BY VANESSA KNAPTON

LOS ANGELES - Four weeks into the strike by thousands of mostly Mexican, Chicano and Central American drivers against trucking companies at the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, the fight continues to force the bosses to recognize their union, the Communication Workers of America (CWA).

The strike began April 28 with a rally of 6,500. It follows an 18-month organizing drive of independent truckers, who work 16-18 hours a day, but get paid by the load and after expenses receive close to minimum wage. They do not receive Social Security, unemployment insurance, or workers compensation because of their "independent contractor" status. Strikers are forced to carry overweight containers or hazardous materials without knowing it, waiting in long lines to pick up loads, and having to pay traffic fines, insurance, and maintenance on their trucks.

The walkout slowed shipping through the ports to a trickle in its first week. Although the majority of independent contractors who stopped work April 28 have now gone back to work, picket lines swelled during the last week of May. In some places hundreds of strikers have turned out, as the companies return to paying the pre-strike wages and conditions for drivers worsen.

The strikers' confidence was bolstered May 22 by a three- hour work stoppage by 35 longshoremen who walked off their jobs to join the pickets. It was the first time the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) had demonstrated public support for the union. Two days later, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, officially sanctioned the strike. The ILWU and other unions are supporting the pickets with food donations, rental assistance, and medical aid. According to Laura Reynolds, representing CWA Local 9400, negotiations continue with the trucking companies.

Striking truckers held a march of a couple hundred people early in the morning on Memorial Day, May 27. The march and rally kicked off a caravan of strikers to Los Angeles City Hall where eight strikers began a hunger strike in order to force the local media, especially the Spanish-language stations, to report on the strike. One shift a day of pickets come up from the harbor to join the hunger strikers each day.

Rudy Ruiz, a striker picketing the Maersk terminal, commented, "There are people saying the strike is over. But while rumors float out there, the facts are here. And here, at just one terminal, there were two hundred strikers down here today. This is being repeated at the other terminals all through harbor. You can see for yourself that the morale here is high. People are happy because we are carrying out a fight. Conditions are unbearable and we can't go back to that."

He explained how at first the trucking bosses doubled the pay for those who crossed the picket line, but now the pay is right back to where it was before.

"People who crossed are returning to join us. No money is being made now. The companies are taking their revenge. They make the truckers haul illegal and unsafe overweight loads and then make the truckers pay the fines themselves when they get caught, whereas before at least the company would pay the fines," Ruiz said.

"Many of those people you see driving through are really with us," he added. "They're brothers. But they're discouraged about being able to pay rent and buy food. And they're misinformed and mistrustful about the union. But we're winning them back."

Craig Honts and Dan Dickeson contributed to this article.  
 
 
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