January 29, 2008: In a brief order issued Jan. 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a request that the court enforce its orders overturning parts of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's rule limiting the maximum hours that truck drivers may drive and work (Owner-Operator Ind. Drivers Ass'n v. FMCSA, D.C. Cir., No. 06-1035, order 1/23/08).

In a one-sentence per curiam order, the court denied requests that it act to order compliance with its rulings, saying the order was entered "without prejudice" to the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association's right to petition for review of interim final rule that was issued by FMCSA Dec. 17, 2007 (241 DLR A-13, 12/17/07).

In a Jan. 24 statement, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said the court order allowed the continuation of a "dangerous rule" on driver hours.

The American Trucking Associations in a statement Jan. 24 said the order showed that the court did not view the rules as "inherently unsafe."

Order Issued in Lawsuits Over FMCSA Rules

In a July 24, 2007, decision, the appeals court had found that a portion of a 2005 rule issued by FMCSA that increased the daily driving limit from 10 to 11 hours and allowed drivers to restart the "clocks" limiting their weekly on-duty time whenever they took 34 consecutive hours off duty, was invalid because the agency failed to allow comment on a methodology used to justify the change and failed to explain critical parts of the methodology (142 DLR AA-1, 7/25/07).

The court rejected a drivers' group challenge to other portions of the rules, finding that the agency did not ignore safety concerns or act arbitrarily in setting a daily on-duty limit and rules for drivers using sleeper-berth trucks.

In September 2007, the appeals court denied requests for rehearing of the rulings, but in December, FMCSA reissued an interim final rule (72 Fed. Reg. 71247) that FMCSA Administrator John Hill said responded to the "procedural flaws" cited by the appeals court (238 DLR A-10, 12/12/07).

The interim final rule allows truckers to drive for up to 11 hours in a single workday and to restart their weekly on-duty clocks after they are off duty for 34 consecutive hours.

Teamsters, Management Group Split Over Rule

In the Teamsters' statement, the union said it had joined with Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group, and with Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, to ask the court to enforce its order and to strike the challenged rule on drivers' hours.

The union statement called the reissuance of the interim final rule "brazen defiance of the court" and "subservience to the trucking industry." Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said "[w]e will continue to fight this dangerous rule, though the court refused to intervene this time."

The ATA, a federation of trucking groups and state associations, said the court ruling "confirms ATA's view that the Court's prior concerns with the 11-hour daily drive-time limit and 34-hour restart provisions of the HOS rules were only procedural in nature and that the Court does not view those provisions as inherently unsafe."

Paul D. Cullen Jr., of Cullen Law Firm, represented the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. Brian Wolfman, Scott L. Nelson, and Bonnie I. Robin-Vergeer represented Public Citizen Inc. Justice Department attorney Matthew M. Collette represented FMCSA.

Text of the order may be accessed at http://op.bna.com/dlrcases.nsf/r?Open=ldue-7bauhb.

January 23, 2008: Bargaining at DHL is set to restart in February and the International Union is softening up members in advance for concessions.

The Hoffa administration’s latest DHL update plays up Wall Street concerns about DHL’s financial losses in its U.S. operations and warns that “there is immense pressure on them to turn around operations.”

Here are few things Hoffa’s PR Department forgot to mention:

• DHL’s parent company, Deutsche Post, is the world’s largest transportation company. Fortune magazine reported last year that DP had more than $79 billion in revenue—as much as UPS and FedEx combined.
• DP has known all along that it will have to put up with operational losses to establish itself as a major player in the North American market—a key component of their long-term business strategy.
• DP is following the same strategy as UPS, which suffered huge losses for years to establish itself in Europe and overseas.

Why Our Union Is Doing DHL’s Dirty Work

Usually, it’s management job to soften up the members by crying poor. Why is the Hoffa administration doing DHL’s dirty work?

Because our negotiators, led by Hoffa’s special assistant Brad Slawson, have already agreed to concessions.

The International Union wrapped up non-economic negotiations with DHL in December. Officers involved in these negotiations report that the company is balking at using National Master Freight Agreement language as the basis for the new DHL agreement.

They also report that the proposed tentative deal will include the greatly increased use of part-timers on docks and for air pick-ups.

Full-time jobs and overtime are on the line. The company is offering to protect existing full-time Teamsters by offering them 40 hours work—but this red circle will be by name, not by full-time position.

As these full-time Teamsters leave, DHL could bring in more and more part-timers. This would destroy good Teamster jobs, undermine our union’s bargaining power, and also eliminate overtime opportunities.

We Can Stop the Givebacks

DHL Teamsters have already stopped this deal once—last summer.

Members are already starting to organize now to Vote No on the concessions in the national agreement. We can stop it for good this time.

