Jim Hoffa will not give up the fight against Mexican trucks. He calls it the "zombie" program, because the Teamsters keep killing it and it keeps coming back. It came back in October, when the U.S. Department of Transportation gave a few Mexican trucks free access to our highways. The
Associated Press has the latest story:
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has expanded its lawsuit against the government in a long-running battle that has stopped Mexican trucks from coming deep into the United States.
In papers filed in federal appeals court in Washington on Wednesday, the union says the government must first assess the environmental impact of a pilot project before letting it continue. The first Mexican truck in the pilot program crossed the border last month.
Teamsters President James P. Hoffa says opening the border to the trucks is an attack on the environment, on highway safety and on American truckers and warehouse workers.
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement signed nearly two decades ago, trucks from both countries were supposed to have unhindered access to highways on either side of the border.
Here's the entire Hoffa quote:
Opening the border to these dangerous, dirty trucks is an attack on highway safety, an attack on American truckers and warehouse workers, an attack on border security and an attack on our environment. It’s outrageous enough that we’ve outsourced millions of jobs to foreign countries, but now we’re bringing foreign workers across the border into the United States to take our jobs. This is another pressure the American middle class doesn’t need.
