March 21, 2022 • 27 mins
It takes the work of many hands to get the products we all rely on from the factory to our homes. What to the consumer may just be the push of a button, requires the heavy lifting of factory workers, longshoreman, truck drivers and hundreds more. Nicole Salima and Armando Pacheco are two of the workers responsible for that heavy lifting. Nicole Salima is a longshoreman at the Port of Long Beach and Armando Pacheco has been a commercial truck driver for decades. They both continued working throughout the pandemic in the face of progressively more difficult and more dangerous working conditions. Part One of a two part series.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, mr Hi Wilmer. So what's uh? What's our show
is called again? Essential Voices? That's right, just testing. I
don't know why I feel like testing you on the
name of what show. I thought it was like a
nice banter between your I. Now this week we have
a double stuffed episode of Essential Voices because we don't
have just one essential worker, we have two and two
(00:24):
particularly special people to me as they are both part
of my family double travel. But seriously, this episode is
packed with information. At Amano, your father in law has
been a truck driver for forty two years and returned
to trucking right before the pandemic. And Nicole Salima, a
close friend of yours, is a longshoreman at the Port
of Long Beach in Los Angeles and helps manage transporting
(00:47):
and the shipping containers from ships to truckers like Armando.
After hearing both their stories and watching the conversations about
the supply chain issues and truck drivers recently, the two
careers are intrinsically connected and part of one converse Sian exactly,
both Nicole and our man who are part of the
same invaluable web of essential workers who get our most
fundamental products from the factories, to our stores or to
(01:11):
our doors. Hey that runs, yeah, but now like in
a cool way, to be honest. So after we hear
from both essential workers, we are going to return next
week for a round table with Mayored Robert Garcia of
Long Beach and journalist Christopher Memes of The Wall Street Journal.
I never thought I'd be as fascinated by the supply
chain as I became after these conversations. But there's so
(01:33):
much to learn, and I feel like each week we
get a chance to redefine the meaning of essential. That's
the goal. So for now, let's hand the mike over
to Nicole. Your story starts right now. Hi. My name
is Nicole Salima and I'm a long shoreman. Nicole Salima,
I should lead with the fact that I know you
(01:54):
and you're like one of my sisters for life to
bring around my life for so many year years. And
in addition to how wonderful you're as a person, you
also have quite an essential job. Can you explain what
is it that you do? Yeah, So, I'm a long shoreman.
I work out of the Port of l A and
Long Beach. Along shoreman is someone who loads and unloads
(02:20):
important export that comes in from other countries, other ports
around the United States. It could be TVs, fridges, medical supplies.
So pretty much we bring all of the necessary goods
that the United States requires. Take us on a day
with you, so walk me a little bit, like you
(02:41):
get up in the morning, and then what's your process
before you go to work, and then once you go
to work. My days actually start the night before I
go to work. At the check in for work. There's
a whole process that I have to go through and
calling a tape line and putting in my registration number
and making myself available for work. There's multiple jobs that
(03:03):
require us to make sure that they know how many
people are going to work. I guess you can say.
So when I call in, I reserve my spot and
then I get all my stuff ready. Then that's when
my next day starts. Um, I'll wake up in the
morning obviously get ready normal morning routine, and then I
had to depending on what day it is, there's a
(03:25):
dispatch hall that we go to where we pick up
our jobs. There's different companies at our ports and they
all send the jobs that are required to the dispatch
hall to be given out to all the longshoreman. I
will go pick up a job at the longshoreman Hall,
which for me is usually driving U t R. It's
(03:45):
a utility tactor and it is used to pull around
cargo around yards or warehouses, and that's usually what I
pick up because I like to drive the trucks. Again,
depending on the job that I do pick up because
could change day to day. There's some days where I
will be on the same job and some days where
I have to go back to the dispatch hall and
(04:06):
pick up a new job. But I could be working
on a container ship, which means I would carry cargo
to and from the ship that come in from other countries.
A lot of the stuff that gets through Los Angeles
gets shipped across the country as well. Right, it's not
just listening to this, I'm assuming Yeah, no, it goes
anywhere from We We get a lot from China. I
(04:28):
would say a majority of our imports come from China.
That's interesting. So everything is being made over there, you know. Yeah,
Like if you look at it could be any object
you look on the bottom of it has made in Korea,
made in China. Those things get shipped through our ports. Clothes, shoes,
a lot of people think that when they go to
(04:50):
the mall and their clothes that they purchased or at
the mall, that they were made here in the United States.
They came in a container from Asia. Basically pretty much. Wow,
that's interesting. So you're saying all these things, haven't read
the electronics and everything. I mean as so much as
coming into Los Angeles and then from the Los Angeles
board as well as multiple ports around California. You know,
(05:11):
they distribute across the country as well. And then all
of a sudden you get introduced to a global pandemic,
something that hit all of us and on levels that
couldn't even comprehend. How did it affect the boards, How
did it change? How did you vote for you? It
was scary. I don't want to say it slowed down.
We were actually working a lot more because we had
(05:33):
to make sure that these necessities that our country was requiring,
we're getting to the people. We had to make sure
that if somebody happened to have COVID and they were
in a truck, that the next person that came in
at night didn't catch whatever, because at that time we
didn't know if COVID was airborne. If you know, you
(05:55):
were going to touch something and then you were going
to get it or things of that need. Sure, we
were also having to bring in our own personal protective equipment,
so you guys weren't provided with masks or gloves or
anything that you had to pretty much bring your own. Kids. Yeah,
we brought our own. It was difficult for us, however,
we did have to keep moving because everyone still needed
(06:16):
their toilet paper. Were you at work or anyone at
work that you knew affected by COVID? Yes, So a
week of Thanksgiving, my husband and I found out that
we had been around somebody that tested positive for COVID
during that time. We didn't have any symptoms as of yet,
(06:38):
and then slowly we started noticing, you know, we weren't
feeling good. My husband to now was having very bad
breathing problems. It was to the point where his oxygen
was dropping to about sixty eight, which a normal level
is nine, and I had to force him to an appointment.
