June 20, 2008: Last November, Ralphs grocery announced plans to open an automated center in Paramount, Calif. by 2010.

Ralphs warned they might move Teamster work away from their existing facilities, saying: “Automated capability does improve efficiencies and requires less labor.”

The new facility will be built and operated by Witron, a European firm that is already launching other automated facilities in the U.S. and Europe.

Of course, these new automated warehouses cannot totally replace humans with machines. But they do automate many traditional warehouse jobs.

Here’s how selection works in one of the new facilities: Cases are kept on small metal trays, each tagged with a barcode. When an order is being picked, an overhead crane picks up the trays and moves them onto a conveyor belt.

From there, the cases go to a Case Order Machine (COM), which sorts the cases, decides the order to stack them, and puts them on a pallet.

A typical Witron COM can handle 550 cases in an hour, and build a new pallet every eight minutes. A typical Witron facility has 16 COMs putting out over 120 pallets an hour.

Workers still load and unload pallets from trailers. And about five percent of all goods cannot be handled by the system—requiring manual selection.

A Slow Change

Most Teamster warehouse jobs aren’t in danger yet. The switch to automated warehousing will be slow, because the new technology is still very expensive.

But there’s one thing we can be sure of: employers will keep trying to use new technology to reduce the number of Teamsters on the payroll.

Already many of the largest warehousers are rolling out massive new automated facilities.

A Union Plan

Our union has the right to bargain over how new technology will affect our jobs—and we need to use it. When automated warehousing threatened jobs in Minnesota Local 120, the local began a training program to educate stewards and members about the new facilities.

They also bargained to get job training for warehouse Teamsters to fix and maintain the complicated machinery in new facilities.

We need more of this approach: a driver training program would help displaced Teamster warehousemen find new Teamster jobs.

Our union needs a national strategy to deal with new technology at the bargaining table.

We also need more organizing. The new facilities still require people to unload the trailers. Nonunion lumpers have taken over many jobs that used to be Teamster. The International has started a program to organize those jobs.

That still leaves the hundred of thousands of nonunion workers in warehouses and retail distribution centers. Organizing those workers would give us more power to protect Teamster jobs.

June 20, 2008: This is going to be a year of change for freight Teamsters: whether we end up stronger or weaker depends on how we deal with the changes that are coming.

These changes can be summed up in terms like these: utility employees, Glen Moore line haul, and $14 casuals. These aren’t changes we wanted, but how we deal with them as Teamsters will shape our union power and job security in the future.

As one union president said, “If the companies can’t make money with all we’ve given up, then they sure as hell need new management.”

Utility Employees

In the YRC changes of operations in May the International gave the company what they wanted. Locals that argued for some limits and job protections were shot down. Bidding is going on now and they will soon implement the new utility employee (UE) program.

ABF’s change will follow. It builds on what they did earlier with Premium Service. ABF plans to submit another proposed change of operations later this year to spread the UE program to the West.

Now it’s up to our locals and members to monitor how all this is working and to enforce the contract, so we don’t slip further backward. There are lots of issues that are going to emerge, in terms of protecting work and avoiding playing one local against another. We expect management to be testing us with the new operation to see how much they can get away with.

Glen Moore Pulls YRC Loads

YRC is starting to utilize its nonunion truckload division, Glen Moore, to divert line haul work. Under the new contract, they can divert four percent of all road work this year and in 2009 to a designated truckload carrier (Glen Moore), which they will let the Teamsters organize, but under a cheap contract, below the NMFA. That four percent will grow to nine percent subcontracting by 2012.

YRC has already started this operation, as Teamsters west of Kansas City can tell you from seeing the Glen Moore teams pulling NMFA freight.

The IBT is supposed to check the operation monthly, using detailed company reports to enforce the contract and the four percent limit. Those reports should be made available to every affected local to help with enforcement. Bid drivers are protected for each dispatch day, and extra board drivers during the dispatch week, at the point of origin of the subcontracted loads.

$14 casuals

YRC is advertising in many areas to hire $14 dock casuals; we don’t have many reports of them being used, due to the freight slowdown and layoffs at many terminals. But in the future, we can expect the company to try to extensively use labor that costs less than half of seniority Teamster labor.

