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Truckers protesting California labor law Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) have shut down operations at the Port of Oakland after blocking entrances to container terminals at the port.

Shipping containers sit idle at the Port of Oakland as truckers protesting California labor law Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) have shut down operations at port.

If you are wondering why truckers nearly shut down the port of Oakland last night, look no further than controversy over California’s AB5 labor law.

The law requires, among other things, that if the work someone does is central to a company’s business, that company has to take them on as an employee, including paying workers’ compensation insurance and other benefits.

The trouble is many truckers independently own and operate a few vehicles, contracting with different carriers and brokers who need freight hauled long distances. The law taking effect means they would have to become either employees of those companies, or directly employ others.

“The way we work, since the last 50 or 40 years, we share our work with other companies,” Parmjit “PJ” Singh, an owner and operator with two 10-wheel dump trucks, said days before the protest.

He said if he gets a contract that needs five trucks, he loops in other people to cover the three other under subcontracts.

Under the new law, he would have to take those people on as employees, instead of one-off contractors.

The law’s author, former assemblywoman and now California Labor Federation head Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, has said that, since the law took effect in 2020, businesses have had plenty of time to prepare for the change.

Gonzalez Fletcher said on Twitter that the industry’s contractor model misclassified workers and denied them benefits under current and previous labor law, which state and federal labor regulators had agreed with.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose members drive a range of trucks and other vehicles, said a change to such classification would be a huge victory for truckers having their labor exploited.

While some industries received “carve-outs” in the original law to allow them to continue operating as contractors, the California Trucking Association was unsuccessful in its lobbying effort to get one.

The issue is coming to the fore now because a federal lawsuit they filed stalled the law from being enforced on the industry while it moved through the courts. The trucking association eventually petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, but was denied, and the case was sent back to the lower courts.

In the meantime, the law takes effect, creating confusion for the industry about how exactly it will work.

“You have nearly 70,000 owner operators that operate in California that are going to be impacted by this law,” said Eric Sauer, senior vice president of government affairs with the California Trucking Association. He was speaking the week before the protest in Oakland, and his group said they were unaffiliated with it.

Sauer said his members have resoundingly rejected the idea of becoming employee drivers, instead favoring the flexibility and independence that comes from running their own trucks.

He said the change could worsen supply chain issues that have already plagued ports up and down the West Coast, or force drivers out of the industry or to work out of state.

“There has been a truck driver shortage now for many years,” Sauer said. “Things likely are going to get worse.”

The work slowdown at the Port of Oakland is not the first to take place since the issue has recently gone from a simmer to a boil.

Protests at the ports of Los Angeles and Santa Barbara have grabbed headlines, putting another kink in global supply chains that are continually trying to recover from waves of the coronavirus. The protests snarled traffic near the ports for about a day, according to news reports, but did not shut down port operations.

AB5 was also notable for its potential to impact the gig economy in California by shifting app-based rideshare and delivery drivers from contractors to employees. But a ballot measure that companies, including DoorDash, Lyft, and Uber, poured more than $200 million into was accepted by voters, giving drivers some more benefits but cementing their status as contractors.

Last year a state court judge found the measure violated the state’s constitution, however, and it is the subject of ongoing litigation.

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a reporter at The San Francisco Chronicle on the Transformation team, where he covers tech culture, workplace safety and labor issues in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and beyond. Prior to joining The Chronicle, he covered immigration for the Daily Journal, a legal affairs newspaper, and a variety of beats at the North Bay Business Journal in Santa Rosa. Chase has degrees in journalism and history from Loyola University Chicago.