ABF Concession Vote Coming?
March 15, 2010: The International Union issued a bulletin dated March 12 informing ABF Teamsters that the union is considering entering concession bargaining to give the company relief. The IBT reports that ABF had an operating loss of $100 million in 2009.
IBT Freight Director Tyson Johnson has informed local officers that the company has asked to suspend pension payments, a two-week cap on vacations, and a pay cut.
Johnson says the union will not consider any change in vacations and or any pension or health and welfare concessions, but is willing to consider pay concessions.
A conference call for ABF Teamsters will be held by the International Union on March 18 at 8:30 pm eastern time. Call 877-269-7289 and enter access code 14111 to join the call.
The International Union has requested that locals meet with ABF members this week or next and get questionnaires returned. Following that process, concession bargaining could open.
There will be a meeting of local officers to approve any agreement with ABF, and then ratification by the members. The General Executive Board has taken action to override the separate Chicago Local 705 and Local 710 contracts and lump them into a national vote along with the locals in the national master contract.
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( categories: Freight )
Sorry Steve
But according to all transport indexes. ABF is not, was not YRC,s biggest competitor
Nothing personal . Just the facts. Good try tho my friend.
Big Steve
sorry you seem to be offended
i'll re-phrase it for you
ABF is the largest UNIONIZED competitor
so all you conway, old domminion & UPS freight guys don't feel offended
hope you feel better now
ABF is begging for relief from all of its drivers yet they continue to fund their CEO bonus accounts with millions upon millions!!! IMO if we have to take a cut they should not get bonuses, everyone should chip in but here we go again with age old ideas and methods, screw the little guy and if you are at the top live like nothing has ever happened.
--l-- OO --l--
Big Steveunfortunately pandora's box was opened when concessions were made to YRC. the biggest dilemma being the labor cost advantage YRC has over it's biggest competitor namely ABF. YRC now was able to directly compete with competitors such as Conway and UPS freight on which the playing field for competing was somewhat evened out.
ABF was left out in the cold so to speak.
it seems the union is following a logical progression in this matter and it was only a matter of time before ABF Teamsters were affected. i am surprised that it took ABF management this long to get the union to consider anything. This was probably due to ABF's attempt to remove them selves from the NMFA bargaining unit last time around.
payback can be a bitch!
i do remmeber the union telling ABF as long as you are profitable there would be no concession talks. so ABF took the hint and transformed itself into a loser.
get ready for the rollercoaster ride boys as here it comes.