Teamsters rip DOT decision to allow trucks from south of border in Mexico

As the Department of Transportation quietly lifted its ban on Mexican-domiciled trucks for operation in this country, organized labor has ridiculed the move as irresponsible and harmful to highway safety.

On Jan 9, a slow news Friday in the nation’s capital, the DOT issued a press release saying the safety record results from its three-year pilot program allowing a handful of Mexican truck fleets into this country were hardly different from Canadian and U.S.-based fleets.

Because of that, the DOT said it would soon allow Mexican trucking firms to apply for operating authority to make long-haul cross-border runs in this country. The DOT is expected to start accepting Mexican applications for U.S. operating authority this year.

That would end a two-decade dispute between Mexico and the United States. The U.S., under pressure from organized labor and safety groups, had balked at open border provisions of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA), signed by President Bill Clinton on Dec. 8, 1993.
Recently, Mexico retaliated at what it called discriminatory behavior against Mexican trucks and slapped retaliatory tariffs on $2 billion in U.S. imports. If the trucking provision withstands expected lawsuits from the Teamsters union and safety groups, those import tariffs would be lifted on U.S. lumber and other products.

The DOT is basing its move on a three-year pilot program that ended in October that “showed that companies from Mexico had violation, driver, and vehicle out-of-service rates that met the level of safety as American and Canadian-domiciled motor carriers.”

The Teamsters union, which represents only about 70,000 long-haul truck drivers and about 260,000 UPS workers, immediately responded by calling the DOT’s action irresponsible and shortsighted.

“I am outraged that the Department of Transportation has chosen to ignore the findings of the DOT Inspector General and is moving forward with a plan to open the border to Mexican trucks in the coming months,” Teamsters union President James P. “Jim” Hoffa said in a statement.

That DOT IG report concluded that the pilot program constituted too small a sample size to make hard regulatory decisions. But the Teamsters claimed that report hardly was a welcome mat for Mexican truckers.

“One thing was made clear in the IG’s report – the pilot program was a failure,” Hoffa said.
The Teamsters say the IG report did not provide enough data for the IG to determine with any confidence that the trucks participating in the program were representative of those that could be permitted in the future. Nor could the IG project the safety performance of Mexico-domiciled carriers based on the data collected from the pilot program, according to the union.

“This policy change by the DOT flies in the face of common sense and ignores the statutory and regulatory requirements of a pilot program,” Hoffa added. “Allowing untested, Mexican trucks to travel our highways is a mistake of the highest order and it’s the driving public that will be put at risk by the DOT’s rash decision.”

No matter what happens with Mexican fleets, the two countries are enjoying liberalized trade of used trucks, which are flourishing in Mexico.