Spread the word. Click here to download a bulletin you can post and distribute to members.

Stay in the loop. Click here to get email updates from TDU's DHL Network.

January 22, 2008: by Randolph Heaster for the Kansas City Star: Mail ballots on a proposed new contract have reached the hands of nearly 50,000 YRC Worldwide Inc. employees, and supporters and opponents of the pact are making their cases as voting proceeds.

The Teamsters’ national freight negotiating committee last month reached the tentative five-year agreement, and more than 300 Teamsters local officers reviewing the contract overwhelmingly approved it at a Jan. 8 meeting.

In a letter to rank-and-file Teamsters members last week, the bargaining committee stated that about two-thirds of all customers in the trucking industry renew service contracts at year’s end, which gave the union’s negotiators strong leverage to get the best deal possible. The current contract doesn’t expire until March 31.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

January 29, 2008: A majority of workers at terminals employing more than 3,200 UPS Freight employees have signed Teamster cards.

UPS Freight workers in Georgia, New York, Kentucky, Minnesota, Milwaukee, Detroit, Memphis, New England, Southern California, Oakland and Seattle have all submitted union cards.

These new Teamsters join the 125 UPS Freight employees who now have a union contract in Indianapolis.

Ken Hall, the Parcel and Small Package Division Director for the Teamsters, will head up bargaining with UPS Freight.

Hall has already negotiated a local contract for the UPS Freight Teamsters in Indy—a contract with lower standards than the National Master Freight Agreement.

With more members our union now has more bargaining power. We can and must use that power to win a stronger contract than that first contract in Indianapolis.

Every Teamster needs to get behind our union’s drive to organize all 15,000 employees at UPS Freight nationwide and to win contracts that protect our union standards in the industry and provide for the best possible wages, benefits and working conditions for UPS Freight employees.

A Message to UPS Freight employees:

Teamsters for a Democratic Union is a national network of Teamster members. We are 100 percent pro-union and dedicated to building a stronger Teamsters Union by informing and involving the rank-and-file.

Our national network of Freight Teamsters works together to defend and improve union standards in the industry and to secure strong contracts, good pensions and a better future for freight workers.

We stand behind you in your efforts to unionize at UPS Freight and win the wages, benefits and working conditions that you deserve.

Click here if you have a comment or question about the Teamsters Union, TDU or the organizing drive at UPS Freight. All emails will be kept confidential and answered promptly.

January 18, 2008: As ballots arrive on a concessionary contract, Freight2008.org is answering misleading IBT PR by providing Freight Teamsters with the facts.

The Hoffa administration has put its PR machine in overdrive—selling the concessionary freight contract with outright lies.

One Freight Update put out by the International Union claims that ABF management wants members to reject the contract. The bulletin was a cynical ploy to get ABF Teamsters to “stand up to ABF” by voting for concessions!

Another Freight Update claims to “Set the Record Straight” on utility employees. In it, the International Union claims that utility employees “will handle next-day and second-day freight exclusively.”

This directly contradicts the proposed contract which clearly states that, “The Utility Employee shall work across all classifications as assigned and as necessary to meet business needs, and there shall be no restrictions on the type of freight or work handled.”

This is a major concession that threatens to undermine Teamster job classifications and work rules—and reduce jobs.

The Freight2008 website is providing factual bulletins that cut through the sales job and give members the straight story on the concessions.

The goal is to help working Teamsters cast an informed vote and defend union standards in the freight industry. Ballots are arriving at members’ homes now and must be returned by February 8.

The current freight agreement does not expire for three months. There is still plenty of time to send for our union to negotiate improvements that will protect our jobs and our union standards.

Click here to download informational bulletins and Vote No leaflets from www.freight2008.org

Click here to read additional stories at www.freight2008.org

Click here to send a message to the TDU freight network.

January 18, 2008: Freight Teamsters across the country are mobilizing to oppose the proposed concessionary freight contract.

TDU and the Freight 2008 network are at the heart of the fight.

TDU’s goal is to build a national network of concerned freight Teamsters in every terminal who can defend our Teamster standards and hold our negotiators accountable to working Teamsters.

Click here to join TDU today. Membership is $40 a year and includes a subscription to our newspaper Convoy Dispatch. Your dues will help pay for TDU’s work to organize and inform freight Teamsters about the concessions in the proposed freight agreement.

Find out more about TDU’s freight network. Send us a message and a TDU organizer will contact you.

 

TDU Laid the Groundwork for the Vote No Movement

Without TDU there would be no Vote No movement. As soon as we had our local tentative agreement meeting, the TDU flyers started to show up—without TDU, would the wheels have hit the ground that quickly?

That’s what TDU does—get the truth out about what’s really going on.

