January 26, 2007: These contract improvements would restore and strengthen our pensions:

• Higher Contributions. UPS is making record profits (more than $4 billion in after-tax profits last year alone). More of that money needs to go to financing a secure retirement for the Teamsters who make this company run.
• Include UPS Part-Timers in All Teamster Pension Funds. Part-timers are not included in Teamster pension plans in the Central States and in much of the East. But in the West, New England and Upstate New York, they are. Why not everywhere? That would put tens of thousands of younger Teamsters into our pension plans and add hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions every year. For most part-timers who stay on at UPS and go full time their part time years count only as a reciprocal benefit when they retire—a very low benefit. However, if they were in the same pension plan as full-timers the part time years would be worth much more allowing a better retirement benefit.
• Include UPS Freight Employees in Teamster Pension Plans. UPS employs 15,000 nonunion drivers and dock workers at UPS Freight. We need to use our bargaining power to unionize these workers and bring them into Teamster benefit plans. That would add some $180 million in pension contributions to our funds every year. If we let management keep this growing sector out of our union pension plan, we're undermining our future.
• 15,000 Full-Time Jobs. Every full-time job at UPS means more contributions and stronger pension funds. We need to create more than another 10,000 full-time jobs in this contract, to strengthen our pension plans and bring full time opportunities to all UPS’ers.
• Strong Subcontracting Language That’s Enforced: When management subcontracts out feeder work, they are robbing our pension funds of contributions. We need stiffer penalties and stronger contract enforcement to stop subcontracting.
• Organize other UPS Subsidiaries. UPS owns and operates many other subsidiaries including Supply Change Solutions (UPS Logistics) UPS SonicAir, and others.

January 26, 2007: First UPS demanded benefit cuts in out major Teamster pension plans.Now, management is trying to convince us that they have the solution to our pension problems.With our pension and retiree health benefits at stake, it's ciritical that working Teamsters get the facts.

Fact:

UPS’s Plan Would Mean a Smaller Pension
UPS management wants us to believe that the company would deliver better retirement benefits. In fact, management’s own figures show that UPS would provide a smaller pension. How small? Try $2,811 a month for a Teamster retiring today after 30 years. That’s less than any Teamster pension plan.

Testifying before the Congressional Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations on March 18, 2004, UPS Senior Vice President John McDevitt testified that the company could earn 7.5 percent growth per year on pension fund assets. That’s a realistic number. It’s the same figure used by most pension funds.

You can calculate exactly how much the company would pool for your retirement by using the pension contributions our union has won over the last 30 years and appreciating it 7.5 percent every year. For example, if you started full-time UPS work 30 years ago, at age 28, and worked every single week, with no illnesses or injuries, the total funds in your retirement account would be $395,600.

That sounds like a lot of money, but remember it has to last you for your entire retirement. In the example above, you are 58 years old and could live another 25 or 30 years. In his Congressional testimony, McDevitt gave a conversion factor to turn that lump-sum into a monthly pay-out. According to management’s own formula, your monthly pension would be $2,811 per month for life.

This is less than any Teamster 30-and-out pension pays! And it gets even worse. When we checked with independent brokers, they reported that management’s conversion factor was inflated and that no one would give that high a monthly pay-out based on that lump sum.

Why does a UPS fund come up short of a Teamster plan—even using management’s own figures? Because in a Teamster pension, you don’t just collect on contributions made on yourself. You also collect on the contributions from Teamsters who didn’t work long enough to “vest” and earn a pension. In a union plan, that uncollected money is used to boost the pensions of Teamster retirees. In a company plan, that uncollected pension money goes to management.

If you want a copy of McDevitt’s testimony on behalf of UPS, and a spreadsheet showing the contributions and their worth for each year at management’s own 7.5 percent formula, contact TDU.

Fact:

UPS Has Fought to Cut Our Pension
Management is spinning a lot of PR to try to convince us that they will look out for our pension. But actions speak louder than words.
Here is UPS management’s record when it comes to our pensions:
u UPS management’s representative to the Central States Pension Fund voted to cut our pensions and opposed a motion to increase employer contributions.