(07:00):
We did, like an online appointment one night, and he
ended up having to go to the hospital for ten days.
While my husband was in the hospital, his three sisters
and his dad and his brother all were admitted into
the hospital and his dad and his brother were put
on event a latter and I want to say it
(07:24):
was maybe seven days after my husband came home for
the hospital he found out that his brother had passed
away from COVID, and then ten days later his dad
passed away from COVID. So it had our family really hard.
I can never forget you know, these days, Um, those
(07:45):
we were very very hard. This to remember. Um, how
did you deal with that? I mean, and did you
take some time? You know that? Were you able to
come back to work? How did that work for you?
Thankfully I was able to take some time. I depended
on my husband, and my husband depended on me. But
like mentally, I think if it wasn't for us just
(08:06):
being around each other and having our family, we would
have broke. You know. COVID opened our eyes to what's
really important in life, and for us, it's our family.
We'll be right back after this break. Welcome back to
Essential Voices. I wanted to ask you, Right, so we're
(08:27):
barely getting through this pandemic. We get introduced to now
the new variant, and now we're going into another regulated
streamline of events, right, and now the conversation of AI
and robots are becoming more commonplace in large scale service facilities. Right,
so are you seeing automature and affecting your work? Yeah?
(08:47):
So actually a few of our ports are automated, meaning
they run off of robots. Wait wait, wait, what do
you mean they run off robots? Please explain that because
you're saying about you are two detos are just going
around being like people people with container to the left.
Is that what you're saying technically speaking? Yes, So the
job that I do, right, I drive the tractors around,
(09:10):
I pull the containers and I move them around the yard.
There's a few ports between Los Angeles and Long Beach
that these containers are being pulled around by robots. They
are not operated by humans. There's no human driving them.
They're fully dependent on WiFi systems. So if a WiFi
(09:34):
system goes down, why will be the backup? Like, how
do they communicate with these robots? From what I understand,
we're banking on the WiFi system not going down. So
basically wifive goes, he goes, We're gonna we're gonna take
a five because we've got a wifive gap coming over here. Yeah,
we're going on break. So what does that mean exactly?
(09:54):
For the union and the workers. That means that eventually
drivers are not going to be needed. Is that what
it is? And you're just gonna have one person distributing
monitors and putting in programs. Is that how it's going
to go? Unfortunately, that's the way it's looking. How does
everybody feel about that? I mean, what are the conversations
about it? I mean it sucks. Think about it. Like
(10:17):
us as humans, we get paid, We have our families
to take care of. These are our jobs. This is
how we purchase our homes or pay our rent, or
feed our kids. And then going and spending our money
at a grocery store or a mom and pop pizza
shop or you know, a seven eleven. Then coming out
of our check right comes our taxes, goes to the
(10:39):
state and Feds. These robots don't do that. By the
way I look at it, it's gonna drain our economy,
to be honest with you, because where's all the profit going.
The profits going right back into these companies who are
unfortunately not American companies, and we're not getting anything out
of it. That's how I got it. How do you
(11:01):
feel like the community can support the work that you
do that how can we all be more aware of
your guess needs? Is there is there a place where
people go from information and have support. You is their
conversations about how to take care of the families. I
would stay just study automation and the economic impact that
it has on local communities. You know, like these self
(11:23):
checkouts that you use at these major grocery stores. Right,
these self checkouts have taken away jobs from humans that
are still needing to feed their families and also give
back into our community. You know, it's like it's a
recycled process. Right. We using these self checkouts because we're
(11:44):
in a rush, or we don't want to wait in line.
We're doing somebody's job. When this is what these companies are.
You know, you pay somebody to do the job. I
don't come to the grocery store to bag my own
groceries check myself out like that's someone's job. Right, One
person manning six self checkouts to me is crazy. I
(12:08):
would say, just study what automation is doing to you know,
us as a whole, not even us as long shoreman,
but our country. One message would you leave to feature
long show of workers? You know what will you tell
you your younger self, I would say, just keep pumping.
It's a difficult workforce to be in, and not necessarily
(12:31):
like you've got to be strong, because it's funny. People
look at me like you're a long shoreman. I expected
like a old, grungy guy that hasn't showered in five days,
you know, And I'm like, no, I'm I'm a long chairman.
And I would say, you know, just keep going because
there's gonna be days where it's going to be difficult
and it's going to be hard, but stay positive, don't
(12:55):
stress yourself out, and don't overthink anything. Well now here
from my father in law, Armando Pacheco. Hi, my name
is Armando Pacheco UM. I am currently in uh Tarzana, California,
north of Los Angeles. UM and I have been in
(13:17):
trucking and logistics for parts of me forty two years.
Thank you, amand for for having this conversation with me. Um.
You know you and I tend to talk a lot together.
We do because you are my father in law, and
you know I've had the privilege of getting to know
you and your family, and in the last couple of
(13:39):
years I've learned to really understand everything that you have.