All the more important that every local strictly enforce the contract language that requires hiring when supplemental casuals are used over 30 shifts in a 60-day period (or whatever language the specific supplement provides).

Yellow Roadway CEO Bill Zollars stated in mid-June that the freight recession has “stabilized” and he expects to see improvement before the end of year. As freight volume increases, the new flexibility the employers have in the contract will be put into much heavier use.

We need to insist that the International and our locals police the contract, and it’s up to us to start doing it in the terminals.

June 26, 2008: By a vote of 281-15, freight Teamsters in Chicago Local 705 passed a strike authorization vote that gave their negotiating team a strong message to take back to the bargaining table.

The vote came in the wake of a number of bargaining sessions in April and May that led to little progress. Prior to voting at the union hall, members received a thorough update on bargaining.

A number of Teamsters spoke from the floor stating their opposition to using the recently ratified National Master Freight contract (NMFA) as the model for the 705 pact.

The vote was a rebuke to a recent statement made in negotiations by TMI/YRC bargaining chair, Phil Stanoch, “705 will not get anything more than what we agreed to with the National contract.”

However, when bargaining came to a standstill in May, a company negotiator confirmed their proposals were not the “last, best and final offer.” The strike vote could encourage a shift in the employer bargaining positions.

Local 705 has historically bargained separate contracts and traditionally garnered some improvements over the NMFA.

Clearly, Chicago Teamsters expect more from this contract.

You can learn more about the contract situation and the union’s demands from the Local 705 website: www.teamsterslocal705.org

June 20, 2008: All Teamsters want to work safely, without injury. But company programs that put the blame on union members—rather than unsafe working conditions—won’t make our jobs safer.

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) members and divisions are saying no to company spy programs that don’t improve our safety.

On the Union Pacific, management and some union leaders are working on a “Total Safety Culture” program.

The program sends out special Implementation-Teams (“I-Teams”), made up of management and union reps, to observe union members on the job.

The I-Teams are not supposed to discipline workers, but the opportunities for abuse are obvious.

The observations and the resulting data are supposed to remain totally anonymous. But the UP has already started awarding prizes to the employee who agrees to be observed the most times.

Members Say No to Spying

Other divisions are not going along.

In Selkirk, N.Y., CSX used information gathered by a joint union-company safety committee to discipline members.

Members of Selkirk BLET Division 867 voted unanimously to leave the company’s safety committee.

In Atlanta, Norfolk Southern asked BLET Division 316 to participate in safety audits.

While the division agreed in principle to audit unsafe infrastructure, it refused to monitor or observe union employees—a move that would have divided the union.

Railroad Workers United, a rank-and-file organization on the railroad, is organizing a nationwide campaign to educate members about the Blame the Worker safety programs, and what they can do to respond.

Contact RWU at info [at] railroadworkersunited.org (info [at] railroadworkersunited.org).

June 20, 2008: The Hoffa administration has targeted Santa Rosa, Calif. Local 624 for a potential trusteeship. A trusteeship hearing was held on June 3 on charges of financial misconduct. But some Teamsters are asking if the real goal of a trusteeship is a forced merger of Local 624.

Former Secretary-Treasurer Bob Carr resigned after it came to light that his daughter, a clerical employee at the local, embezzled more than $8,000 in union funds to pay off personal credit card debt. The misappropriated funds were paid back to the local.

The trusteeship hearing focused on this issue as well as allegations that local union officials regularly used the union credit card to pay for lunches that were unrelated to union business and that clerical employees claimed excessive overtime.

Local 624 officers say that the meal expenses were for union business and the current Executive Board played no role in misuse of the union’s funds.

Merger Target

Local 624 has been the target of a proposed merger with Local 315 in Martinez, Calif. and Local 490 in Vallejo, Calif.

Local 624 officers rejected the proposal. That’s when International Rep Steve Mack threatened Local 624 with trusteeship.

The three-way merger between locals 624, 315, and 490 is one of several mergers that have been promoted in Northern California by Mack and other Hoffa administration regional power brokers.

