Pension Legislation Loss

August 9, 2006. Late in the evening of August 3, the U.S. Senate voted to approve a piece of pension legislation which contains much of the “Red Zone” cut-back language that rank and file Teamsters have fought hard to get removed from the bill. President Bush is expected to sign it.

Thanks to rank and file action, a portion of the red zone was cut that would have let funds cut benefits of members who had already retired. Certain other restrictions were also included, thanks to an extensive rank and file effort over the past year.

The IBT’s PR machine was ready with a press release denouncing the bill and congress. "Congress has failed the American worker," trumpeted James P. Hoffa.

Congress should be blamed for opening the door to possible cuts in earned benefits in certain troubled pension plans, but the role (or lack thereof) played by the Hoffa administration makes them co-responsible for this defeat.

Rank and file Teamsters, officers and Leedham Slate candidates traveled to Washington D.C. three times, on their own dime, to meet with congress about the red zone. They organized a petition drive that sent thousands of letters and petition signatures to members of the conference committee. They got media coverage in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC News and numerous media outlets. They passed motions at union meetings. And they got the Senate to remove the red zone entirely when the Senate voted on it in November of last year.

Let’s look at how Hoffa compared to the grassroots effort:

• Hoffa supported the bill, and the red zone measure, starting during hearings in the House, through the House vote in June 2005 and after that. In fact congressional staffers reported in May 2006 that in their last contact with the IBT’s lobbyists, they were avidly supporting the red zone cuts.

• After rank and file delegates traveled to Washington, and the Leedham Campaign took up the red zone issue, Hoffa announced in late 2005 that he was reversing himself. Still, the IBT took no action.

• In 2005 and 2006 Hoffa did not mobilize the vast resources of the IBT to send Teamster delegations to DC to lobby against the bill, or to circulate petitions against the cutback provisions or to get media coverage on the issue. The Teamster legislative department delivered zero results.

“Then at the very end, when all was said and done,” Local 391 retiree Frank Bryant pointed out, “Hoffa did some robo-calling to stewards and members. I’ve seen what is involved when a union really lobbies over an issue, and this is no where near what has to be done. It’s just another PR stunt, while member rights are on the line.”

UPS won critical new leverage in their campaign to take over our pension funds when the House and Senate passed the misnamed Pension Protection Act. The Act includes UPS’s baby, the “Red Zone” amendment, which legalizes cutting pension benefits that employees have already earned.

The New York Times called UPS “another of the bill’s winners”. The Times reported that, “U.P.S. had been eager to increase its control over such troubled plans as the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund. The pension measures could have that effect in the next few months, when U.P.S. will begin contract negotiations with the Teamsters.”

For a year the Hoffa administration openly supported the Red Zone amendment. Then, under pressure from TDU, rank and file members and progressive locals, Hoffa did a 180 and came out against the Red Zone at the last minute.

But by the time Hoffa’s legislative department took any action, it was too late. Now members face the threat of even more pension cuts. And UPS management has new clout over our union as we enter early contract talks.

Teamster members are not the only ones concerned that Hoffa would undercut the National Master Freight Agreement by negotiating a substandard deal at UPS Freight (Overnite).

The CEO of Yellow-Roadway, the largest employer of Freight Teamsters, recently warned that any deal between the Teamsters and UPS Freight, covering one terminal of 125 workers in Indianapolis, will 'set precedent' for the National Master Freight Agreement. Yellow Roadway employs 50,000 Teamsters.

Yellow-Roadway CEO William Zollars made this statement to Traffic World, a leading freight industry publication.

Because Hoffa's "card check and neutrality" agreement covers only one terminal, Zollars expects any contract that UPS Freight would accept will fall far short of the NMFA, and will not allow the employees into the Central States Teamster Pension Plan. That's why Yellow-Roadway plans to use it as precedent to gain concessions in the NMFA.

This scenario is what scares many Teamsters and leaders in the freight industry. Hoffa announced the "neutrality" agreement with great fanfare as part of his reelection effort, but bargaining with less than 1 percent of UPS Freight organized is from a position of weakness, not strength.

UPS Freight spokesman Ira Rosenfeld emphasized to Traffic World that the Teamsters would be bargaining for "one location only" and that the neutrality deal is then void.

[Click here to read the Traffic World article]

“Reprinted from www.leedham2006.org”

August 8, 2006: The Hoffa campaign has retained the same firm used by union busting corporations to spread lies for his campaign via his websites.

The Bivings Group, a PR firm whose clients are a who’s who of anti-unionism, is paid Teamster money by Hoffa’s campaign to lie about TDU, Tom Leedham and anyone else who is part of building a new direction for our union. By the end of May, Hoffa’s campaign had already paid them $50,000.

The Bivings Group’s other clients include Teamster employers like Miller Brewing, Kraft-Nabisco, and Georgia-Pacific; union busters like the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers; and the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

The Hoffa campaign spreads lies via its regular website and another one mis-named “facts about TDU.” This site is actually owned by the Bivings Group.

The Business Roundtable, Miller Brewing , the Republican National Committee, and Hoffa: four of a kind.

Hoffa is not comfortable with union people. He gravitates toward the country club set. His former campaign lawyer specialized in representing Teamster employers like Waste Management, FoodTown and many others; at the bargaining table he refused to grant check-off to Teamster locals. Then Hoffa hired him as the Teamster General Counsel: Bradley Raymond. Maybe next the Bivings Group will be hired to run the Teamster legislative department.

August 8, 2006: James Hoffa officially ducked out of the August 25 debate between the two General President candidates, by notifying the Election Officer on August 7 that he would send his stand-in, Tom Keegel.

The debate will go forward in Washington DC on August 25, with an impartial moderator, questioners, and an audience of Teamsters. Thousands of DVDs will be made available to Teamsters for watching at home, and it will be available for downloading from the www.ibtvote.org and www.tdu.org.