Really I just have done and you know, roast up
to be for your family and um. But also I
appreciate something that I was in many ways, I was
kind of far removed from, specifically the industry of trucks
and logistics and all of that. You know, maybe we
talk a little bit about how did you get into
(14:00):
it and how long you've been doing it. So I
started doing it when I was twenty years old. I
was born in De Juana, Mexico, you know, and I
grew up in Sanni Cedro. For most of my life,
I've always been very interested in machinery, like heavy equipment
and trucking, you know. And I'll tell you my parents
(14:22):
weren't happy when people would ask me as a child,
you know, what what do you want to do when
you grow up? You know? And I I said, I
want to be a truck driver. I've just had a
lot of interest in it. You know, at um, fourteen
years old, my body remote control truck for seventy five dollars.
You know, my parents thought I was insane and I
still and I still have that, you know, I still
have it. You know, a toy that I love to play,
(14:45):
you know. And and I still buy toys, you know,
I still buy toy trucks, you know. And I say,
for your grandkids, I know they don't play with the mine.
You know that that's just the passion that I had,
you know, And I got in it when I was
twenty years old. I went to a truck in school
in San Diego, you know. And I've held my commercial
license for forty two years now. In my forty two
(15:06):
year career, you know, I've drove trucks a long distance
over forty three forty four states, and the other twenty
years or so, you know, I've been managing trucking companies,
logistic companies, third party delivery companies from Chicago all the
way down to the Bay Area to l A, to
a lot of different areas. You know, I'm not sure
(15:30):
at what point in time, you know, people realize that
I had a potential to train and manage people because
of my experience, you know. And I was able to
take basically the trucking experience that I have so many
years out on the road and mentor some of the
new people that were interested in that industry. That was
the next generation of truck drivers. Yeah exactly, I've traveled
(15:53):
all over the United States. But again it's something that
I was very passionate about. You know. I thank god
that at twenty years I was able to fulfill that dream.
And to this day, you know, forty two years later,
I I'm very passionate about it, you know, about to
venture into a whole new career. And you know, I've
I purchased a truck, you know, I have it unordered,
(16:15):
you know, and I'm gonna go back on the road
for a few more years. You know, I want, I want.
I wanted to dive into that a little bit too, because, um,
it's so important to understand what is the day in
a life, you know, and what would be your routine,
what's the day in the life of uh And this
is before the pandemic. So you get up in the
morning at what time, and you know what happens throughout
the day. Again, started driving in, you know, in a
(16:39):
day in a truck in you know, these trucks were
u not what they are now. You know, it would
be like you jumping into a car that's you know,
sixty years old. You know, the comforts are not there,
you know, So It was a very rough life, but enjoyable.
And we would get phone calls, you know and say, hey,
your load is ready. You know. At the time, we
(17:01):
were taking products from Mexico and bringing it into Sandy
Sedro there and from there we would jump and sometimes
we would pick up the product in Mexico. And at
the time I was transporting roofing material and I would
take it to northern California. You know, normally from here
to Sacramento, we would do about eight to nine hours
from from San Diego, you know, and us you know,
(17:21):
stop along the way and have some dinner, you know,
dinner like so dinner back then at the truck stops
was great. You know. You pull into a truck stop,
and I think back then there was a lot of
respect for trucking. You know, you pull into the truck
stops and literally the part of the restaurant would be
sealed out for truckers only. There were signs that literally
said truckers only. That would be like your section, that
(17:42):
was our section, because you know, we would get served immediately,
because you know, it was it was about time. You know,
you only have so many hours to drive a day,
you know, so they would not make you wait. You
would get in there, you know, and order your food
and you know, and then jump back on the road
and arrive somewhere in the Bay Area or sometimes it
was in Oregon, you know, and uh, spend the night.
(18:04):
These trucks had sleepers in the back, you know, and
and you spend the night and back then the trucks. Again,
we're not that comfortable, you know. We would wear like
uh they would call it like a kidney belt, you know,
for your kidneys, kind of like the ones you do
for weights, you know, because the trucks would bounce so much,
you know, it affects your kidneys. A lot of truck
drivers have kidney issues, wow, you know. And you literally
(18:25):
would attach it a belt real tight, you know, the
white belt, real tight to your kidneys because the truck
should just be jumping so much on that everything will
be just ye, your whole body was shaking, you know.
So a lot of truckers have have issues with kidneys.
You know. Obviously, now the trucks are very modern, you know,
it's like driving a car. I mean literally the comfort
is incredible, you know. But um so then we would
(18:46):
get there and sleep for three or four or five hours,
you know, and they'd wake up in the morning. Um,
you untie the load and you dropped the load and
call the boss, and the boss would say, hey, you
gotta go to you know, at that point in time,
we're picking up lumber, you know, so we go into
Oregon or into Lake Tahoe and pick up lumber and
(19:06):
bring it back to Mexico. So almost forty years of that.
Well yeah, but you know again, you know, thank god,
you know, the time has changed, you know, and the
truck's got very comfortable, you know. And then we went
and went away, went the belts. We'll be right back
after this break. Welcome back to Essential Voices. When you
(19:28):
started noticing that the truck and experience started changing, you
said that, you know, some of these stops, you know,
how of these things started going away, you know, the sect,
the truck in section and all that stuff. So the
turteen section, I mean stuff like that. It it literally,
I mean, prior to to the pandemic, you know, you
would still find truck stops. You know, there's states that
(19:51):
believe it or not that I have a lot of
respect for the industry, you know, because a lot of
the industry is family, is part of that industry, you know,
and I mean the Pacific Northwest to me is one
of my favorite places to travel because there's a lot
of uh families that are part of the truck They
really respect what your profession. Absolutely they do. You know,
(20:11):
you'd pull into a rest area at two o'clock in
the morning, you know, on the middle of nowhere of
a highway ninety seven up there, heading up to Oregon,
you know, and there'd be some uh gentlemen out there
with a coffee table offering you cookies and coffee. I mean,
in the middle of the night, you know. And that's
very few states that I've experienced that, you know, in
the Pacific Northwest is definitely one of those states, you know,
(20:33):
where you would pull into the truck stop and go
to sleep, you know, and and they say, what where
you parked that? You know what stallar Isa that I'm
over there in fourteen He goes, okay, he goes, what
do you want me to wake you up in the morning?