• UPS management’s representative to the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Fund voted for benefit cuts, even though that fund is 100 percent funded.
• UPS management has 50 percent of the trustees on the Local 804 and Local 177 pension funds that cover New York City and most of New Jersey. UPS’s trustees demanded cuts and got them in New York, and are trying to get them in New Jersey, where they are now deadlocked to an arbitrator.
• UPS management refused to pay millions of dollars owed to two pension funds, in Virginia and New York. In Virginia, management stopped making required pension contributions when members were on vacation.
• UPS has been the number one supporter of legislation that would make it easier to cut our benefits.

Management hasn’t been looking out for our retirement; they’re leading the attack on our benefits. Management’s goal is to gain control of our pensions, with the ultimate goal of breaking our union altogether.

Other Teamster employers are pursuing exactly the same strategy. At Pepsi, management has succeeded in getting some local groups of Pepsi and Frito-Lay Teamsters out of union pension plans. In every case, this was followed by an attempt to bust the union.

No union means no bargaining means they pay what they want for wages, health care and pensions.

Fact:

Teamster Solidarity Increases Our Benefits
Management wants us to believe that the company is ‘subsidizing’ other employers and that UPS Teamsters are losing out by being a plan with other Teamsters.

The fact is that UPS Teamsters won the benefits we have today by joining forces with other Teamsters. Freight Teamsters won record pension contributions from their employers in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s and built up our union pension plans when UPS was relatively small.

In the 1990s, UPSers teamed up with freight and other Teamsters to win the first 25- and 30-and-out benefits. That’s the power of Teamster solidarity.

Today, UPS is the largest single employer in the Central States Fund, Western Conference Fund, and most others. But the company is still only about 20 percent of the participants in those funds; some 80 percent are other Teamsters.

Our power to win benefit improvements comes through Teamster unity—not trusting management to take care of us in our retirement.

By Gina Alvarez, Local 743 Steward, CSPF Office, Chicago

There are 335 Teamsters who work at the Central States Funds office, and we had not had a steward’s election for over four years. A group of us contacted Local 743 regarding holding elections, and as usual there was no response.

We started a petition to hold an election for new stewards. When we were done, more than two-thirds of the membership had signed up to ask for a new election.

I contacted TDU, the IBT and other individuals knowledgeable of the process (in the area) for help in determining how we should force Local 743 to respond to our requests. It felt as if Local 743 was impeding or blocking the election.

In the end, we prevailed thanks to the efforts of many Central States Teamsters who helped achieve our goal.

We got a new election, and I was elected shop steward along with three other members.

I take my election as union steward very seriously and will do my best to fairly represent every member of Local 743 at Central States.

I finally feel that we can make a difference in steward leadership here at the Funds as well as have a positive impact on Local 743.

January 26, 2007: The “Fighting for the Future” slate is getting organized to make positive changes for all 4,300 Local 726 members in metro Chicago.

Local 726 members work for the City of Chicago, Chicago Transit Authority the State of Illinois, Illinois Toll way, Police Departments, Fire Departments and other public sector work places around the state. The contract at City of Chicago expires July 1, 2007.

Fighting for the Future
“We’ve been reaching out to members over the past year, gathering information on the state of Local 726. We’ve heard the complaints and the concerns. We’ve set up a web site (www.fightingforthefuture.com) filled with news about our local.

Now it’s time to make some changes,” said Vince Tenuto, candidate for Secretary-Treasurer, a City of Chicago driver and TDU member.
Joe Vercillo, a driver at O’Hare International Airport stated, “Now is our members’ time to fight for their future. It’s all about our contracts. Those affect each and every member of Local 726. That is why we picked the name Fighting for the Future.” Vercillo is a 25-year Teamster, a proud TDU member and candidate for President.

“We want Local 726 members to understand that an informed and involved membership is our best bet for making the union strong,” said Vercillo. “Working Teamsters know the day-to-day issues that need to be in the contracts and they need a say at the bargaining table. We have a great movement going and we can win in the upcoming election this December.”

Bylaws Reform
Local 726 members from the Fighting for the Future slate introduced bylaws changes at the January general membership meeting, calling for the proper scheduling of contract proposal meetings and membership elections for the negotiating teams. They also put forward bylaws amendments on changing the monthly meeting day and time so more members can attend, and language for reporting member eligibility. All Local 726 members will have the opportunity to vote on these changes at the March general membership meeting. The Fighting for the Future slate asks for members’ support at the upcoming general membership meeting.

Duke Clark, a 14-year, third-generation Teamster, TDU member and candidate for Vice President, summed it up: “Our goal is informing the membership and making Local 726 a union we can all be proud of. The time is now for every Teamster member to step up. Real change takes real commitment. We ask you to join us and help make our local stronger and more democratic.”