Mack’s own local recently merged with Local 853 which is headed by his brother-in-law Rome Aloise. The locals had already been through a combined 15 mergers! The new Local 853 now has 12,000 members spread out over a large stretch of Northern California.

Many members and officers have expressed concern over this trend toward mega-mergers and what they mean for local union autonomy and the ability of working Teamsters to meaningfully participate in their locals.

Fighting Corruption, Protecting Democracy

Teamsters for a Democratic Union championed the right of members to vote on local union mergers—and we won that right at the 2001 Teamster Convention.

The Teamster Constitution states that before a local union can be merged, the merger must be approved by a vote of both the local union executive board and the membership of the local union to be merged (Article IX, Section 11).

The Hoffa administration needs to respect this right at Local 624—and beyond.

The financial improprieties at Local 624 need to be cleaned up and prevented from ever reoccurring. The local’s treasury belongs to the membership. It’s not a piggy bank for local officials or union staff.

But a corruption clean-up will not have credibility if it is seen as a cover for forcing through an unpopular local union merger.

Local 624 members need to hold Hoffa accountable to the Teamster Constitution and make sure that with or without trusteeship, there will be no merger of their local union without a vote of the membership.

June 30, 2008: Hundreds of thousands of Teamsters are African American, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the Teamsters General Executive Board. Out of 26 voting members, only one is Black.

“We need a union leadership that looks like our membership,” says Willie Hardy, a retiree and long-time Teamster and community leader in Memphis Local 667.

“Our top leadership is less diverse than the boards of many of the companies we fight against.”

Black Teamsters have been working for decades to win more representation for African Americans in leadership at all levels of our union. Their work has built our union’s power for everyone.

More progress needs to be made if we’re going to build a union that taps the leadership skills of all of our members.

Teamsters National Black Caucus

At the 1971 Teamster Convention in Miami, Black officers and union representatives decided to do something about the lack of representation in the union’s top spots. Back then, there were no African Americans on the General Executive Board.

Black Teamsters were also angry that organizer jobs at the International were off-limits to African-Americans.

This group of local officers and representatives gave birth to the Teamster National Black Caucus.

In 1976, Black Teamsters won a victory at the next convention, when John Cleveland, the head of Washington, D.C. Local 730, became the first African American added to the union’s executive board.

But even that victory was bittersweet, recalled Ed Kornegay, the late head of Local 922 in D.C.

Frank Fitzsimmons, Teamster General President at the time, kept the appointment secret from Cleveland until he announced it on the floor of the convention. “Otherwise,” Kornegay remembered, “we would have had time to make sure family and supporters were in the hall and could celebrate this historic moment.”

The National Black Caucus will hold its next meeting on Aug. 18-24 in St. Louis.

More Progress Needed

Cleveland and other TNBC pioneers helped make our union stronger and more inclusive. But there’s more work needed.

Latinos and women make up a growing section of our union. But there’s only one woman with a vote on the GEB—and no Latinos. (One other woman and a Latino hold non-voting trustee positions).

Our International Union created a Human Rights Commission under the slogan, “A Strong Union Involves Everyone.” But actions speak louder than words.

Last year, our union had an opportunity to increase representation on the GEB, when Frank Gillen was removed as an International Vice President.

The General Executive Board filled the vacancy with Bill Hamilton—ignoring the many qualified Black, Latino and women leaders in our union. Out of 26 voting members on the General Executive Board, 24 are white men.

“The lack of representation sends a message to employers that they can treat members as second-class citizens,” says Michael Savwoir, a UPS feeder driver in Kansas City Local 41. “We’ve got to send a different message.”

New Leaders

“We need change in our union at all levels,” says Toni Jackson, a UPS Teamster in Memphis Local 667. “It starts with educating members to enforce our contracts and recruiting members to run for steward. That’s what I try to do in my local.”

In 2006, Jackson took her long experience as a steward to the next level, when she ran for Southern Region Vice President on the Tom Leedham Strong Contracts, Good Pensions Slate. She narrowly lost.

