Add this to the war on workers: Mexican trucks

Today it was announced that the U.S. and Mexico had reached an agreement to start another pilot project to open the border to Mexican trucks.

Memories must be short. Ours aren't. The previous pilot program was a fiasco and this one will be too. It was expensive. It didn't provide any information about the safety of Mexican trucks overall. Hardly anyone participated in it. Plus the U.S. border agents couldn't guarantee they checked ("checked!" not "inspected") every Mexican truck every time it crossed the border.

And this was before Mexico devolved into a war zone.

We'd like to know: why should American taxpayers pay for Mexican trucking companies to take away American jobs? That's what would happen with this proposal to inspect the trucks and drug test the drivers.

You won't be surprised to hear that Teamsters President Jim Hoffa condemned the deal.

This deal puts Americans at risk. This agreement caves in to business interests at the expense of the traveling public and American workers.

I am strongly opposed to this agreement. Why agree to a deal that threatens the jobs of U.S. truck drivers and warehouse workers when unemployment is so high? And why would we do it when drug cartel violence along the border is just getting worse?”

Given the drug violence, there’s no way a U.S. company would want to haul valuable goods into the Mexican interior. Trade agreements are supposed to benefit both parties, but this is a one-way street.

We continue to have serious reservations about DOT’s ability to guarantee the safety of Mexican trucks. Mexican trucks simply don’t meet the same standards as U.S. trucks. Medical and physical standards for Mexican trucking firms are lower than for U.S. companies. And how can Mexico enforce highway safety laws when it can’t even control drug cartels?

The U.S. government spent $500 million on the pilot program, which began in September 2007. Only about three Mexican trucks per day traveled beyond the border zone until the program was shut down, according to the Transportation Department’s office of inspector general. The inspector general also reported that “FMCSA does not have assurance that it has checked every Mexican truck and driver … when they cross into the border in the United States.”