If you would like to help your fellow Teamster brothers and sisters pick up the fight you can log on to www.fightingforthefuture.com.

January 26, 2007: In a recent statement on UPS national contract talks, IBT Parcel Division Director Ken Hall announced he would also continue bargaining with UPS Freight on a contract covering 125 employees at the Indianapolis terminal—the only UPS Freight barn represented by our union.

The outcome of the simultaneous contract talks will determine the future of benefits and contract standards for UPS and freight Teamsters alike for years to come.

• Will our union use our bargaining leverage at UPS to win the right to organize UPS Freight company-wide without interference from management?
  u Will the UPS Freight contract protect Teamster standards—or will it undercut the UPS and National Master Freight agreements?
• Will we strengthen our benefits by including UPS Freight in our Teamster funds—or will Hoffa give in to UPS management’s designs to undermine our benefits and break out of the funds?
  

Our union leaders have sent mixed signals about where they stand. With the future on the line, Teamster members need to demand that our negotiators hold the line and protect our future.

Mixed Signals
Standing with Hall and Freight Director Tyson Johnson on the podium at the Teamster Convention, Hoffa announced, “A historic card-check agreement will soon bring 12,000 UPS Freight employees under IBT contract.”

Later it was revealed that the card-check agreement only covered 125 employees at one terminal, just one percent of the company’s workforce.

Now top Teamster officials are openly saying that UPS Freight Teamsters may be kept out of our union pension plans. Brad Slawson, General Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel’s right-hand man and an International rep in the Freight Division, announced at a union meeting that any contract with UPS Freight will probably not include the Central States Pension Plan.

If Slawson is right, that would be a disaster to Teamster efforts to reverse our benefit cuts. UPS Freight would add $180 million in contributions to Teamster pension plans every year—strengthening our benefits and protecting our funds for the future.

A UPS Freight contract that fails to include the Central States Pension, and other Teamster pension plans, should be rejected by the Freight Division and the IBT.

Organizing UPS Freight Wall to Wall
The simultaneous negotiations with UPS and UPS Freight increase our bargaining power and give us the leverage we need to win a company-wide contract at UPS Freight that meets or beats NMFA standards.

Yellow Roadway CEO Bill Zollars has already announced that any deal between the Teamsters and UPS Freight will “set precedent” for the National Master Freight Agreement. Zollars has also expressed interest in early bargaining. Translation: if our union settles short at UPS Freight, Yellow Roadway wants early talks to bargain the same concessions.

The UPS Freight contract will also set the standard for other nonunion freight competitors we need to organize. A weak UPS Freight agreement would also give UPS the incentive to siphon away work done by UPS feeder drivers.

The IBT needs to put the power of 215,000 UPS Teamsters behind the 125 Teamsters at UPS Freight.

UPS management is hungry to settle early. If our union is going to give UPS an early deal, we need to win a company-wide UPS Freight agreement that meets the standards set by the NMFA and UPS contracts, including strong Teamster benefits.

President Hoffa and our union negotiators need to make it clear to the company and to Teamster members that we will settle for nothing less. If and when he does, Teamster members need to get behind him in this fight.

January 26, 2007: Eight hundred Kroger Teamsters in Louisville, Ky. are still fighting for their jobs. On Jan. 13, Local 89 members voted unanimously to approve a strike if Kroger goes ahead with plans to outsource its Kentucky Distribution Center.

As we reported in the last issue of Convoy, Kroger wants to outsource the management of its Louisville facility to two third-party logistics companies: Transervice Logistics would take over the trucking operation, while Zenith Logistics would get the warehouse.

As we go to press, Kroger still has not completed the sale of the facility, which began in October. Local 89 has broken off negotiations with Kroger over the transfer and is preparing for a strike when the company completes the sale.

Kroger may attempt to complete the deal with Transervice before selling the warehouse—a move some Teamsters see as an attempt to break the union.

“It’s getting nasty,” said Mark “Gator” Horsley, a Teamster at the facility. “The company is trying to split us by selling off the truck side first. But if one goes, we’ll all go out.”

Nathan Perrett, a Kroger Teamster in Local 89, blamed the outsourcing on the incompetence of management: “Management has been running the place down and nobody is holding their feet to the fire. But when something happens, it’s the employees who take the fall.

