December 5, 2006: When is an increase actually a cut? Teamsters in the Western Conference Fund are finding out the hard way.

Fund trustees voted to raise the pension multiplier. But a typical Teamster will lose $100 a month off of their pension check every year that the new multiplier is in effect. Trustees of the Teamsters Western Conference Fund voted to slightly increase the pension multiplier, the number that determines the amount of pension credit that Teamsters earn each year. But the good news ends there.

The new multiplier means Teamsters will continue to face a pension cut of nearly 40 percent when the fund is 100 percent funded.

Trustees to the Western Fund—including International Vice Presidents Al Hobart, Chuck Mack, Jim Santangelo and Randy Cammack—voted to raise the multiplier to 1.65 percent in October. They kept the vote secret until after the IBT election because they know that Teamster members will see this for what it is: a continuation of the pension cuts imposed in 2003.

The 2003 Pension Cuts
In 2003, Teamster trustees voted with employers to drastically slash the pension multiplier by more than half, to 1.2 percent, from 2.65 percent. Before those cuts, the multiplier was never once below 2.2 percent for Teamsters with 20 or more years in fund.

The 2003 pension cuts have already reduced the monthly pension of UPS and freight Teamsters by $500 a month. That’s a loss of $6,000 a year, over a whole retirement.

A typical Western Teamster is going to continue to lose another $100 off of their monthly pension check for every year this cut is in effect.

Even worse, the increase to 1.65 percent is just a bonus. The 1.65 rate will only be in effect until December 31, 2007. At that point, the multiplier will snap back to 1.2 percent unless the Teamster and employer trustees vote to extend the increase.

Fund Assets Up, Pensions Down
Top Teamster officials have promised members in the West that the cuts would be ended when the fund’s financial condition improved.
But even though the fund has completely bounced back from the stock market dip, members’ pensions have not. According to its own statement recently released, the Western Fund is 100 percent fully funded. There is no reason Teamster benefits cannot be restored right now.

It's obvious why the employers want to keep benefit levels as low as possible. But why are our Teamster trustees voting to continue pension cuts—at a fund that is 100 percent funded?

Hobart, Mack, Santangelo and Cammack all have multiple pensions and free health care for life. Do you think their golden parachutes might be one reason they're not fighting harder for the rest of us?

“The union plans to address pensions and healthcare first.”
IBT press release on UPS
early bargaining, Oct. 2, 2006

December 6, 2006: Less than two months after the IBT announced that it would “address pension and healthcare first” in UPS bargaining, the company imposed a 30 percent pension cut on thousands of UPS Teamsters in New York City (see article on page 3).

In pushing through the cuts over the objections of Local 804, management was testing our International negotiators.
Local 804 is one of our union’s largest UPS locals and, as the first local to win 25-and-out retirement, a symbol of top-notch Teamster benefits.

If the Hoffa administration was serious about protecting Teamster benefits through early bargaining, this was a place to make a stand. Instead, they took a pass and thousands more Teamsters took a pension cut.

It’s time to put reality to the promise to “address pensions and health care first.”

More Issues At Stake
Pensions are just the beginning. There are many other issues left unresolved in Hoffa’s “Best Contract Ever” that can’t be neglected again.

• Organizing UPS: We have to win the right to organize UPS Freight, without a union-busting campaign by management.
• Excessive Overtime: We have to win protections against unwanted excessive overtime, and make our jobs livable, so we can make it to retirement.
• Full-Time Jobs: We have to win more full-time jobs, at least 2,500 per year.
• Fairness for Inside Workers: We have to win justice and upgrade the wages of full-time insiders and combo jobs (22.3), and upgrade the miserable $8.50 part-time base wage.

These are issues that all UPS Teamsters can unite around to win.

December 6, 2006: The IBT election is over, and James Hoffa won the power to oversee the union’s bargaining with UPS. A centerpiece of Hoffa’s election strategy was to win big at UPS, our union’s largest employer. He didn’t. Despite outspending Leedham 10-1 and with 90 percent of local officials campaigning for him, Hoffa had to settle for no better than half of the UPS vote.

Tom Leedham won the majority of the UPS vote in the Central and Southern regions, with Hoffa winning a majority in the East and Western regions. Leedham won among the UPS Teamsters in many big locals, including New York, Chicago, Seattle, Cleveland, Atlanta, Houston, Portland, Charlotte, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, Nashville, Memphis, Des Moines, Columbus, Harrisburg, Pa. and a number of other cities and some states.

