Those are the seeds of a quiet but hugely significant labor-green combined effort to upend the harbor trucking business at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Their goal is to replace 15,000 old and dirty trucks with cleaner 2007 models. The problem they've encountered is that most of those trucks are owned by drivers—most of them Latino immigrants—who make about $12 an hour. These are independent contractors at the bottom of the harbor food chain, and they can't afford to upgrade their own rigs. And so a coalition of labor and environmental groups is pushing for the port authorities to change the rules: Trucking companies will be allowed to operate within the ports' gates only if their vehicles meet strict new pollution standards—and if they hire their drivers as employees, with the attendant benefits.

http://www.slate.com/id/2175309/fr/flyout

On the face of it this seems a good thing for workers and the environment. Anybody see something that I don't?

Do minor gains of the people delay the final, inevitable reckoning? One cannot deny improving the people's lot, I'd guess that whether that gain is allowed to stand alone or if it is used to build further support and resistance would answer that question.

"It's two products in one - a desert topping AND a floor wax!" - Gilda Radner

I just knew that all of those pollution problems were being caused by immigrants.

The independent drivers are moving toward opportunity, and can be trusted to make their own decisions as to where that opportunity is. There is an upscale liberal assumption that because they are immigrants, they are troo stupid to make their own decisions. Blaming them for depressed wages - under the guise of "helping" them with clever social engineering - is part of the mix here. Of course the trucking companies are opposed to being forced to hire those independent drivers. And the liberal assumption is that if business is on one side of the issue, then we must be on the opposite side of the issue. But the "two sides" here are phony. Greens can't be trusted to negotiate with capital. Are we to assume that immigrant rights groups and organized labor cannot be trusted with environmental issues?

We shouldn't confuse "good things" with "crap that can be promoted as a good thing to gullible people" while it actually strengthens the corporations and the coffers and prestige and status of the Green activists at the expense of the workers, and obscures the real issues at stake.

It looks to me like a convoluted justification for buying a fleet of new trucks while simultaneously reminding the mensch who's boss. Luckily they're benevolent overlords so it all works out.

"It's two products in one - a desert topping AND a floor wax!" - Gilda Radner

I just knew that all of those pollution problems were being caused by immigrants.

The independent drivers are moving toward opportunity, and can be trusted to make their own decisions as to where that opportunity is. There is an upscale liberal assumption that because they are immigrants, they are troo stupid to make their own decisions. Blaming them for depressed wages - under the guise of "helping" them with clever social engineering - is part of the mix here. Of course the trucking companies are opposed to being forced to hire those independent drivers. And the liberal assumption is that if business is on one side of the issue, then we must be on the opposite side of the issue. But the "two sides" here are phony. Greens can't be trusted to negotiate with capital. Are we to assume that immigrant rights groups and organized labor cannot be trusted with environmental issues?

We shouldn't confuse "good things" with "crap that can be promoted as a good thing to gullible people" while it actually strengthens the corporations and the coffers and prestige and status of the Green activists at the expense of the workers, and obscures the real issues at stake.

That's what I was looking for. What do you think of the union involvement in this?