Senators Introduce Clean Ports Act of 2011 to Improve Labor, Environmental Conditions at the Nation’s Ports

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights welcomed the Senate
introduction last week of the Clean Ports
Act to address growing labor and environmental concerns at many of the nation’s
ports and nearby communities.

The Clean Ports Act, introduced by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, D. N.Y., and Charles Schumer, D. N.Y., would
empower local ports to adopt requirements for motor carriers to reduce pollution and traffic
congestion, improve highway safety, and make their
drivers employees instead of misclassifying them as independent
contractors. The bill is similar to
legislation reintroduced earlier this year by Representative Jerrold Nadler, D.
N.Y., in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Many of the 100,000 U.S. port truck drivers earn less than federal or state
minimum wages, are without health insurance, and are misclassified as
“independent contractors,” making them exempt from most labor and employment
protections, including the right to form a union. As Wade Henderson, president
and CEO of The Leadership Conference, noted in the foreword to a recent report,
“The
Big Rig: Poverty, Pollution, and the Misclassification of Truck Drivers at
America’s Ports,” the effects of these labor practices have reduced port
drivers to being little more than “sharecroppers on wheels.”

Port pollution also has a severe effect on drivers and the 87 million
Americans who live in nearby communities whose risk
of developing asthma, cancer, and respiratory illnesses is significantly
increased by their exposure to toxic fumes
from dirty diesel trucks.

“Congress must act to provide New York, and cities all across the country,
with the common sense tools they need to improve the quality of air and quality
of life for millions of people,” said Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee.

The Leadership Conference is part of a national coalition of environmental,
labor, community, and faith-based organizations calling for the passage of the
Clean Ports Act as a means to enforce effective programs that provide
appropriate workplace protections for port truck drivers and improve the
quality of life for millions of people who live and work in nearby communities.