July 19, 2013: What is the Hoffa administration's plan for the rejected supplements? Will members be consulted about what should be changed in the rejected supplements? Will the IBT heed the call to re-do the defective vote? 

So far, members have heard nothing from the administration except lies and threats.

After we received reports of ballot problems and questions from numerous members, including observers at the vote count, TDU Attorney Barbara Harvey requested detailed information based on the certification of the vote results. That was on July 12. No response has been received to date.

Local officers have heard nothing about what will be renegotiated (if anything!) in the rejected supplements, including the Central Region cartage and road supplements, the Carolina road supplement, etc. Members expect reasonable changes, in line with the supplemental rejections and big No vote.

What is trickling down to ABF Teamsters from Hoffa is a bunch of lies and threats. The latest one is that on August 1, Teamsters could lose their health coverage. Baloney. The August 1 health fund increase of 50¢ will be paid up retroactively to the H&W funds; even leaders of doubtful competence should be able to handle this issue.

ABF Teamsters have paid their dues in more ways than one. They are going to take a wage cut of about $5,000 per year. They deserve respect and support from the International union, not lies and threats.

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

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July 8, 2013: The International Union has a thorough summary of the new DOT regulations now in effect.  While much of this will impact nonunion operators and drivers more than union, a few parts are very relevant to many drivers. 

Examples of important things to note are the prohibition on the use of hand-held phones (page 15 in the summary); the prohibition on more than eight hours of consecutive driving (page 11), which now outlaws for example a UPS package car driver or cartage driver working all day and then taking their lunch as the end, to get off earlier.

The changes in the 34-hour reset (page 10) will affect nonunion drivers primarily, and will probably have no impact on Teamsters. This 2004 memo from the IBT Freight Division on the 34-hour reset is presumably still in force.

July 5, 2013: The national contract was deemed passed by the IBT, by just 245 votes. 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, due to irregularities that could far exceed 245 votes.

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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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.

Click here to send us a message.

YRC said in the filing it’s buying back the debt securities with cash on hand for face value plus any interest accrued since the notes were issued in 2004. The company issued nearly $248 million worth of the notes that year at 5 percent interest, according to the filing.

As of June 26, there was just $269,000 worth of the notes still outstanding. Shareholders can surrender their notes beginning July 11 through Aug. 7, according to the company.

In the past, YRC relied heavily on debt financing of its operations, which significantly contributed to the company’s struggles when the recession hit trucking in 2007. Eventually, a total restructuring of its debt, labor agreements, operations and leadership helped YRC improve its business.

Most recently, the company and the Teamsters agreed on an “optimization plan” that would close some YRC Freight facilities around the country to better streamline operations and cost structures.

YRC owns a large warehouse in Middlesex Township, Cumberland County, and is the parent of Lebanon-based New Penn Motor Express Inc.

In the first quarter, YRC provided at least some indication it was on the right track. Its losses were just $21 million compared with nearly $80 million a year ago. The company is scheduled to release its second-quarter earnings on July 29.

YRC’s stock price also rose steadily from $7.76 on May 2 to $25.70 at close on Tuesday, or a 231 percent increase in two months, according to Google Finance.

YRC Worldwide trades its stock on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol YRCW.

Updated July 3, 2013: The ABF master contract has been ratified by a vote of 3,210 yes to 2,965 no. Most of the big terminals, such as Atlanta, Chicago, and Dayton rejected the contract heavily; except for Carlisle, Pa. Many smaller terminals and many in the West voted yes, to provide the majority.

Some supplemental agreements were rejected, so the contract cannot be implemented until those are settled and re-voted.

Some 7,753 ballots were mailed out, so it was about an 80% turnout.

We will post more details, including the local-by-local vote count and reports on the supplemental votes, as they become available.

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June 27, 2013: Updated 11:30 a.m. The ballots have been picked up from the post office and counting of ballots on the ABF national contract will start later today. There is no count yet on the number of ballots, but turnout looks good, according to independent rank and file observers are present at the count site.

Stay tuned for updates and the local-by-local vote count as it progresses. 

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ABF Teamsters Discuss Contract

YRC Worldwide Inc. (YRCW), the trucker that escaped bankruptcy twice in the last four years, jumped the most in a month after Standpoint Research initiated coverage of the stock with the only buy rating.

YRC rose 15 percent to $25.70 at the close in New York, the biggest gain since May 15, after Standpoint’s Director of Research, Ronnie Moas, wrote in a note that shares could double by next year.

The trucker is poised to benefit as an improving economy boosts shipping volumes and management works to cut costs, Moas said. Before today, there were four sell and four hold recommendations on the stock among analysts’ ratings compiled by Bloomberg.

“The company was left for dead,” Moas said in a phone interview from Miami Beach, Florida. “They were on the brink of extermination. The gains you’ve seen today may be a drop in the bucket compared to what you’ll see in the next few years.”

