UPDATED December 19, 2013: Some 26,000 YRCW Teamsters are voting on a five-year contract extension with new concessions, and yet the leadership of their union never negotiated with the corporation. What’s wrong with this picture?

At the meeting of local officials held on December 6, IBT Freight Director Tyson Johnson was asked this question directly. His answer was that since he had heard loud and clear that the members didn’t want more concessions, he refused to bargain with the company. So, instead he sat for days with the company negotiators, but didn’t bargain on behalf of the members.

Then the Hoffa administration simply mailed the company’s proposal to the members, as a kind of, “accept it or watch your job disappear” ultimatum. What kind of leadership is that? None at all.

The union leadership could have told YRCW that they would negotiate at the same time that YRCW negotiated with their lenders, and so the union would have some leverage over the outcome. Not to ask members to first give concessions, then hope for the best from the bankers.

That’s why so many YRC Teamsters are speaking out against the concessionary deal, and many local officers are refusing to endorse it as well.

If you're a member of Facebook, you may want to see what YRCW Teamsters are saying there, you can check out the No More Concessions! page on Facebook. As well as Teamster brothers under YRC Worldwide want justice.

The lack of leadership from the Hoffa administration goes much deeper. For the past 15 years they have done nothing to defend our union or to organize in freight, or in carhaul or other trucking fields. They don’t have a strategy and don’t understand Teamster power. They have not organized; they have not defended the national master contracts or the members’ pensions.

So now YRC Teamsters are left to fend for themselves. Shame on you, James Hoffa, Ken Hall, Tyson Johnson, and Gordon Sweeton. 

To see if these IBT leaders have taken a 15% cut or given up their pensions, see the $150,000 Club report.

YRC Teamsters: Read the proposal before you vote

Read this report in the Kansas City Business Journal.