And I said, yeah, four or four am, three m
And they're coming off on your door with a cup
of coffee, you know what I mean. That's the kind
of service that that you would get back there. That's
so awesome, that's I mean. So so now we fast
(20:55):
forward that kids have that experience, and then incomes in
a little friend we call the pandemic, and the pandemic
decides to just challenge everyone's sanity. I would love for
you too, maybe tell us how do you evolve? So
when you started on the truck, what did you notice
that all those things change for you? So, Um, the
(21:17):
timing was not the greatest, but then again it was
for me, you know, because I was doing what I
love to do, you know. And uh, when the pandemic
hit full force, Um, of course, the whole industry changed,
you know, everything changed, and it was very challenging because, um,
everything you know shut down, you know, So the industry
(21:41):
you know, manufacturing and everything you know, So all of
a sudden you have, I mean on a large scale,
you know. But we'll say a hundred trucks, you know,
and and fifty of them were doing manufacturing, you know,
picking up manufacturing. Manufacturing means like wood and ye old
and stuff like that, anything that has to do. Those
(22:02):
factories are now closed. Exactly, all these factories are close,
you know. So so now you have of those trucks
you know, not knowing where to go, you know, and
so now you you you got them all coming into
anything that's essential, right, masks, facials, paper towels, paper, toilet paper,
(22:22):
everything and anything food, you know, and it it became
a nightmare all of a sudden. You know, it became
a nightmare because first we went into a down slope
right when when it hit, everything shut down. So then
there was the workload dropped, right, they dropped like it dropped,
(22:44):
and everybody's like, you know, what are we going today?
What are we doing? And it's like, well, if you
want a day off, going to take a day off.
You know, those options were there because nobody was sure
what was going to happen, you know. And then all
of a sudden it opened up, right, uh, you know,
all the companies started opening up. So now you would
go pick up a load, you know that would take
you an hour, Well now it took you six hours
(23:06):
because that other of trucks for sitting there waiting. Everybody
jumped into that. I was super, super proud to do that.
You know, it's an industry that I that I love
and have very passionate about, you know, and I was
all all into that you know, but everybody was putting
signs over the bridges thanking truckers, you know. And but
(23:27):
then you would go into the warehouses to deliver the product.
You were not allowed to go into the warehouse, to
use the restaurant, to use the facilities at all. You know,
you would have a porter potty sitting outside and there'll
be twenty to twenty five trucks using one porter potty.
And then you're telling like, you know, protect yourself wearing
a mask, and you know, and then you know, don't
get COVID by the way, you're not allowed today. It's
(23:48):
COVID because the products, you know. And it was very frustrating,
very very frustrating because even up to six, a couple
of months ago, you know, it was still the same way.
You know, you have you have no where to use
the facility, you know, the restaurant shut down, at the
truck stops, it was all fast food, you know, and
it was very frustrating trying to work under those conditions,
(24:10):
you know. And then all of a sudden, you know,
I mean, Turkey know has always been a thankless job,
you know. I mean, I don't know if you know this,
but if every truck shut down in the United States
for four weeks. Everybody would be out of essentials and
every everything would be running out of fuel. Everything, everything
would be one it's brought to you by a truck, absolutely,
(24:30):
you know, so everything would shut down, you know, But
it's been such a thankless job. And then finally, when
the pandemic hit and we were being thanked for for
risking our lives out there, I thought, finally there's recognition
of this, you know, into everybody. And again I just
does you know the people that load the trucks, of
people that received the trucks, and everybody that works in
every industry out here, you know, that's been essential from
day one. They never stayed home, you know, they risk
(24:53):
their lives to go and work every single day. You know,
all of a sudden, the people that nobody thinks became
the heroes, they became the heroes. You know that that
we were we were moving everything, you know, and people
were bagging your groceries at the store. Once again, you know,
they didn't stay home, you know, there risk their lives
(25:15):
to go home to their families every day as we did.
And you know, and all of a sudden, you know,
we became the heroes, you know. And my hope is
that one day nobody loses, that, you know, loses of
everything that took place during this pandemic. Who who was
out there, you know, providing for everybody where you were saying,
(25:37):
Wilmer is so true how people just assume that the
work Nicole and Armando do just gets magically done. It
was jaw dropping to hear about all the unnecessary risks
and hard working conditions that these folks go through, especially
when you think of how quickly society would crumble without
their work and without them. And I'm lucky enough to
count these essential workers amongst my loved ones. I mean,
(25:59):
so I can appreciate firsthand what so many folks, I
guess really take for granted. I mean, I feel like
understanding where our products are coming from and how they
get to us. It's just becoming more and more relevant,
not only due to the pandemic, but also rising gas
prices and do you a political tension? I feel like
every day I see a new headline that brings what
(26:20):
Armando and Nicole were discussing into larger focus. Absolutely, And
on that note, next week will continue the conversation with
Mayor of Long Beach, Robert Garcia and Wall Street journal
journalists and author of Arriving Today, Christopher Memes. Essential Voices
with Wilma val Drama is produced by me m R. Raquel,
Alison Shano, and Kevin Rotkowski, with production support from associate
(26:44):
producer Lillian Holman. Executive producers Wilmer val Drama, Adam Reynolds,
Leo Clem and Aaron Hilliard. This episode was edited by
m R. Riquel and Sean Tracy and features original music
by Will Risotti. Special thanks to this week's Essential Voices
Nicole Salima and Armando Bacchico. This is a Clamor and
(27:05):
w V Entertainment production in partnership with I Heart Radio's
Michael Dura podcast Network. For more podcasts from my Heart,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows,
Hey, mr Hi Wilmer. So what's uh? What's our show
is called again? Essential Voices? That's right, just testing. I
don't know why I feel like testing you on the
name of what show. I thought it was like a
nice banter between your I. Now this week we have
a double stuffed episode of Essential Voices because we don't
have just one essential worker, we have two and two
(00:24):
particularly special people to me as they are both part
of my family double travel. But seriously, this episode is
packed with information. At Amano, your father in law has
been a truck driver for forty two years and returned
to trucking right before the pandemic. And Nicole Salima, a
close friend of yours, is a longshoreman at the Port
of Long Beach in Los Angeles and helps manage transporting
(00:47):
and the shipping containers from ships to truckers like Armando.
