March 19, 2010: Just three days after TDU.org exposed a deal between YRCW and the IBT to weaken the freight contract clause requiring the call-back of laid-off Teamsters, the deal appears to be canceled.

A management memo dated March 18 and headed “25% O/T methodology – not good news” Holland VP for Labor Relations Steve Blubaugh informs managers that they must return to the “old” (proper) way to calculate recall of laid off Teamsters when overtime exceeds an average of 10 hours per week per active Teamster.

On March 15, TDU.org revealed a memo from YRCW labor man Bob Jones which directed managers to implement a "recent agreement between the IBT and the company" that would "give the company greater latitude in O/T utilization without triggering recalls of laid-off Teamsters."

YRCW started to implement the new deal at some Ohio terminals and it would have gone national. Hopefully the deal is now dead. If any Teamsters find that YRC or Holland is still trying to get a “grace” number of 90 hours over the overtime limit, instead of 50, please inform us immediately.

Management’s “not good news” memo is available here.

Article 5, Section 6 of the freight contract is enforced by many stewards and locals, and results in numerous laid-off Teamsters being recalled to get work and protect their family health benefits.

The so-called “agreement between the IBT and the company” would have allowed employers to use excess overtime up to 90 hours a week over the aggregate limit, instead of the 50 specified in Article 5 of the contract, before triggering recalls.

The change would have hurt smaller terminals the most. For example, if there are 18 Teamsters active on the city-dock board, under this deal, management could have worked everyone up to 55 hours and still not trigger any recall.

It’s good news when we can stop a corrupt deal that would have kept more Teamsters on layoff.