YRC has surged more than threefold this year compared to a 17 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s Supercomposite Trucking Index, which doesn’t include the Overland Park, Kansas-based company.

DHL Express officially opened the $46 million expansion of its U.S. air hub here in an effort to build market share and sustain double-digit package and express volume growth.

“This is a major step forward for us,” said Ian Clough, CEO of DHL Express U.S., speaking on June 13 at DHL’s facility at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. “The U.S. is a significant part of our global market. This will position us for growth for the next five years.”

U.S. volume growth was 11% last year over 2011, after an 18% jump the previous year, DHL said.

In the four years since DHL located its hub in the Cincinnati area, the Germany-based postal, freight, express and logistics operator has spent more than $100 million to create a location that handles about 125,000 packages daily. With the expansion, capacity is 240,000 packages a day.

The ceremony included a ribbon- cutting by Deutsche Post DHL CEO Frank Appel and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, as well as tours of the new 180,000-square-foot sorting facility, which has the capacity to handle at least 10% annual express shipment growth for the next five years.

“We have grown the business very successfully,” Appel said. “We definitely expect this expansion will help us to grow the business incrementally. We have gained market share from UPS and FedEx.”

DHL’s U.S. presence is focused on Cincinnati as its hub airport, where nearly 40% of its 5,500 U.S. employees work.

DHL exited the U.S. domestic package business in 2009, ending a five-year experiment that cost the company close to $10 billion and forced it to trim more than 9,000 jobs. Its U.S. air hub at Wilmington, Ohio, was relocated to Cincinnati as the company kept its international service to and from the United States.

Clough told TT the express unit expansion would not make any changes in DHL’s ground freight operations, other than handling more packages and freight. The company uses its own delivery fleet, except in remote areas, where it deploys contractors.

Growth in the United States has been fueled by growing trade with Australia and selected European markets, such as Germany, and includes products such as auto parts, electronics and e-commerce, Clough said.

The U.S. market accounts for about 50% of DHL Express revenue in the Americas, Clough said. In the first quarter, DHL revenue in North and South America was about $700 million, or 16% of total DHL Express revenue.

Also last week, DHL announced a temperature-controlled airfreight service called Thermonet, which targets health care and related industries and has 24-hour monitoring. The new offering will be part of DHL’s existing service to that market.

DHL’s largest holding in the United States is Exel, Westerville, Ohio, the logistics operator that ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 50 companies in that sector.

Total Deutsche Post corporate revenue in the first quarter was $17 billion, including nearly $5 billion from the postal operation. By comparison, UPS Inc., which ranks No. 1 on the TT Top 100 list of for-hire carriers, had first-quarter revenue of $13.4 billion.

However, UPS’ operating profit outpaced Deutsche Post’s performance, with operating income of $1.58 billion at the U.S. company, compared with 711 million euros, or $925 million, at Deutsche Post.

June 18, 2013: The vote counts on the UPS, UPS Freight and ABF contracts have been screwed up in too many ways to count.

When our contracts are being voted on, Teamster members deserve a ballot process they can have confidence in. If you work for 25 or 30 years, you may only get to vote on about five contracts, determining your benefits, wages and working conditions.

Consider just a few examples:

• Many thousands of UPS Teamsters received the wrong ballot return envelopes, directing their ballot to the UPS Freight vote count post office box. These ballots now have to be sorted and re-directed at the count.
   
• The International Union sent so many wrong ballots to the 10,000 UPS Teamsters of Louisville Local 89 that the IBT had to mail out a second ballot. Members who voted with the first ballots had to revote. Local 89 ballots are due by Saturday, June 22 as a result.
   
• The members of Indianapolis Local 135 also received the wrong ballot materials, with incorrect information about their benefit plan. A second ballot was mailed, and is now due on June 26.
   
• Every ABF Teamster was sent incorrect ballot instructions which say that a No vote is a vote to accept the agreement!
   
• Numerous ABF, UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters have received postcards and mailers urging them to vote yes… for the wrong contract.

Worst of all, many Teamsters were denied their right to vote altogether because they never got a ballot—even after they promptly notified their local.

In Orange County Local 952, the situation is so bad that even the stewards did not get a ballot! The local union claims that they are all coded as "inactive" by the International. Early requests for replacement ballots has yielded no results.

The IBT could have addressed this widespread problem by simply extending all voting by a week, as was done for Local 135 already. The vote count could have gone forward as planned with a supplementary vote count next week. Instead, thousands of Teamsters will be disenfranchised.

The International Union's keystone cop routine undermines members' confidence—not just in the IBT leadership but in the Teamster democratic process. That's bad for our union no matter how you're voting on the contract.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union will be there to observe the vote count. TDU members have won critical contract voting rights. The voting process on the contracts this year shows more remains to be done.