July 3, 2013: The ink isn’t dry on the national agreement and it hasn’t even been fully ratified, but ABF has already started shipping trailer loads on non-union carriers. The contract is not legally in force because six supplements were rejected, including the largest ones, the Central Region cartage and road supplements. 

And some Teamsters are questioning the ratification process.

Teamsters in the Carolinas report seeing Covenant trailers running between Greer, SC and Carlisle, Pa. with Amazon freight that was hauled by ABF road drivers until last week. Other similar reports are coming in.

The new contract allows the company to use “purchased service transport” but the union is supposed to monitor and limit this work, according to the contract. Is there a union plan in place to oversee the company’s numbers on this, or will we just watch jobs disappear? And are Hoffa, Sweeton and Tyson Jonson prepared to monitor ABF’s finances and report to members? If the YRC experience is any indication, the Hoffa administration has a long way to go on living up to contract enforcement that members can rely on.

RATIFICATION VOTE QUESTIONED

Many members are questioning whether the contract was properly ratified, including some who were observers at the vote count.

This is due to the close vote and the facts that many were mailed ballots for the UPS or UPS Freight contract; six postal trays, or approximately 3000 ABF ballots, were picked up a week early with the UPS ballots; the count of ballots received announced to observers was higher than the reported total yes and no count; and other issues. We are currently looking into these issues.

The local-by-local vote count is available here.

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