woes aren’t hurting port drivers. Everyone in the cargo industry is suffering from shipping lines to carriers to independents, Sean McShane, president of Fords, N.J.-based Transportation Made Simple (TMS) told AP.
Jim Stewart, a trucker and board member of the Intermodal Owner Driver Association Inc. in Savannah, Ga. (porttrucker.com), told The Trucker haulers at that port are only working two or three days a week; “they’re not making enough to survive.” A former port hauler, he said some port companies are hiring drivers knowing they have no work for them. “That’s why you see guys getting rid of their trucks or parking them on the side of the road.”
The Rutgers study was based on interviews in March and April of 2008 by six Rutgers students, who under the supervision of co-authors David Bensman and Yael Bromberg conducted a random survey of 229 truckers bringing containers to and from the Ports of Newark and Elizabeth and the Global Terminal in Bayonne. They also surveyed 70 drivers contacted at local focus groups, at a truck stop and at a rally to protest diesel prices.
In summary, the report also found that:
• Some 7,000 port truckers deliver and pick up containers at the Ports of New York and New Jersey daily. Nearly three-quarters of those are independent contractors who have their own trucks and who are assigned loads by a single trucking company which pays them on a per-load basis. The remaining port truckers are employees of trucking firms.
• Companies with 10 or less employees and 10 to 20 independent contractors are most common
• While independent contractors net about $28,000 a year (without health insurance or pension benefits), company employees earn about $35,000 with some health benefits but few pensions. In other terms, independents earn a little less than $10 an hour while employee drivers earn about $12 an hour
• Nearly 75 percent (73.5 percent) of the independent contractors’ families are “uninsured,” while about a fourth of these drivers said they get no medical care whatsoever because they can’t afford it
• Most drivers are men and most are from age 35 to 44. Latinos comprise two thirds of the total
• The typical trip for these drivers is a short haul of 75 miles or less one way with two to three trips made each day. On each trip to the terminal the wait time is about two hours
• The average port hauler has a truck that’s 11 years old; these vehicles are thought to pollute 10 times more than their newer counterparts
• More than half the independents over age 35 have finished paying off their truck leases while less than half below age 35 have them paid off. The median monthly lease payment was found to be $967 a month
• Neither the independent port haulers nor employee port haulers are allowed to make deliveries for companies other than the one to which they’re assigned
• Not surprisingly, fuel was the single biggest expense, but they also must pay for other things including repairs, vehicle maintenance, road taxes, bobtail insurance, tolls, traffic fines, radio/telephone bills and tax preparation. These expenses total more than $5,000 a month, while truck leases average an added $1,000 per month
• High levels of stress were reported, as were high blood pressure and asthma as well as work-related chronic health conditions and injuries. “When independent contractors are injured, their employers usually take no action. Health studies indicate the truckers’ heart and lung conditions, caused by exposure to vehicle exhaust, result in elevated mortality rates,” the summary stated
• Nearly two-thirds of the drivers said they would be “very likely” to join a union if they could while less than 10 percent said they were not very likely to join
• On average, drivers changed jobs about every two years while 15 percent said they changed jobs several times a year, with the main reason being low pay and disputes over pay
• The report concluded that these truckers’ low pay and independent contractor status “impede the efficiency of New Jersey’s logistics system, causing delays, unpredictable delivery times, highway congestion, terminal congestion, air pollution and missing or lost containers.” A “just-in-time” model has given way to a “just in case” model, adding “billions of dollars to the cost of doing business in New Jersey,” and
• These costs are being funneled to the public.
“Among the costs of moving freight that are being passed onto the public are the health care costs of drivers and their families, the damage done by diesel emissions to the health of residents of the metropolitan region as well as to the workers in the logistics industry and the costs of traffic congestion and traffic accidents on the main freight routes,” the report stated.
Dorothy Cox of The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at dlcox@thetrucker.com.