After hearing both their stories and watching the conversations about
the supply chain issues and truck drivers recently, the two
careers are intrinsically connected and part of one converse Sian exactly,
both Nicole and our man who are part of the
same invaluable web of essential workers who get our most
fundamental products from the factories, to our stores or to
(01:11):
our doors. Hey that runs, yeah, but now like in
a cool way, to be honest. So after we hear
from both essential workers, we are going to return next
week for a round table with Mayored Robert Garcia of
Long Beach and journalist Christopher Memes of The Wall Street Journal.
I never thought I'd be as fascinated by the supply
chain as I became after these conversations. But there's so
(01:33):
much to learn, and I feel like each week we
get a chance to redefine the meaning of essential. That's
the goal. So for now, let's hand the mike over
to Nicole. Your story starts right now. Hi. My name
is Nicole Salima and I'm a long shoreman. Nicole Salima,
I should lead with the fact that I know you
(01:54):
and you're like one of my sisters for life to
bring around my life for so many year years. And
in addition to how wonderful you're as a person, you
also have quite an essential job. Can you explain what
is it that you do? Yeah, So, I'm a long shoreman.
I work out of the Port of l A and
Long Beach. Along shoreman is someone who loads and unloads
(02:20):
important export that comes in from other countries, other ports
around the United States. It could be TVs, fridges, medical supplies.
So pretty much we bring all of the necessary goods
that the United States requires. Take us on a day
with you, so walk me a little bit, like you
(02:41):
get up in the morning, and then what's your process
before you go to work, and then once you go
to work. My days actually start the night before I
go to work. At the check in for work. There's
a whole process that I have to go through and
calling a tape line and putting in my registration number
and making myself available for work. There's multiple jobs that
(03:03):
require us to make sure that they know how many
people are going to work. I guess you can say.
So when I call in, I reserve my spot and
then I get all my stuff ready. Then that's when
my next day starts. Um, I'll wake up in the
morning obviously get ready normal morning routine, and then I
had to depending on what day it is, there's a
(03:25):
dispatch hall that we go to where we pick up
our jobs. There's different companies at our ports and they
all send the jobs that are required to the dispatch
hall to be given out to all the longshoreman. I
will go pick up a job at the longshoreman Hall,
which for me is usually driving U t R. It's
(03:45):
a utility tactor and it is used to pull around
cargo around yards or warehouses, and that's usually what I
pick up because I like to drive the trucks. Again,
depending on the job that I do pick up because
could change day to day. There's some days where I
will be on the same job and some days where
I have to go back to the dispatch hall and
(04:06):
pick up a new job. But I could be working
on a container ship, which means I would carry cargo
to and from the ship that come in from other countries.
A lot of the stuff that gets through Los Angeles
gets shipped across the country as well. Right, it's not
just listening to this, I'm assuming Yeah, no, it goes
anywhere from We We get a lot from China. I
(04:28):
would say a majority of our imports come from China.
That's interesting. So everything is being made over there, you know. Yeah,
Like if you look at it could be any object
you look on the bottom of it has made in Korea,
made in China. Those things get shipped through our ports. Clothes, shoes,
a lot of people think that when they go to
(04:50):
the mall and their clothes that they purchased or at
the mall, that they were made here in the United States.
They came in a container from Asia. Basically pretty much. Wow,
that's interesting. So you're saying all these things, haven't read
the electronics and everything. I mean as so much as
coming into Los Angeles and then from the Los Angeles
board as well as multiple ports around California. You know,
(05:11):
they distribute across the country as well. And then all
of a sudden you get introduced to a global pandemic,
something that hit all of us and on levels that
couldn't even comprehend. How did it affect the boards, How
did it change? How did you vote for you? It
was scary. I don't want to say it slowed down.
We were actually working a lot more because we had
(05:33):
to make sure that these necessities that our country was requiring,
we're getting to the people. We had to make sure
that if somebody happened to have COVID and they were
in a truck, that the next person that came in
at night didn't catch whatever, because at that time we
didn't know if COVID was airborne. If you know, you
(05:55):
were going to touch something and then you were going
to get it or things of that need. Sure, we
were also having to bring in our own personal protective equipment,
so you guys weren't provided with masks or gloves or
anything that you had to pretty much bring your own. Kids. Yeah,
we brought our own. It was difficult for us, however,
we did have to keep moving because everyone still needed
(06:16):
their toilet paper. Were you at work or anyone at
work that you knew affected by COVID? Yes, So a
week of Thanksgiving, my husband and I found out that
we had been around somebody that tested positive for COVID
during that time. We didn't have any symptoms as of yet,
(06:38):
and then slowly we started noticing, you know, we weren't
feeling good. My husband to now was having very bad
breathing problems. It was to the point where his oxygen
was dropping to about sixty eight, which a normal level
is nine, and I had to force him to an appointment.