More Black Teamsters are taking up the challenge by becoming leaders at the local level—as officers, stewards, and active members.

“The fact that only one African American is on this board is sad. We have hundreds of thousands of African Americans who pay dues,” says Nichele Fulmore, a steward in North Carolina Local 391. “It’s up to us to change our union. Those of us who are active in the union have to motivate other members to get involved.”

“TDU has been training Teamster members for 32 years on how to get more involved in our union,” says Willie Hardy. “We give members the tools they need to deal with grievances, win strong contracts, or run for local union office.”

A strong union involves everyone. And it’s up to all of us to make it happen.

Black Teamsters will have a special meeting at the upcoming Teamsters for a Democratic Union Convention, Oct. 24-26 in Cleveland.

June 14, 2008: Local 355 Teamsters came from UPS, U.S. Foods, Sysco, Giant, and DHL on Sunday, June 8 to discuss the pension freeze in the Local 355 fund.

In March, the Local 355 fund cut the annual accrual rate to zero. That means members’ pensions are frozen and they are not earning any new benefits for hours worked since March 1.

A Plan for Improvements?

At the meeting, pension attorney Ann Curry Thompson explained how the new rules in the Pension Protection Act affect the fund, and Local 355 feeder driver Gary Payne talked about how members were kept in the dark while the funds’ investments under-performed year after year.

With the help of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, members have acquired documents from January recommending the pension cut. In the document, the plan’s actuary warned that “without any changes in benefits or contributions the plan is expected to be in the ‘Red Zone.’”

But the report does not make projections on how the cuts will impact the fund.

“It’s up to our union leaders to have a plan for restoring the benefits,” said Payne. “But they have no plan.” The fund has sent Payne a letter stating that the fund is now in the Green Zone, but they do not say when they will improve the benefits.

Now members are working with Thompson to request new documents projecting how the cuts will affect the benefit fund.

Click here to view the actuary’s report.

Click here to view the letter stating the fund is in the Green Zone.

A Pension Bill of Rights

At the end of the meeting, UPS Teamster Ron Reinhardt talked about what members can do to win benefit improvements. “We’ve got to talk to more members and spread the word to get this job done,” Reinhardt said.

“Already just a few of us have been able to get more pension info from our union than they would have ever given us on their own. Imagine what we can accomplish if more members speak out and get involved.”

Members are circulating a petition demanding a Pension Bill of Rights that would guarantee:

• The right to an accrual and a decent pension.
• The right to information about the fund.
• And the right to have a say when cuts are threatened—including the right to know all the options the trustees are considering.

Click here to download a copy of the Pension Bill of Rights that Local 355 Teamsters are circulating.

Click here to download the Local 355 pension petition.

Tell us what you think. Click here to ask a question or to let us know how you can help.

June 12, 2008: On June 9 the International Union finally followed the recommendation of the Independent Review Board (IRB) and placed Chicago Local 714 into trusteeship.

The letter from James Hoffa lists a number of reasons, including job favoritism for the Hogan family, refusal to transfer assets that belong to trade show members to their new local, continued contact with banned members Billy and Robert Hogan, and refusing to cooperate in the monitoring of the local’s finances.

The letter also notes that Billy Hogan, the former head of Joint Council 25 and former running mate of James Hoffa, suddenly appeared as an employer representative to bargain a contract with Local 727.

The IRB banned Billy Hogan from Teamsters after he attempted to impose a sweetheart contract on Las Vegas trade show Teamsters, at a company partially owned by a member of Hogan’s family.

The IRB recommended a trusteeship in August 2007, but Hoffa has avoided that step for the past ten months. Instead, in April the Joint Council transferred the Trade Show and Movie Teamsters to Local 727, headed by Joint Council 25 president John Coli.

Terry Hancock has been appointed the trustee. Hancock is the president of Local 731 and also draws salaries from Joint Council 25 and the International.

The local was placed into trusteeship in 1996 by Teamster president Ron Carey, for many of the same reasons. However, the Hogan family regained power afterward, when members failed to build a strong enough movement to defeat the Hogan machine in the subsequent election.

It will be up to members to avoid repeating that history.