BY ALEX JONES, The Monitor
Commercial Motor Vehicle Inspector Alfonso Zavala
signals a Mexican 18-wheeler at the Texas Department of
Public Safety Inspection Station at the Pharr port of
entry on Wednesday afternoon.
Posted on 09/06/2007 9:39:17 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
PHARR — San Juan long-haul trucker George Villanueva spent a few days in Dallas last week drum-ming up alternate business for his transportation company.
For more than a quarter century, Villanueva and other Rio Grande Valley truckers have hauled tons of maquiladora-produced goods north into the interior United States.
But he expects business to start drying up now that the U.S. government has opened the roads to lower-wage drivers from Mexico.
Very soon, he says, local truckers may have to start looking away from the Valley for business, meaning less time at home with family.
“It will put us as a middleman out of business,” said Villanueva, owner of Rhino Transport. “I might as well leave the Valley.”
After years of political wrangling and protests from the Teamsters union, select Mexican big-rig drivers will cross international bridges in the Valley today destined for factories and warehouses across the United States — the pilot program to a long-awaited aspect of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The pilot program will allow about 100 selected Mexican trucking companies to start delivering into the United States. Eventually, all approved companies will be able to sign up for the program.
Teamsters, independent truckers and even environmental groups vehemently oppose the plan, claim-ing less experienced Mexican truck drivers will drive down wages, create safety problems and hurt the environment with pollution-emitting rigs.
Local truckers say their livelihoods are at stake.
Local distribution warehouses and trucking companies, meanwhile, say they will adjust to the new rules of the road but are unsure of the long-term effects on the American trucking industry.
Matters of concern
More than 3,300 people in Hidalgo County work as truckers or for logistics companies, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Another 980 people work in support industries, such as customs brokerage firms.
Together, the more than 4,000 workers provide much of the backbone for the maquiladora industry that has fueled economic growth in the Valley for the last decade.
Opponents say the program would force many of those 4,000 to compete with workers that earn less than half the wage of American truck drivers.
The average trucker in the United States earns about $33,000 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Maquiladora industry experts say Mexi-can truckers earn half that, and in many cases far less.
“With rising gas prices, it’s harder for drivers to make money,” said Romeo Cantu, a San Juan truck driver.
“The only concern that I have is how much (Mexican truckers) will be charging.”
Teamsters contend that allowing Mexican truckers on U.S. roads will be unsafe, said Leslie Miller, a spokeswoman for the union. U.S. drivers are held to stricter safety standards, she said. They also have more licensing requirements.
“It’s no secret that it’s easy for an unqualified driver to get a Mexican driver’s license,” said Teamsters union general president James P. Hoffa in a statement last week.
“A period of time”
Since 1982, the U.S. government has only allowed Mexican truck drivers to operate in the commercial zone between the U.S.-Mexico border and customs checkpoints such as Falfurrias.
Somewhere inside the commercial zone those drivers drop off their goods at a distribution warehouse and a U.S. driver picks up the cargo and hauls it to destinations throughout the country. Transferring loads costs consumers about $4 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The rules have led to a well-established arrangement in the Valley.
Mexican drivers make the arduous journey back and forth across the bridge from maquiladoras south of the border to distribution centers in the United States, putting lower-wage drivers on the bridge.
The new provision allowing Mexican truckers into the U.S. interior also allows U.S. drivers to start making trips into Mexico, but higher wages for U.S. truckers will likely prevent most Americans from making the trip into Mexico, said Villanueva, the Rhino Transport owner.
Business officials say the immediate impact from the new measure will be minimal. Mexican trucking companies will have to teach drivers English and license trucks to drive in all 50 states, said Keith Patridge, president of the McAllen Economic Development Corp.
“I think it will impact over a period time. What that period of time is I don’t know,” Patridge said. “There are a lot of economic and practical issues that will lessen the impact.”
‘Legal restrictions’
Local trucking companies say they will adjust to any changes to stay competitive.