Mike Schaffer, Roadway, Local 769, Miami

 

TDU Gets Us the Facts—That’s Why I Joined

I recently joined TDU after getting misleading info about the contract from the IBT. After seeing how the IBT withholds information from its members that is critical to an informed decision when voting on the issues I decided to realign with TDU.

I just felt that they give us the total information package so that we can make an intelligent decision based on the facts.

For $40 bucks a year its well worth being informed, it's like paying for a sub-compact car and getting an upgrade to a Cadillac...you can't go wrong for the price.

Earl P. Williams, Yellow, Local 17, Denver

 

We’re Stronger When We Work Together

Some members are really getting active around this contract. I’ve been going all over my terminal to put up Vote No flyers—and usually, when I go to stick up a flyer, someone else has already beat me to it. There are Vote No signs all over the place.

I’m going to ask some of the more active guys to join TDU. We need TDU as a watchdog in our union, to tell us what our top leaders won’t. It’s because of TDU that we have the Freight 2008 website—that’s a good investment.

Joel Kendrick, Yellow, Local 71, Charlotte

January 17, 2008: By Bret Caldwell: A majority of workers at seven UPS Freight terminals throughout New England have signed authorization cards to become Teamsters, providing strong momentum in the nationwide campaign to give thousands of company employees a strong voice on the job, Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa announced.

The cards will now be sent to a neutral arbitrator, paving the way for the company to officially recognize the 315 workers, which is expected to occur within a week. The workers belong to the following local unions: Local 25 in Boston; Local 170 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Local 251 in E. Providence, Rhode Island; Local 340 in S. Portland, Maine; Local 404 in Springfield, Massachusetts; Local 443 in New Haven, Connecticut, and Local 633 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Read more on the IBT website.

January 10, 2008: The International Union is selling the concessionary freight contract by lecturing members about the threat of nonunion competition.

But at the same time, the Hoffa administration is giving our biggest nonunion competition, UPS Freight, a substandard deal in Indianapolis—and promoting that concessionary package as the “template” for all UPS Freight terminals that we organize going forward.

This isn’t a plan for rebuilding union power in freight. It’s a one-two punch for dragging Teamster standards down to the nonunion level.

On Jan. 8, Hoffa met with some 200 local union officials about the proposed tentative freight contract. A slide show was presented that was 100 percent corporate in content: Yellow-Roadway stock is down. The economy is bad. Nonunion competition is strong.

Not one slide was about building Teamster power—or organizing. And in the whole day, UPS Freight was never mentioned once.

Hoffa directed local officials to go home and sell the contract. He said he would keep track of how many “Yes” votes each official turned out for his concessionary deal.

Freight Teamsters are adults. We don’t need our union to spoon-feed us a sales job. We need leaders with a plan for protecting our industry standards—and strengthening them for the future.

Growth Not Surrender

No doubt we face nonunion competition. The largest competitor of YRC and ABF is UPS Freight, which employs 15,000 drivers and dock workers and is growing fast. If we want to level the playing field, the first and most important thing we can do is bring UPS Freight up to the NMFA level.

Our first step should not be to lower the NMFA down to match UPS Freight, which is what is proposed in this deal. Converting freight Teamsters to “utility employees,” low-paid part-time dock casuals, allowing subcontracting out line haul work, and a longer new-hire period: these are all taken from the UPS Freight playbook.

Instead, our union needs a national campaign to bring UPS Freight into our national contract. That would be a union-building effort that all Teamster members could get behind.

UPS Freight

On a national conference call about UPS Freight this month, Hoffa and Parcel Division Director Ken Hall poured water on the idea of improving on the UPS Freight contract that was negotiated in Indianapolis.

Hall called that deal—which includes low-wage part-time dock workers, utility employees, the same old company pension plan, and costs $150 per month for family health coverage—the “template” for a national contract with UPS Freight.

It is common sense that the more terminals we organize the more bargaining power our union will have to win a stronger contract. Why would the Hoffa administration be telling local officers that the contract we got by organizing 125 UPS Freight employees in Indianapolis is the best we can do?

Many officers and members want to aim higher. On that same conference call a number of officers said they wanted to bargain to get Teamster pensions and benefits into the contract. Leaders in the Freight Division are concerned about any contract that could undercut the NMFA.

The proposed freight agreement also contains a new section that allows employers to use nonunion line haul trucking to reduce railing to cut transit times. This nonunion line haul must be with a “Preferred Company” that the union hopes to organize.

Will our union hold these “Preferred Companies” to NMFA standards? Or will the Hoffa administration water down our union standards in freight with even more substandard contracts?

