Letters
May 24, 2013: Do you have a story to share or an opinion to express? We want to hear from you. Send us a letter by email to letters [at] tdu.org or by mail to P.O. Box 10128, Detroit, MI 48210. Stand Together We absolutely need to stand together and vote no. The attempt to get a good contract that was apparently voted in favor of unanimously by our Teamster officials is baffling. We need...
UPS Freight Members Say 'Vote No!'
May 24, 2013: Teamsters around the country report the proposed UPS Freight contract fails to measure up. It doesn't even measure up to the first contract—one they found sorely lacking over the last five years. The wage increase is $2.50 over five years—$1.50 less than the previous contract. The health insurance plan is modified and members are still expected to pay a premium. The current pension plan is frozen and a new version has been...
Teamster Future in Trucking
May 24, 2013: For the first time in 49 years, there is no national master freight agreement. There is an agreement with YRCW, and tentative agreements going to members at ABF and UPS Freight. Separate agreements for some 40,000 freight Teamsters, and none could possibly be considered a model contract. Hoffa came into office on the slogan "The Hoffa name means power." His father's big accomplishment was the NMFA. Now he's been busy at his...
ABF Teamsters to Vote on Concessions
May 24, 2013: Ballots will be mailed to members in early June. The union's brochure makes the case that concessions are needed for the health of the company. ABF management circulated an internal memo "for proactive, verbal use with Teamsters employees...if you vote no, the likelihood that YRC will consummate a deal grows higher." So threats are being used too. Key changes in the proposed Tentative Agreement include: Immediate 7 percent wage reduction. 2 percent...
YRC Pays Hoffa Board Appointee $250,000 Monthly Fee
May 24, 2013: YRCW board member Harry Wilson is getting paid $250,000 per month, since February 2013, and may get a lot more. Wilson was appointed to the YRCW Board by the Teamsters Union leadership. We've all heard the expression "follow the money." This information is tucked away in a February YRCW filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing states that, "On Feb. 20, 2013, we entered into an Advisory Agreement with MAEVA...
Make YRC Pay Their Fair Share
By Tim Pagel, Local 988, Houston, YRC City Driver When the YRC, Zollars and Hoffa bank heist is finally completed in 2015, I will be out an estimated $57K in wages alone. Then there's the stolen breaks, cheated pension deal, and the lost vacations weeks. I'm looking at a lot more lost than just the 15 percent wage cut made by me and thousands of other Teamsters. I gladly pay my dues and support my...
Hoffa OKs Deals to Undermine Carhaul Contract
May 24, 2013: In April Hoffa's Carhaul Director, Roy Gross, blocked from going to arbitration a work preservation grievance which challenged Jack Cooper's new substandard division. Instead the International and the employers routed the grievance—which was researched and filed by Local 89—to the national panel, where they can quietly bury it. Why would our International union want to help Jack Cooper set up an owner-operator division that operates without terminals, assigns drivers in the Midwest...
Healthcare Giveback Stirs Backlash
May 24, 2013: Ken Hall vowed UPSers would not pay for our healthcare. But under the tentative agreement, 140,000 UPSers would be moved into an inferior plan that will force them to pay a lot more for healthcare. Just a few months ago, Teamsters turned out across the country in huge numbers to attend rallies and chant, "No way, we won't pay!" Now healthcare concessions has gone from uniting Teamsters against UPS to uniting many...
International Union Power Grab
May 24, 2013: New contract language would strip local unions of autonomy to enforce contract. Lost in the hubbub about healthcare and harassment, the new contract includes changes that take autonomy away from local unions and consolidate power in the hands of the International Union Package Division. For example: the contract would strip local unions of the right to pull out of company-dominated safety committees without the International's permission (Article 18). Local unions from New...
Technology Harassment and "Dishonesty"
May 24, 2013: When it comes to technology harassment and dishonesty, the new contract offers more of the same. The company's ability to fire an employee for "dishonesty" solely based on information from technology is largely unchanged in the new contract. The IBT claims UPS must now "confirm information from GPS by direct observation or other corroborating evidence." But the contract makes a clear exception if UPS accuses a Teamster of "dishonesty." The IBT also...