"Truckers, dockworkers suffer as coronavirus chokes L.A., Long Beach ports cargo", 7 March 2020

... Trade with China normally accounts for roughly half of the containerized goods flowing through the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Now, with Chinese factories operating at about 40% of capacity, business... is dwindling...

1 in 9... jobs are tied to the ports, including people who work on the docks, drive trucks and move boxes in warehouses. “That’s a million jobs,”...

Strong contracts with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union prevent layoffs among the 8,600 members staffing the twin ports: They are paid 40 hours a week regardless of the drop in shifts. But the slowdown has dramatically affected a group of some 3,500 dockworkers known as “casuals,”... Their shifts have dropped from more than 2,000 a week to... 200...

The crisis is most severe for the 13,000 truckers who ferry goods from ships to warehouses and rail yards... Some 80% are independent contractors who own their trucks and get paid per load.... A Facebook page with 5,800 drivers, mostly Latino immigrants, is filled with... posts offering big rigs for sale because the owners are unable to meet mortgage payments...

But even the 300 Teamsters who serve the ports are not immune. On Feb 25, Carson-based Shippers Transport Express texted its 145 unionized drivers, telling them they would be laid off two days later...