Building Teamster Power

Trucking is a growth industry. But the Hoffa administration is downsizing our standards—and putting its energy into lowering members expectations instead of mobilizing to defeat concessions and bring the nonunion competition up to Teamster standards.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union is committed to building a national rank-and-file movement to rebuild Teamster Power.

We love our union and are committed to fighting for its future—by resisting concessions, helping to organize the unorganized, and holding our Teamster officials accountable to our union’s mission: fighting for a better life for working people and our families.

That’s a cause worth trucking for.

Join TDU today—or contact us for more information.

Get involved. Visit Freight2008.org to download the contract, get bulletins you can distribute, and read more about the tentative deal.

January 10, 2008: The changes in the cost of retiree health care associated with the tentative contract for freight Teamsters in the Central States Health & Welfare Fund are different from those at UPS, even though the benefit money is identical for both groups.

UPS retirees will pay $200 per month ($400 for a couple) if they retire at 55 or older. The freight schedule proposed is as follows:

Under age 60: Continue with present high (and increasing) rates

Retire age 60: $200 per mo/$400 couple; will increase $25 per year

Retire age 61: $150/$300; will increase $25 per year

Retire age 62: $100/$200

Retire age 63: $100/$200; you get 2 years of free medi-gap coverage when reach 65

Retire age 64: $100/$200; you get 4 years of free medi-gap coverage when reach 65

Retire age 65: You get 6 years of free medi-gap coverage

The later you retire, the sweeter the deal. Central States Fund policies have already pushed the average retirement age from 59.5 to 61.5 in just five years. Their goal is to keep pushing it higher.

January 10, 2008: The proposed tentative National Master Freight Agreement is headed for a vote.

This is a dangerous proposal that Teamsters should study carefully. The power is in the hands of the Teamsters who move the freight.

Unlimited “utility employees” in every terminal who will combine road, city, dock, and yard work, without regard to local union jurisdiction. Four-hour dock casuals paid $14, a rate frozen until 2013. The new-hire tiered wage is stretched out, from two years to three. The wage increase will not keep up with inflation.

There are positives in the contract, too. For example, when there are layoffs at a terminal and the average overtime per Teamster exceeds 10 hours per week, a fraction of the laid off Teamsters must be recalled to bring the average OT down to 10 hours.

But the negatives are serious, and threaten to drive our contract down to nonunion standards. That’s why the American Trucking Associations’ publication bragged about YRC winning the “flexibility” they wanted in this contract offer.

Here is an overview of the changes:

Utility Employees (Article 3): This is premium service on steroids, to cover the whole operation. There is no limit on the number of utility employees, who will work the city, dock, road and yard “in most, if not all locations” and will even do dock, yard or fueling at foreign terminals. Utility employees will be a separate list and paid $1 more per hour. The employer can schedule the work week starting Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, 5-8s or 4-10s; may have multiple start times during the week.

$14 Casuals (Article 3): Four-hour dock casuals paid $14 per hour for the life of the contract. Four-hour supplemental casuals shall not be counted when a local tallies excess casuals to require hiring.

Substitute Service (Article 29): A new section will allow employers to use nonunion line-haul trucking, up to four percent of total miles in 2008, then increasing yearly to nine percent of the total line-haul miles in 2012, to allow carriers to reduce railing to cut transit times. But Yellow, Roadway and ABF are already reducing railing. This will allow them to use nonunion road drivers, instead of increasing our road boards with Teamster jobs. This nonunion line haul must be with a “Preferred Company” that the union hopes to organize.

Wage Progression Lengthened: Teamster members across the country asked that the wage progression for new hires, many of them experienced Teamsters, be eliminated. Instead they made it worse: from two years to three years in length. For CDL holders, it is 85-90-95 percent over three years; for non-CDL holders it would be 70-75-80 percent of union scale. The only improvement is when a driver moves from one YRC company to another (one year progression).

Wages Would Fall Behind: Proposed wage increases of 50¢-40¢-45¢-40¢-45¢ (mileage of 1.25¢-1¢-1.125¢-1¢-1.125¢). This is an average of 1.9 percent a year. If inflation holds at three percent a year, we will lose $1.34 per hour in buying power over the life of this contract. That’s about $4,000 a year you’ll need to cut from your budget. With nonunion drivers’ wages increasing, will they pass ours?

Benefits: The contract provides $1 per hour each year to be divided between pension and health and welfare. We hope it will be enough, but we learned in the last contract that hope is not enough, especially in a five-year contract. If any official promises you “no benefit cuts” in this contract deal, ask them to put that in the form of a binding agreement.

Teamsters must work more days in order to qualify for benefits: three days (instead of two) a week in the Central States Fund, 100 hours a month (instead of 60) in the West.

Study the contract. Talk to your fellow workers. Make a choice. Cast your vote.