TRUCKER LINGO FLAGTOWN DRIVER
“The law is discriminatory and does not take seriously the work and commitment of immigrants in several industries,” Quintero said.Ī son of a Mexican couple and a former farmworker, Quintero got his truck driver license eight years ago. Quintero was one of the first to say on social media that truckers won’t haul any loads to or from Florida while the law is in place. “We have to do this, for us,” said Quintero during a recent phone interview. Jose Quintero, 31, a truck driver who travels multiple routes between California and Florida, said the boycott is necessary. I fear the same is happening in Florida.” “While those laws ultimately didn’t hold up to scrutiny in the courts, the damage to immigrant families had already been done. Such has been the case when similar laws were passed in Arizona and Alabama more than a decade ago ,” Dominguez said in an email to the Times. “A lot of what we don’t hear people talk about are documented workers in mixed-status families who are being driven out.
TRUCKER LINGO FLAGTOWN SERIES
A series of posts on his Twitter account about the boycott has been viewed thousands of times. I keep seeing more local actions showing up seemingly every day.”ĭominguez has been one of those who have closely followed the truckers’ protest on social media. “There are protests being organized all over the country. “The nature of how these protests are being put together makes them harder to keep tabs on but they seem to be effective,” Dominguez said. Upcoming demonstrations could turn into something big, he said, such as a caravan from California headed to Tallahassee. “For legal employees, this will secure and potentially increase their salaries, as well as strengthen the employment protections they have, depending on the industry in which they work,” said Torres, 43.Īrturo Dominguez, a freelance journalist, said the boycott will draw attention to the many families that are displaced out of fear. He said it will prevent certain businesses from gaining advantage by hiring workers without proper documents and paying them less than the minimum wage. Jonathan Torres, a local entrepreneur, supports the law. Even the briefest of boycotts could cause ripples in an industry that the Florida Trucking Association and the American Transportation Research Institute say moves more than 470,000 tons of goods per day and serves more than 80% of communities in the state that exclusively rely on truckload services. Some common freight loads on Florida’s roads include manufactured products, processed foods, citrus and vegetables, vehicles, and electrical equipment. More than 90% of Florida’s manufactured freight by weight is carried via trucks, the Tampa Bay Times recently reported. “I’ve never, in the 42 years of living here in Florida, heard of any issues of them causing any trouble that would attract the attention of the law.”Īlix Miller, president and CEO of the Florida Trucking Association, said in an email to the Times that she is aware of the looming strike from media reports but that she had not heard of any issues that may disrupt the supply chain. “We’ll see what happens but most immigrants that I know are hardworking people, and they’re trying to make a living,” Mantei said. But he isn’t sure what the boycott’s impact will be on the supply chain. Mantei, 53, a Florida truck driver with more than 27 years of experience on the roads, said he supports the boycott because he says the legislation can harm the economy. It requires businesses with 25 or more employees to use a federal database to check a workers’ documentation, and mandates hospitals that accept Medicaid to collect patient information on their residency status. The new law also imposes penalties and restrictions, including felony charges for transporting people without permanent legal status into the state. If another state issued an ID or license to an individual who was unable to prove lawful presence at the time of issuance, that person would be prohibited from operating a motor vehicle in Florida.
In Florida the new law no longer permits reliance on out-of-state driver licenses. The requirements for obtaining a truck driver certification differ from state to state. But like many other fields, the trucking industry has been diversifying its labor force in recent years by employing more foreign-born truck drivers. The transportation industry in Florida generates more than 99,000 jobs held by heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers, federal records shows.
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