“Everybody is sticking together. We’re ready to do what we’ve got to do to protect our jobs.”

January 26, 2007: Teamster negotiators have given UPS until just March 31 to negotiate an early agreement.

Now is the time to get involved and to stand strong and united.

Management wants an early deal. We’ve got to Make UPS Deliver or say no to an early settlement.

Our Teamsters National UPS negotiating Committee has scheduled seven weeks of intensive bargaining, beginning the week of Jan. 22, and given UPS until the end of March to reach agreement on an early contract.

UPS is the big dog of the trucking industry. With 215,000 Teamster employees and more than $4 billion in after-tax profits, Big Brown sets the bar for many Teamster contracts to follow, and will be the key to restoring our pensions and retiree healthcare.

No UPS contract has ever been more critical. It’s all on the line: our pension and health benefits; working conditions; organizing the nonunion competition; the future of of Teamster power.

The current six-year UPS contract doesn’t expire until Aug 1, 2008. But shippers and shareholders are pressuring UPS to reach an early settlement.
This gives us leverage—and we need to use it.

In 2002, UPS Teamsters were promised the “Best Contract Ever.” Instead, the contract left key problems at UPS unresolved and ushered in an era of benefit cuts for hundreds of thousands of Teamsters at UPS and beyond.

It’s time to make UPS and our union negotiators deliver the improvements Teamsters were promised five years ago.

So far, the union has said that UPS management has to pony up to secure members’ pension and health benefits for the future. The union has also put forward proposals to deal with excessive overtime, subcontracting, new technology, and the right to organize UPS Freight, Supply Chain Solutions, and other nonunion subsidiaries.

That’s a start. But our negotiators put forward a good initial package in 2002 also. When push came to shove, key issues were pulled. Members were kept in the dark and sold a weak deal that we’re still paying for today.

We can’t let that happen again.

UPS wants an early deal. We’ve got to make them pay for it. We have leverage, if we unite to use it. The company should only get an early settlement if we get what we need. Teamsters can Make UPS Deliver the contract we deserve.

January 26, 2007: UPS Teamsters have launched a rank-and-file campaign to “Make UPS Deliver” the contract that working Teamsters deserve.

“Our goal is to give UPS Teamsters a voice in these negotiations and to make sure that the company and our union negotiators deliver the contract we deserve,” said Michael Savwoir, a Local 41 feeder driver involved in the effort.

The UPS Negotiating Committee kicked off early bargaining in September and has scheduled seven weeks of intensive talks from January 22 to the end of March.

“We have no intention at this point of scheduling talks past the end of March,” said Ken Hall, the co-chair of our Negotiating Committee in an official statement on Jan. 17. “We expect the company to be prepared to negotiate so we can reach agreement on the issues by the end of March.”

Members Kept in the Dark
But despite the compressed timeline and the huge issues at stake, union negotiators have remained quiet about the issues at the table. UPS Teamsters have had little voice in these critical contract talks.

“This is our contract. We need to get involved and show management and our negotiators that we’re paying attention to the issues and we won’t settle short like we did the last contract,” said Darwin Moore, a steward from Local 243 in Detroit. “We’re asking UPS Teamsters who care about our future to get involved. Visit the website. Share your opinions. Pass out bulletins and spread the word.”

MakeUPSdeliver.org
A website will soon be online at makeUPSdeliver.org where Teamsters can get information and post their comments and opinions. Bulletins can be downloaded there to distribute to UPS Teamsters. Flyers and updates are also available by calling TDU.
In 2002, UPS and the Teamsters settled early, two weeks before the contract expiration. UPSers were promised the “Best Contract Ever.” Instead, the contract resulted in the worst pension and benefit cuts in Teamster history.

That contract also left key problems unresolved like excessive overtime, subcontracting, supervisors working, low pay for part-timers and 22.3 workers, unfair job bidding procedures for combo jobs, and a growing nonunion sector at UPS to name a few.
This year, UPS management wants to settle a full year early to keep shippers and stockholders happy, preferably before their 100th Anniversary on August 28. This gives us leverage, and we need to use it.

The company should only get this early settlement if UPS Teamsters get what we need. The power to Vote No and reject an unacceptable offer and send our union and UPS back to the bargaining table gives us the power to win the contract we deserve.

For more information about the “Make UPS Deliver” campaign, visit www.makeUPSDeliver.org or contact TDU today.