The Western Conference Pension Fund has announced a big cut in pension accruals, effective July 1. This cut, if it stands, will seriously diminish pensions of those who retire in the coming years. (By law the fund cannot decrease pension credits already earned.) Teamsters in the West have formed the Western Teamsters Pension Improvement Committee (WESTPIC) and are calling on the trustees to rescind the cut. The trustees are insisting that they must have “full...

The pension justice movement has won an important victory for UPS Teamsters in the Central States Pension Fund. After refusing for 2 years to respect language in the 2002 UPS contract, Central States has now agreed to fully credit members for years they worked as part-timers. This will mean earlier retirement and larger monthly checks for many Teamsters who have worked as both part-timers and full-timers at UPS. Agreement Broken Central States and the UPS...

Article Content: Members of Local 407 received the letter below from their local. It’s a short summary of information provided to the local by the Central States Pension Fund. From the letter, its clear that the CSF is still spinning the numbers—if the fund’s financial situation is improving, isn’t it time to improve Teamster retirees’ financial situation? Of course spun information is better than none at all. Thanks to member pressure over the last two...

September 15, 2005: The federal Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled on Sept. 8 against Teamster retirees who were fighting to broaden their right to work to supplement their Central States pension. The appeals judges upheld a decision that favored the Central States Fund, which a few years ago started to crack down hard on retirees taking jobs at boat marinas, golf courses, family farms, auto repair shops, or hardware stores. The trustees of the...

James Hoffa and Tom Keegel have apparently failed to file the International Union’s 2005 LM-2 financial report, which by law was due on March 31. As of April 7, U.S. Department of Labor personnel report that no form has been filed, either in paper form or electronically. A spot check of the Department of Labor website reveals that nine of the other ten largest unions have 2005 forms posted. A request to the International Union...

March 2006: New York City Teamsters rallied on the steps of City Hall on March 5 to protest comments by the head of the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) calling Teamster warehouse workers “the lowest rung workers” whose jobs should be scrapped. Local 805 members have been fighting the city’s EDC, which is trying to shut down the last working port in Brooklyn. Teamster Local 807 jobs are also on the chopping block. Carrying signs...

This is my first-ever movie review, and ladies and gentleman this film is a doozie! Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.Since you are reading Convoy you may already know some information about Wal-Mart, but after seeing this movie you will know ALL the dirt! For a small investment of $12.95 and 98 minutes of your time you can be a part of stopping this huge worldwide greed machine. This film was created to get...

The national freight grievance panel ruled on April 28 that former Red Star employees are entitled to be hired at the new USF Holland terminals in the East. The workers learned in May that the company has to back-date their seniority to when they should have been hired, but not provide back pay. Thanks to a grievance filed by members of Philadelphia Local 107, the panel ruled that USF Holland failed to hire the former...

Yellow has announced that its USF Dugan subsidiary will close. This is after our union spent two years, millions of dollars, and countless hours of Teamster labor to organize Dugan. After USF attacked our union a year ago by shutting down its unionized Red Star division during an ill-fated strike, some 1500 good Red Star Teamsters lost their jobs, with little to no response from the International Union. The closing of Dugan and the consolidation...

January 6, 2006: Greenville's Roadway Express facility is losing a significant number of jobs as the company realigns its business to better reflect traffic patterns and reduce transit times, said Michael J. Smid, the company's president and chief executive officer. Although Smid declined to say how many positions would be affected, a local union official put the number at more than 200 jobs. Skip Barnett, a Teamsters Local Union No. 28 business agent who works...