Hoffa won his share of big locals as well, but the point is that UPS Teamsters did not unite behind Hoffa as he hoped, but voted in large numbers for a new direction.

Hoffa has the opportunity to reach out to tens of thousands of UPS Teamsters who voted for Leedham, and tens of thousands more who declined to vote, by taking a unifying and aggressive approach to UPS bargaining. Now is the time.

What could unify our members? The kind of year-long contract campaign in 1997 that won the hearts of our members, the strike, and a break-through contract.

We have the power at UPS. The key to that power is a united, informed and active membership.

TDU will work hard to make this happen, and will get behind any leadership program that moves it forward.

December 5, 2005: In an historic win, our union has organized two FedEx Ground stations near Boston. Workers voted 22-8 for Teamster Local 25 at the two small stations.

Instead of recognizing the union and bargaining, FedEx intends to challenge the union victory at the NLRB and court, to drag it out. FedEx Ground drivers are contractors who buy their own trucks, but the NLRB has ruled that they are employees.

The union has lost most earlier organizing attempts at FedEx, so this victory could mark a positive trend. Organizing FedEx Ground (along with FedEx Freight and FedEx Express) is a long-term priority for Teamster strength. Local wins like this one can help spark a movement, but it will take a major commitment by the International Union to finish the job.

December 5, 2006: An academic study by three economists entitled “Corporate Political Contributions and Stock Returns” and reported in the New York Times indicates that in recent years UPS has donated PAC money to more Congressional candidates than any other corporation. UPS’s corporate PAC gave to 629 Congressional and Senate candidates from October 1999 to October 2004.

The study found that corporate buying of Congressional influence has a positive effect on stock price. It shows a statistical correlation between the number of candidates receiving money from a corporation, and increases in share value. It also indicates that corporations that spread their money around to many Congressional candidates get the most benefit.

December 5, 2006: UPS’s third-quarter after-tax profits rose to $1.04 billion, with strong growth in domestic and international shipments. Profit in the largest business line, domestic packages, rose 8.8 percent and international profits jumped 22 percent.

UPS reported only one weak spot: integration of Menlo Forwarding (UPS Cartage Services Inc.) and Overnite (UPS Freight).

December 5, 2006: Just two months into early negotiations with UPS to protect Teamster benefits, the company has cut the pensions of thousands of UPS Teamsters in New York City. Local 804 members will be hit with a 30 percent cut in their pension accrual effective Jan. 1.

The cuts send a clear signal that UPS management is continuing its offensive against Teamster benefits.The largest UPS local in the East, Local 804, was the first Teamster local to win 25-and-out benefits. UPS management knew what it was doing when it targeted Local 804 for a pension cut just as early bargaining is getting underway.

Reportedly, the Local 804 pension fund will have a shortfall in its credit balance (a technical measure of the fund’s strength) sometime next year without either a cut in the accrual rate or higher employer contributions. The Teamsters and UPS are at the table right now, supposedly to negotiate increases in company contributions and restore Teamster pensions to top levels.
In connection with those talks, management reportedly complained to the Hoffa administration that Local 804 was opposing the company’s pension cut proposal.

Hoffa could have told the company to drop the pension cut demand and let negotiations about proposals to strengthen Teamster benefits take their course. Hoffa could have threatened to cancel early talks if the company insisted on these cuts.

He could have at least warned Local 804 Teamsters about the threat. He didn’t even do that.

UPS management imposed the pension cut by securing the vote of the union trustee from the separate union that represents the mechanics.

Local 804 President and fund trustee Howie Redmond voted against the cuts, but has come under fire in the local for his pass-the-buck approach.

Redmond is a Hoffa ally and a member of the National Bargaining Committee. If Hoffa will not stand up for Teamster pensions in a key local, led by an ally, at the outset of early bargaining to protect Teamster benefits, then when will he take a stand?

UPS Teamsters who care about the future of our pension and health benefits need to get united, informed and organized. TDU is forming a UPS Pension Protection and Contract Mobilization Network.

Interested? Contact the TDU office.

December 5, 2006: While Hoffa can boast of a 65 percent winning margin overall in the IBT election, he would be well advised to look at the big groups of Teamsters who voted for a change of direction—starting with the with 175,000 Teamsters in the Central States Pension Plan (CSPF).
These voters sent a strong message that we need new pension and benefit policies.

