July 24, 2009: UPS announced after-tax profits of $445 million for the second quarter of 2009, up from $401 million in the first quarter. Given the global economic downturn, UPS’s volume and profits are both down from last year. UPS made $873 million in the second quarter of 2008. Market Watch reports that Brown’s earnings were in line with analyst expectations. In the worst economy in our lifetimes, UPS has turned $846 million in after-tax...

July 24, 2009: ANAHEIM, Calif.—Most employers' defined benefit pension plans are in trouble and need government help, C. Thomas Keegel, general secretary-treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said July 22. Speaking at the 27th annual Labor and Employment Law Conference, presented by National Labor Relations Board Regions 21 and 31, Keegel called for an amendment to the Pension Protection Act to allow for a 30-year amortization of plans' unfunded liabilities. The federal government's deregulation...

July 22, 2009: Yellow Roadway CEO Bill Zollars put his foot so far down his throat that he gagged on his shoe, and had to apologize for a press release bragging that he would subcontract out more Teamster work. Just as ballots are arriving at Teamster homes, giving members the choice of giving up their pension and more wages or losing their job, Zollars issued a press release on Monday bragging about his “strategic partnership”...

July 22, 2009: Less-than-truckload carrier ABF Freight System lost $15.4 million in the second quarter, the company said July 21, on steep declines in volume and pricing in the trucking business. The loss was better than the $18.2 million the Fort Smith, Ark.-based carrier lost in the first quarter, but the 17 percent slide in tonnage and the 13.1 percent drop in yield, a signal of eroding pricing, were far worse in the quarter ending...

July 22, 2009: WASHINGTON — The American Conservative Union, which bills itself as the nation’s oldest conservative grass-roots lobbying organization, has found itself fending off charges that it put its principles up for sale. In a letter sent last month to FedEx, the group offered its support in a bitter legislative dispute with United Parcel Service, but said it wanted a contract of up to $3.4 million to wage a campaign to win support for...

July 21, 2009: YRC Worldwide Inc.’s nonunion employees probably won’t take further cuts if International Brotherhood of Teamsters workers approve another round of concessions, company Chairman and CEO Bill Zollars said. The nonunion workers, who constitute about 14,000 of YRC’s 49,000 total employees — or about 29 percent of the work force — early this year took a 10 percent wage cut that now has been extended, along with the suspension of 401(k) matches and...

July 21, 2009: On May 14, Wal-Mart released its first-quarter financials for 2009 and announced that despite the recession -- or, perhaps, because of it -- business was booming. Shoppers in search of cheaper products had been flocking to its stores: A full 17 percent of its customers during the quarter were first-timers. The company had been able to exploit the downturn by reducing its legendarily bare-bones distribution expenses by an additional 5 percent. In...

July 21, 2009: Fed up with contract givebacks, benefit cuts & empty promises, members are launching a movement to elect new leaders and set a new course for our Teamsters Union. As we go to press, 50,000 freight Teamsters at Yellow-Roadway Corp. (YRC) are voting on whether to accept the worst concessions in Teamster history. If accepted, the givebacks will bring wage and benefit concessions at YRC to $11 an hour—and freeze members’ pensions through...

July 21, 2009: The year was 1976. The Teamster president was Frank Fitzsimmons, who enjoyed golfing with President Nixon and trucking employers. It was a fateful year for reform in our union, as Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) was born. It was also long before cell phones. Truck drivers had made CB radios part of the national culture, and the song “Convoy” became a #1 hit and by 1978 there was a movie of...

July 21, 2009: Some 50,000 freight Teamsters have been forced to make a terrible choice, thanks to a decade of misleadership at the top of our union. In mid-July, ballots arrived at members’ homes asking them to choose to accept the biggest concessions in Teamster trucking history, or risk pushing YRCW into bankruptcy and closure. Teamsters were put into this position by top union leaders who are more interested in their careers than in the...