Independent Truckers Strike Begins to Hurt Farm Produce Exports : Commerce: Traffic at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and at major rail yards remains light for the fifth day in a row.

As stranded cargo and freight continued to pile up in Los Angeles-area ports and rail yards Monday, a nationwide strike led by independent truckers has also left many Central Valley growers unable to ship fruits and produce bound for export.

“It puts everything at a standstill,” said Mike Burchett, an owner of Fruit Unlimited, a Visalia-based exporter that has been forced to postpone shipments of oranges and other fruits headed to Asian markets. “If we can’t supply their product, there are other countries that will.”

For the fifth day in a row, truck traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and at major rail yards remained light, leaving many shippers with no way to transport containers of freight. But freight delivery to most other sites remained unaffected, trucking officials said.

Led by a loose-knit coalition of independent truckers, the strike, which is scheduled to end by Thursday, was touched off by a rise in diesel fuel prices and taxes last month. The fuel hike was for many the last straw after more than a decade of rising taxes, flat earnings and harsher working conditions.

“It was like a bucket of gas thrown into a fire,” said one trucking executive.

Most truckers who have refused to drive in recent days have apparently done so more out of fear of violence than as a show of solidarity. However, many of the nation’s 5 million truck drivers sympathize with the strike organizers’ complaints.

The burden has been particularly heavy for the nation’s 500,000 independent drivers, many of whom work more than 60 hours a week and spend days away from home. They have been forced to match the lower rates charged by larger trucking companies while paying more for taxes and other costs out of their own pocket, said Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn.

“The average owner-operator makes about $25,000, and it hasn’t moved” in a decade, Spencer said. “That’s the reason for most of the frustration now.”

While most trucking groups say the strike is an ineffective strategy, many in the field said the protest can be used to galvanize truckers behind a long-term campaign to seek solutions.

“I think the next thing you might see is a political movement” to seek change, said David Titus, a spokesman for the California Trucking Assn.

In the Los Angeles area, drivers have avoided the port and rail facilities, where they have encountered protesting truckers and harassment, which has reportedly included rock throwing. Over the weekend, many truckers drove in convoys for protection.

“You just don’t want to get caught astray out there,” said one driver as he prepared to lead a convoy of five trucks from a harbor loading dock.

On Monday morning, about 100 protesting truckers walked a picket line in front of the Hanjin Terminal at the Port of Long Beach, according to a harbor spokeswoman. No problems were reported.

Several freight trains and at least one cargo ship bound for Los Angeles have been diverted as storage space grows short. American President Lines, for example, diverted a Los Angeles-bound ship with 2,800 containers to Oakland over the weekend.

As the strike has continued, it has frustrated many truck owners who have suffered a loss of income. “I understand the problems,” said one truck owner who has been unable to transport produce. But “let us go to work. Leave us alone.”