“It’s no longer an issue of our thoughts on the law, but how we will meet the changing tides of international freight transportation,” said Joe David Garza, one of the founders of Spirit Truck Lines in San Juan, which operates about 200 trucks.
The new rule could actually save some local companies thousands of dollars in unnecessary freight transfer costs, said Frank King, president of Am-Mex Produces, a distribution warehouse and light manufacturer with operations in McAllen and Reynosa.
“It helps us, because in theory if it works, there is less wrangling to get our shipments to the northern part of the U.S.,” King said. “It would be less costly and quicker. You don’t have to switch drivers.”
King and others dismiss the notion that the rule could eliminate distribution hubs located along the border.
Patridge said the Valley is still a vital distribution point for American goods.
Many companies also already operate distribution centers in South Texas. Abandoning those would mean taking a loss on investments.
There is also a question about the cost for Mexican truck companies to license vehicles in all 50 states, Patridge said.
“The legal restrictions that have existed in the past will be replaced by economics,” he said.
Ya think?
Isn't that the reason for the Mexican trucks as well as the illegals coming here? Or is the primary purpose to threaten the lives of US citizens? Maybe it could be both.
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Could? Hell, that’s what they’re SUPPPOSED to do.
What’s “could” about it?
The following column truly irked me today, typical vicious hypocracy.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/navarrette/index.html
After the Mexicans dump their Chinese and Mexican loads of goods here, then they’ll pick up something else for a run south. They won’t go back empty. This is going to hurt local truckers.
the only real guarantied wages in this country is in Congress
I thought that was the entire point of allowing the Mexican trucks in.
This will also affect dockworkers at the ports. Do you really think that all the other countries are gonna ship straight into our ports when they can offload in Mexico and truck the stuff from Mexico to all over the USA?
Besides the security problems we are gonna have with it.
This is just another way of bypassing alot of security and wage guarantees.
It wouldn't surprise me if the gub-mint pays for that....
this is such a smackdown to our own citizen workers in order that WalMart can get even cheaper goods...
Yes, Ma’am.
...”In February 2001, Fox and Bush jointly endorsed the Guanajuato Proposal, which read, “After consultation with our Canadian partners, we will strive to consolidate a North American economic community whose benefits reach the lesser-developed areas of the region and extend to the most vulnerable social groups in our countries.””....
....”For North America’s second decade, there is no higher priority than reducing the economic divide between Mexico and the rest of NAFTA. A true community or even a partnership is simply not possible when the people of one nation earn, on average, one-sixth as much as do people across the border. Mexico’s underdevelopment is a threat to its stability, to its neighbors, and to the future of integration.”.....
....”The illegal immigration issue remains thorny and unsolved. Ultimately, however, it is more symptom than cause: the way to reduce illegal immigration is to make Mexico’s economy grow faster than that of the U.S.”...
http://www.cfr.org/publication/8173/north_american_community_approach_to_security.html
THE CFR’S NAU AGENDA, MOVING RIGHT ALONG....
(see my tagline)
Precisely.
Thanks again Jorge!
“W” is awful for the blue collar, working men and women of this nation
Thank you Presidente Bush for your class warfare against our truckers. Thanks Jorge Bush for your open borders
Washington DC is full of well fed traitors. Getting fat selling out average Americans
I’m sick of that Navarrette guy. Smells of a La Raza member.
I work for a truck driver in TX. It is dismal here. There were eighteen expediters sitting in Laredo earlier with no loads in sight. My boss is willing to deadhead to Kansas City in hopes of getting a load.
I can usually scrounge up a load for him. The problem now is that there are a whole bunch of people scrounging for that same load. I can't see this getting better, and I think of the families whose Dad won't be able to pay the mortgage next month if all the Border Trucking dries up. I figure that there will be people on the streets by the first part of January as trucker's families get booted out of their homes in ninety days.
This is a very bad thing for Americans in the Transportation Business, and their dependents. The dock workers, the drivers. It is such a betrayal by our government.
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