That’s the phrase that stung House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee members at a recent hearing exposing the abusive working conditions of tens of thousands of skilled U.S. port drivers at the nexus of an economic and environmental crisis.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) — with over 55 colleagues from 15 states — is leading the effort Thursday to end the Third World practices of our nation’s ports by introducing the CLEAN Ports Act.

This bill gives America’s port officials the authority to set and enforce the labor and environmental standards needed to tackle 21st-century challenges. It “greens” this blue-collar work force by revising an obscure provision in the 1980 Motor Carrier Act.

Lax regulation now allows approximately 5,500 port trucking companies nationwide to shirk tax laws. They push the costs of doing business onto their workers by misclassifying them as independent contractors.

These drivers are behind the wheel of heavy-duty container rigs for 12 to 15 hours each day. Industry leaders and academics put drivers’ average take-home pay between $10 and $11 per hour. Few drivers have private health insurance and benefits.

The workers, in turn, can afford only the oldest, most decrepit clunkers, making it no surprise that 95 percent of our nation’s 110,000 port trucks fail to meet current Environmental Protection Agency emission standards.

Drivers inhale toxic fumes that also spew into neighborhoods, past schools, along major highways and near hospitals. The EPA estimates that 87 million Americans who live and work near ports are subject to the preventable, costly and even fatal health consequences of diesel soot — which contributes to asthma, cancer and heart disease.

The case for immediate federal action to end these appalling practices and conditions is compelling.

When poor air quality halted the expansion of the nation’s largest port in Southern California, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, with input from business, labor, environmental and community representatives, launched the Port of Los Angeles’ Clean Truck Program.

This green-growth model ensures proper vehicle maintenance, eases congestion and improves efficiency by shifting the financial burden of fleet replacement off the backs of workers and onto the broad shoulders of the powerful trucking and logistics industry — with negligible effect on consumer prices.

With the program’s powerful financial incentives and operational standards, Los Angeles has attracted $600 million more in private investment, from both small and large trucking companies.

Thousands of drivers eagerly exchanged their old, polluting rigs for the clean fuel vehicles and workplace protections that come with real employment.

The EPA award-winning Clean Truck Program put in service 6,600 clean diesel and alternative fuel vehicles and boosted local truck sales by one-third at the height of the recession. Drivers reported that their breathing problems significantly declined, and their wages doubled.

Port of Los Angeles officials announced emissions reductions of nearly 80 percent. But a Beltway trucking lobby, with ties to Big Oil, went to court and had the program gutted.

The consequences were severe. Drivers are now back to having expensive truck payments, with all operational fees deducted straight from their earnings.

A father of two college students testified before Congress that his paycheck amounts to $96.12, after a 50-hour work week.

Mayors Michael Bloomberg of New York, Ron Dellums of Oakland, Calif., Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., and Mike McGinn of Seattle are grappling with the same problems as Villaraigosa. They want Congress to remove a barrier in a 30-year-old motor carrier law that has created Third World working conditions rather than clean, world-class trade hubs.

The CLEAN Ports Act is the best way to eliminate the sweatshops on wheels that have plagued a critical U.S. industry for too long. Congress should look under the hood and fix the outdated federal laws that are stalling economic and environmental progress and keeping America’s workers off the road to recovery.

Carl Pope is chairman of the Sierra Club. James P. Hoffa is general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Visit www.cleanandsafeports.org for more information.