TDU went to court last year to win the new Election Rule requiring a debate, and is now going back to court to try to make it an event that is useful for all Teamsters, and that will increase informed Teamster participation in our union.

TDU is calling for the DVD of the one-hour debate to be mailed to all Teamster members; it can be packaged with the Teamster magazine to eliminate any extra postage cost, and done very cost efficiently.

The IBT is planning to spend more money on “getting out the vote” programs than this one measure would cost, and it would do more to increase voter participation.

Click here: Leedham Campaign Response to Hoffa's Refusal to Debate

July 28, 2006: On July 14 the Independent Review Board (IRB) charged John Kikes with a long period of purposeful association with Billy Hogan after Hogan was banned from the Teamsters in 2002. Kikes has been a Hoffa International Rep for six years and is the president of Oakland, Calif., Local 78. His boss is Local 78 Secretary-Treasurer Steve Mack, the brother of International Vice President Chuck Mack.

Kikes testified under oath to the IRB that he never reads the Teamster magazine; that he didn’t know Hogan had been kicked out of the Teamsters (only that Hogan was “out of the loop”); and that he had no idea why Hogan would just happen to show up at Bally’s Casino in Las Vegas while Kikes was there for a Teamster Golf Committee meeting. He also testified that Steve Mack invited Billy Hogan to visit their table during a meeting of the Golf Committee. Mack denied it under oath.

Hogan, Hoffa’s former running mate, was banned from the Teamsters Union in May 2002 for attempting to implement a sweetheart contract in Las Vegas with a company in which the Hogan family had an interest.

Kikes did not return a call to comment.

July 17, 2006: The big health care cuts that the Hoffa administration just slapped on Michigan freight Teamsters will spread to freight, UPS and carhaul Teamsters throughout the Central and Southern Regions.

The Central States trustees are staying quiet about the cuts until after the election for International officers. Then the “surprise attack” will come down.

For the third year in a row, the contractual August 60 cents per hour increase in employer contributions in the freight, UPS and carhaul contracts has been diverted from health and welfare benefits to the Central States Pension Fund, at the request of the employers.

Central States Health and Welfare has balanced the books for the past two years by taking health coverage from retirees. But now they will have to come after working Teamsters.

Many UPS Teamsters have company-provided health and welfare, but the company sets the benefit level by matching Central States benefits, so the cuts will hit them as well.

July 17, 2006: In May, a delegation of Teamster local officers and members, some of them pictured above, converged on Washington to meet with Congressional reps about dangers for Teamsters in pending pension legislation. In particular they were on Capitol Hill to deliver a message: the Red Zone Amendment, which would allow pension funds to cut benefits already earned, must go.

“The Bible says ‘confront the devil and he will flee from you,’” North Carolina retiree Frank Bryant said of the delegation’s meetings with senators and staffers. “Well, we are confronting the Red Zone and will keep doing so until it is swept out of this legislation.”

Congress has been working for over a year to adopt pension reform legislation. There are a number of negative provisions in the bill. The Red Zone Amendment would let pension funds cut earned, early retirement benefits if funding levels fall below a certain level.

The International Union at first supported the Red Zone Amendment, but shifted gears after a grassroots campaign was launched, and the recent IBT Convention passed a resolution against it. But the International hasn’t done anything to stop it, so members and locals have taken on the hard battle themselves, combating UPS management on the issue. Petitions with thousands of signatures have been delivered to key senators and representatives by pension activists like Bryant, Local 1035 Principal Officer Chris Roos, and many others across the country. Currently, the pension bill is still before a Conference Committee of senators and Congressional reps.

“The average worker is paying more and more of the cost of doing business and the corporations are getting more of the cream,” Frank Bryant said. “To add insult to injury, they try to take away the benefits we have earned. This is a fight for all workers.”

July 17, 2006: Effective August 1, all Michigan cartage Teamsters covered by the NMFA will have major cuts in medical coverage, as a result of moneys diverted from their fund to the Central States Pension Fund. The Michigan Fund informed all affected members of the cuts in a July 3 letter.

The Michigan Fund reported that the Hoffa freight leadership diverted money from health coverage over “emphatic objections” of the health plan. For the third year in a row, all contractual health and welfare increases in employer contributions under the NMFA were diverted from health to the Central States Pension Fund.

Medical Cuts

Cuts include basic medical going from 100 percent coverage in network to 80 percent; annual out-of-pocket maximum jumps to $750 per individual and $1,500 per family in network, while out of network will be $1,500 and $3,000. Co-pays are increased; outpatient cancer rider is eliminated; weekly accident and sickness benefits and death benefits reduced; and numerous other cuts will increase expenses to affected Teamsters. The Fund has set up a two-tier arrangement, with freight going down to a new “TIF 2” level, while others will remain at “TIF 1.”

Hoffa asserts that he has the right to change the NMFA without a vote of the affected members, and has done that to divert contractual money from health to pension for three straight years. The Central States Health and Welfare Fund has dealt with this diversion by serious cuts, essentially killing retiree health care. A 56-year-old Teamster retiring with 30-and-out on Central States Health and Welfare now must pay $1,220 per month for medical coverage for the Teamster and spouse.

The diversion by the Hoffa administration hurts 2,000 Michigan cartage Teamsters and also may eventually hurt the 900 freight Teamsters in the Wisconsin Health Fund. Milwaukee Local 200 has held educational meetings with affected members and retirees and has taken a vote on what members think should be done with the 60 cents per hour increase in employer contributions due on Aug. 1. The Wisconsin Fund could maintain benefits if the 60 cents would at least be split between health and pension. The Central States employers want all of it diverted to the pension fund to reduce the employers’ unfunded liability.