(07:00):
We did, like an online appointment one night, and he
ended up having to go to the hospital for ten days.
While my husband was in the hospital, his three sisters
and his dad and his brother all were admitted into
the hospital and his dad and his brother were put
on event a latter and I want to say it
(07:24):
was maybe seven days after my husband came home for
the hospital he found out that his brother had passed
away from COVID, and then ten days later his dad
passed away from COVID. So it had our family really hard.
I can never forget you know, these days, Um, those
(07:45):
we were very very hard. This to remember. Um, how
did you deal with that? I mean, and did you
take some time? You know that? Were you able to
come back to work? How did that work for you?
Thankfully I was able to take some time. I depended
on my husband, and my husband depended on me. But
like mentally, I think if it wasn't for us just
(08:06):
being around each other and having our family, we would
have broke. You know. COVID opened our eyes to what's
really important in life, and for us, it's our family.
We'll be right back after this break. Welcome back to
Essential Voices. I wanted to ask you, Right, so we're
(08:27):
barely getting through this pandemic. We get introduced to now
the new variant, and now we're going into another regulated
streamline of events, right, and now the conversation of AI
and robots are becoming more commonplace in large scale service facilities. Right,
so are you seeing automature and affecting your work? Yeah?
(08:47):
So actually a few of our ports are automated, meaning
they run off of robots. Wait wait, wait, what do
you mean they run off robots? Please explain that because
you're saying about you are two detos are just going
around being like people people with container to the left.
Is that what you're saying technically speaking? Yes, So the
job that I do, right, I drive the tractors around,
(09:10):
I pull the containers and I move them around the yard.
There's a few ports between Los Angeles and Long Beach
that these containers are being pulled around by robots. They
are not operated by humans. There's no human driving them.
They're fully dependent on WiFi systems. So if a WiFi
(09:34):
system goes down, why will be the backup? Like, how
do they communicate with these robots? From what I understand,
we're banking on the WiFi system not going down. So
basically wifive goes, he goes, We're gonna we're gonna take
a five because we've got a wifive gap coming over here. Yeah,
we're going on break. So what does that mean exactly?
(09:54):
For the union and the workers. That means that eventually
drivers are not going to be needed. Is that what
it is? And you're just gonna have one person distributing
monitors and putting in programs. Is that how it's going
to go? Unfortunately, that's the way it's looking. How does
everybody feel about that? I mean, what are the conversations
about it? I mean it sucks. Think about it. Like
(10:17):
us as humans, we get paid, We have our families
to take care of. These are our jobs. This is
how we purchase our homes or pay our rent, or
feed our kids. And then going and spending our money
at a grocery store or a mom and pop pizza
shop or you know, a seven eleven. Then coming out
of our check right comes our taxes, goes to the
(10:39):
state and Feds. These robots don't do that. By the
way I look at it, it's gonna drain our economy,
to be honest with you, because where's all the profit going.
The profits going right back into these companies who are
unfortunately not American companies, and we're not getting anything out
of it. That's how I got it. How do you
(11:01):
feel like the community can support the work that you
do that how can we all be more aware of
your guess needs? Is there is there a place where
people go from information and have support. You is their
conversations about how to take care of the families. I
would stay just study automation and the economic impact that
it has on local communities. You know, like these self
(11:23):
checkouts that you use at these major grocery stores. Right,
these self checkouts have taken away jobs from humans that
are still needing to feed their families and also give
back into our community. You know, it's like it's a
recycled process. Right. We using these self checkouts because we're
(11:44):
in a rush, or we don't want to wait in line.
We're doing somebody's job. When this is what these companies are.
You know, you pay somebody to do the job. I
don't come to the grocery store to bag my own
groceries check myself out like that's someone's job. Right, One
person manning six self checkouts to me is crazy. I
(12:08):
would say, just study what automation is doing to you know,
us as a whole, not even us as long shoreman,
but our country. One message would you leave to feature
long show of workers? You know what will you tell
you your younger self, I would say, just keep pumping.
It's a difficult workforce to be in, and not necessarily
(12:31):
like you've got to be strong, because it's funny. People
look at me like you're a long shoreman. I expected
like a old, grungy guy that hasn't showered in five days,
you know, And I'm like, no, I'm I'm a long chairman.
And I would say, you know, just keep going because
there's gonna be days where it's going to be difficult
and it's going to be hard, but stay positive, don't
(12:55):
stress yourself out, and don't overthink anything. Well now here
from my father in law, Armando Pacheco. Hi, my name
is Armando Pacheco UM. I am currently in uh Tarzana, California,
north of Los Angeles. UM and I have been in
(13:17):
trucking and logistics for parts of me forty two years.
Thank you, amand for for having this conversation with me. Um.
You know you and I tend to talk a lot together.
We do because you are my father in law, and
you know I've had the privilege of getting to know
you and your family, and in the last couple of
(13:39):
years I've learned to really understand everything that you have.
Really I just have done and you know, roast up
to be for your family and um. But also I
appreciate something that I was in many ways, I was
kind of far removed from, specifically the industry of trucks
and logistics and all of that. You know, maybe we
talk a little bit about how did you get into
(14:00):
it and how long you've been doing it. So I
started doing it when I was twenty years old. I
was born in De Juana, Mexico, you know, and I
grew up in Sanni Cedro. For most of my life,
I've always been very interested in machinery, like heavy equipment
and trucking, you know. And I'll tell you my parents
(14:22):
weren't happy when people would ask me as a child,
you know, what what do you want to do when
you grow up? You know? And I I said, I
want to be a truck driver. I've just had a
lot of interest in it. You know, at um, fourteen
years old, my body remote control truck for seventy five dollars.