Most Central States participants belong to mixed locals along with the 400,000 other Teamsters in the Central and Southern Regions and the Carolinas so it’s impossible to precisely separate and count their votes. But a review of the results clearly reveals that the locals with a high percentage of Central States Pension Fund members usually went for Leedham.

Some of the locals where Central States Pension Fund Teamsters voted for Leedham include Charlotte, N.C., Atlanta, Houston, Oklahoma City and the state of Tennessee (which voted 63 percent for Leedham overall). Leedham carried St. Louis Joint Council 13 on the strength of his support from CSPF Teamsters. In Ohio, Leedham captured 49 percent of the vote overall and and a clear majority of the CSPF vote.

Across the Midwest the pattern continued, including Des Moines Local 90 and Detroit Local 243. Hopefully the Hoffa leadership will get the message. It is time for change in the Central States, and in the pension policies of the IBT.

• Teamsters want information: Hoffa hid the crisis at Central States until after members ratified the national contracts. The International Union should stop keeping members in the dark and ask all Teamster pension trustees to make the facts and options available to members before benefit cuts are made.
• Teamsters want to stand up to the cuts: After employers demanded benefits cuts in the Central States, the Hoffa administration and our union trustees spent three years defending the cuts instead of mounting a fight to protect our pensions. The UPS negotiations are an opportunity to reverse course and unite Teamsters to stand up to our union’s biggest, most profitable employer and say no more cuts.
• We need to organize new employers into our pension funds: Organizing UPS Freight would bring more than 12,000 new participants into our funds. Elsewhere, we can add tens of thousands more Teamsters into the funds without organizing a single unorganized worker. In the West, New England and upstate New York UPS part-timers are in Teamster plans. But part-timers are excluded from the Central States Pension Plan and other Eastern funds. All UPS part-timers need to be brought into Teamster benefit plans in the new contract.

December 5, 2006: Jim Santangelo, the same one who holds his conferences at Waikiki Beach, signs his letters as the “CEO” of Local 848. This terrible idea, local Teamster leaders calling themselves the “CEO” of the local, started with him in Los Angeles and seems to be spreading in the West. Should our local unions be imitating the worst in corporations? We don’t think so.

December 5, 2006: Tom Leedham’s campaign for Teamster General President did more than win 35 percent of the vote. It strengthened our union for the future.

Since the 1997 UPS strike, employers have been on the offensive against our union. We have lost 150,000 members. Overnite defeated our organizing drive, paving the way for UPS to purchase it and operate it nonunion. And hundreds of thousands of Teamsters have suffered the first big pension and benefits cuts in Teamster history.

Hoffa tried to silence any debate of these problems by keeping all opposition off the ballot. TDU protected our Right to Vote and gave members a choice.

Tom Leedham’s campaign put pension and benefit cuts, contracts and organizing in the spotlight and outlined an action plan for rebuilding Teamster power.

Leedham’s message resonated with Teamsters across North America. He received his strongest support from Teamsters who are covered by national contracts negotiated by Hoffa and members whose pension or health benefits were cut by Hoffa’s trustees.

He won numerous freight and UPS locals, the strategic industries that are the foundation of Teamster power, including Chicago Local 705, Detroit Local 243, New York Local 804, St. Louis locals 604 and 688 and numerous others.

The Teamsters who know Tom Leedham best, the members of Oregon Local 206, supported him by a whopping 93 percent margin. Hoffa carried his own home Local 614 by just 26 votes.

Time for Hoffa to Drop Attacks and Reach Out to Rank and File
During the campaign, Hoffa attacked Teamsters who disagree with him as union busters. Leedham won dozens of locals, several major urban areas (including Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, and St. Louis) and several states. Are all 100,000 Teamsters who voted for Leedham really friends of the employers?

Hoffa won’t solve our union’s problems by attacking every Teamster who disagrees with him. The low voter turnout in this election shows that members are tired of negative attacks and PR.
It’s time for Hoffa to drop the attacks and accept that our union is a democracy where members have different opinions and ideas. That’s a good thing. Debate draws members into our union and that’s where union power starts.

Instead of attacking members who disagree with him, Hoffa should reach out to all Teamsters and build campaigns that unite all Teamsters. That’s how we’ll win strong contracts, good benefits, and organize the nonunion competition.