I hate to think we’ve become a country that has lost the concept of public purpose, a country that allows corporations to poison the people who live nearby, or a country that no longer expects workers to be paid a decent wage for a day’s work. Those are modest ideas. But apparently they’re too much for the trucking industry, at least in Southern California and around our nation’s busiest ports. We want the trucking companies to buy and maintain clean new trucks. We also want them to pay their truck drivers a fair wage and the employment taxes that go with it. The trucking companies would prefer the federal government protect them from those obligations. It’s a fight that’s spilling over to seaports all over the country. And our coalition is getting help from the mayors of New York, Newark, Seattle, Oakland and Broward County, Florida as well.

From the Huffington Post, March 3, 2010