You know, my parents thought I was insane and I
still and I still have that, you know, I still
have it. You know, a toy that I love to play,
(14:45):
you know. And and I still buy toys, you know,
I still buy toy trucks, you know. And I say,
for your grandkids, I know they don't play with the mine.
You know that that's just the passion that I had,
you know, And I got in it when I was
twenty years old. I went to a truck in school
in San Diego, you know. And I've held my commercial
license for forty two years now. In my forty two
(15:06):
year career, you know, I've drove trucks a long distance
over forty three forty four states, and the other twenty
years or so, you know, I've been managing trucking companies,
logistic companies, third party delivery companies from Chicago all the
way down to the Bay Area to l A, to
a lot of different areas. You know, I'm not sure
(15:30):
at what point in time, you know, people realize that
I had a potential to train and manage people because
of my experience, you know. And I was able to
take basically the trucking experience that I have so many
years out on the road and mentor some of the
new people that were interested in that industry. That was
the next generation of truck drivers. Yeah exactly, I've traveled
(15:53):
all over the United States. But again it's something that
I was very passionate about. You know. I thank god
that at twenty years I was able to fulfill that dream.
And to this day, you know, forty two years later,
I I'm very passionate about it, you know, about to
venture into a whole new career. And you know, I've
I purchased a truck, you know, I have it unordered,
(16:15):
you know, and I'm gonna go back on the road
for a few more years. You know, I want, I want.
I wanted to dive into that a little bit too, because, um,
it's so important to understand what is the day in
a life, you know, and what would be your routine,
what's the day in the life of uh And this
is before the pandemic. So you get up in the
morning at what time, and you know what happens throughout
the day. Again, started driving in, you know, in a
(16:39):
day in a truck in you know, these trucks were
u not what they are now. You know, it would
be like you jumping into a car that's you know,
sixty years old. You know, the comforts are not there,
you know, So It was a very rough life, but enjoyable.
And we would get phone calls, you know and say, hey,
your load is ready. You know. At the time, we
(17:01):
were taking products from Mexico and bringing it into Sandy
Sedro there and from there we would jump and sometimes
we would pick up the product in Mexico. And at
the time I was transporting roofing material and I would
take it to northern California. You know, normally from here
to Sacramento, we would do about eight to nine hours
from from San Diego, you know, and us you know,
(17:21):
stop along the way and have some dinner, you know,
dinner like so dinner back then at the truck stops
was great. You know. You pull into a truck stop,
and I think back then there was a lot of
respect for trucking. You know, you pull into the truck
stops and literally the part of the restaurant would be
sealed out for truckers only. There were signs that literally
said truckers only. That would be like your section, that
(17:42):
was our section, because you know, we would get served immediately,
because you know, it was it was about time. You know,
you only have so many hours to drive a day,
you know, so they would not make you wait. You
would get in there, you know, and order your food
and you know, and then jump back on the road
and arrive somewhere in the Bay Area or sometimes it
was in Oregon, you know, and uh, spend the night.
(18:04):
These trucks had sleepers in the back, you know, and
and you spend the night and back then the trucks. Again,
we're not that comfortable, you know. We would wear like
uh they would call it like a kidney belt, you know,
for your kidneys, kind of like the ones you do
for weights, you know, because the trucks would bounce so much,
you know, it affects your kidneys. A lot of truck
drivers have kidney issues, wow, you know. And you literally
(18:25):
would attach it a belt real tight, you know, the
white belt, real tight to your kidneys because the truck
should just be jumping so much on that everything will
be just ye, your whole body was shaking, you know.
So a lot of truckers have have issues with kidneys.
You know. Obviously, now the trucks are very modern, you know,
it's like driving a car. I mean literally the comfort
is incredible, you know. But um so then we would
(18:46):
get there and sleep for three or four or five hours,
you know, and they'd wake up in the morning. Um,
you untie the load and you dropped the load and
call the boss, and the boss would say, hey, you
gotta go to you know, at that point in time,
we're picking up lumber, you know, so we go into
Oregon or into Lake Tahoe and pick up lumber and
(19:06):
bring it back to Mexico. So almost forty years of that.
Well yeah, but you know again, you know, thank god,
you know, the time has changed, you know, and the
truck's got very comfortable, you know. And then we went
and went away, went the belts. We'll be right back
after this break. Welcome back to Essential Voices. When you
(19:28):
started noticing that the truck and experience started changing, you
said that, you know, some of these stops, you know,
how of these things started going away, you know, the sect,
the truck in section and all that stuff. So the
turteen section, I mean stuff like that. It it literally,
I mean, prior to to the pandemic, you know, you
would still find truck stops. You know, there's states that
(19:51):
believe it or not that I have a lot of
respect for the industry, you know, because a lot of
the industry is family, is part of that industry, you know,
and I mean the Pacific Northwest to me is one
of my favorite places to travel because there's a lot
of uh families that are part of the truck They
really respect what your profession. Absolutely they do. You know,
(20:11):
you'd pull into a rest area at two o'clock in
the morning, you know, on the middle of nowhere of
a highway ninety seven up there, heading up to Oregon,
you know, and there'd be some uh gentlemen out there
with a coffee table offering you cookies and coffee. I mean,
in the middle of the night, you know. And that's
very few states that I've experienced that, you know, in
the Pacific Northwest is definitely one of those states, you know,
(20:33):
where you would pull into the truck stop and go
to sleep, you know, and and they say, what where
you parked that? You know what stallar Isa that I'm
over there in fourteen He goes, okay, he goes, what
do you want me to wake you up in the morning?
And I said, yeah, four or four am, three m
And they're coming off on your door with a cup
of coffee, you know what I mean. That's the kind
of service that that you would get back there. That's
so awesome, that's I mean. So so now we fast
(20:55):
forward that kids have that experience, and then incomes in
a little friend we call the pandemic, and the pandemic
decides to just challenge everyone's sanity. I would love for
you too, maybe tell us how do you evolve? So
when you started on the truck, what did you notice
that all those things change for you? So, Um, the
(21:17):
timing was not the greatest, but then again it was
for me, you know, because I was doing what I
love to do, you know. And uh, when the pandemic
hit full force, Um, of course, the whole industry changed,
you know, everything changed, and it was very challenging because, um,
everything you know shut down, you know, So the industry
(21:41):
you know, manufacturing and everything you know, So all of
a sudden you have, I mean on a large scale,
you know. But we'll say a hundred trucks, you know,
and and fifty of them were doing manufacturing, you know,
picking up manufacturing. Manufacturing means like wood and ye old
and stuff like that, anything that has to do. Those
(22:02):
factories are now closed. Exactly, all these factories are close,
you know. So so now you have of those trucks
you know, not knowing where to go, you know, and
so now you you you got them all coming into
anything that's essential, right, masks, facials, paper towels, paper, toilet paper,
(22:22):
everything and anything food, you know, and it it became
a nightmare all of a sudden. You know, it became
a nightmare because first we went into a down slope
right when when it hit, everything shut down. So then
there was the workload dropped, right, they dropped like it dropped,
(22:44):
and everybody's like, you know, what are we going today?
What are we doing? And it's like, well, if you
want a day off, going to take a day off.
You know, those options were there because nobody was sure
what was going to happen, you know. And then all
of a sudden it opened up, right, uh, you know,
all the companies started opening up. So now you would
go pick up a load, you know that would take
you an hour, Well now it took you six hours
(23:06):
because that other of trucks for sitting there waiting. Everybody
jumped into that. I was super, super proud to do that.
You know, it's an industry that I that I love
and have very passionate about, you know, and I was
all all into that you know, but everybody was putting
signs over the bridges thanking truckers, you know. And but
(23:27):
then you would go into the warehouses to deliver the product.
You were not allowed to go into the warehouse, to
use the restaurant, to use the facilities at all. You know,
you would have a porter potty sitting outside and there'll
be twenty to twenty five trucks using one porter potty.
And then you're telling like, you know, protect yourself wearing
a mask, and you know, and then you know, don't
get COVID by the way, you're not allowed today. It's
(23:48):
COVID because the products, you know. And it was very frustrating,
very very frustrating because even up to six, a couple
of months ago, you know, it was still the same way.
You know, you have you have no where to use
the facility, you know, the restaurant shut down, at the
truck stops, it was all fast food, you know, and
it was very frustrating trying to work under those conditions,
(24:10):
you know. And then all of a sudden, you know,
I mean, Turkey know has always been a thankless job,
you know. I mean, I don't know if you know this,
but if every truck shut down in the United States
for four weeks. Everybody would be out of essentials and
every everything would be running out of fuel. Everything, everything
would be one it's brought to you by a truck, absolutely,
(24:30):
you know, so everything would shut down, you know, But
it's been such a thankless job. And then finally, when
the pandemic hit and we were being thanked for for
risking our lives out there, I thought, finally there's recognition
of this, you know, into everybody. And again I just
does you know the people that load the trucks, of
people that received the trucks, and everybody that works in
every industry out here, you know, that's been essential from
day one. They never stayed home, you know, they risk
(24:53):
their lives to go and work every single day. You know,
all of a sudden, the people that nobody thinks became
the heroes, they became the heroes. You know that that
we were we were moving everything, you know, and people
were bagging your groceries at the store. Once again, you know,
they didn't stay home, you know, there risk their lives
(25:15):
to go home to their families every day as we did.
And you know, and all of a sudden, you know,
we became the heroes, you know. And my hope is
that one day nobody loses, that, you know, loses of
everything that took place during this pandemic. Who who was
out there, you know, providing for everybody where you were saying,
(25:37):
Wilmer is so true how people just assume that the
work Nicole and Armando do just gets magically done. It
was jaw dropping to hear about all the unnecessary risks
and hard working conditions that these folks go through, especially
when you think of how quickly society would crumble without
their work and without them. And I'm lucky enough to
count these essential workers amongst my loved ones. I mean,
(25:59):
so I can appreciate firsthand what so many folks, I
guess really take for granted. I mean, I feel like
understanding where our products are coming from and how they
get to us. It's just becoming more and more relevant,
not only due to the pandemic, but also rising gas
prices and do you a political tension? I feel like
every day I see a new headline that brings what
(26:20):
Armando and Nicole were discussing into larger focus. Absolutely, And
on that note, next week will continue the conversation with
Mayor of Long Beach, Robert Garcia and Wall Street journal
journalists and author of Arriving Today, Christopher Memes. Essential Voices
with Wilma val Drama is produced by me m R. Raquel,
Alison Shano, and Kevin Rotkowski, with production support from associate
(26:44):
producer Lillian Holman. Executive producers Wilmer val Drama, Adam Reynolds,
Leo Clem and Aaron Hilliard. This episode was edited by
m R. Riquel and Sean Tracy and features original music
by Will Risotti. Special thanks to this week's Essential Voices
Nicole Salima and Armando Bacchico. This is a Clamor and
(27:05):
w V Entertainment production in partnership with I Heart Radio's
Michael Dura podcast Network. For more podcasts from my Heart,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows,
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