October 18, 2006: The misnamed “Pension Protection Act” of 2006 will go into effect in 2008. Here we provide a summary of some of its impact on Teamsters. Thanks to attorney Ann Curry Thompson and the Pension Rights Center for their help interpreting this law for Teamsters. For a copy of “Frequently Asked Questions” about the PPA by Ann Curry Thompson, contact TDU.

What Are Some Positive Aspects of the New Law?
There are more negatives than positives. On the positive side, it could make pensions more secure in several major ways. First, it requires fund advisors to identify and fix problems proactively. Second, the new law will require that fund trustees provide frequent and better information about the health of a fund and give participants more access to the fund’s actuarial and investment reports. TDU has fought for this right.

The law could also rein in fund trustees who might adopt irresponsible interest rate assumptions (the rate at which fund assets are projected to grow) and actuarial assumptions (the rate of retirements, deaths and forfeitures at various benefit levels provided by the fund).

What About the Negatives?
There are many. The overall effect of the law will be to encourage policies that lead to full funding, sometimes at the expense of reasonable and affordable benefit improvements. Even if funds are not in endangered or critical status, employer trustees and fund managers will have an excuse for limiting improvements.

It may also have the long-term effect of discouraging some employers from either joining or maintaining defined benefit plans because it requires funds to move to full funding at a relatively fast pace. For example, the amortization period for changes in benefits and actuarial assumption is shortened from 30 to 15 years, putting pressure on the employer to pump more money into the fund in a shorter period of time.

Red Zone, Yellow Zone
The law describes funds as “endangered,” “seriously endangered” or “critical” status. What do these mean?

The provisions relating to “endangered” and “seriously endangered” status are the so-called “Yellow Zone” amendments to ERISA. “Critical status” is called the “Red Zone.”

A plan is “endangered” if: It is 80 percent funded or less (note: Many Teamster funds will fall into this category) or if there is a “funding deficiency” in the Funding Standard Account in the current year or one is projected in any of the next seven years. If a fund meets both criteria, it is “seriously endangered.”

A plan is in critical status if it is 60 percent funded or less and if there is a funding deficiency or one is projected in the near term. A plan in the “Red Zone” can cut not only future benefits, but in some cases can even cut accrued pension benefits, a roll-back of a legal protection won over 20 years ago.

What Does This Mean for the Largest Teamster Funds?
The Western Conference Fund is 100 percent funded, and none of this applies to it. They really have no excuse whatsoever for not restoring full benefit accrual. The reason the cuts in the West are still in place is that Teamster trustees have made a policy decision to go along with unnecessary pension reductions proposed by the employers.

The Central States Fund and the New England Fund will very likely be in the “Yellow Zone” (also called endangered status) because they are less than 80 percent funded. A Yellow Zone Fund must develop a funding improvement plan. The union can bargain over its terms, so union leadership is critical to protecting members’ interests.
In the case of Central States, the law actually provides some protection, in a strange way: the union trustees have already agreed to huge cuts in pension accrual, down to one percent of contributions. The law provides that no fund can ever pay less, so it is already at the legal minimum.

Also, a plan in the Yellow Zone cannot raise benefits until its funding level improves. This makes it critically important to bargain increased employer contributions, bringing part-time UPSers and UPS Freight into the Central States Fund, and to step up organizing as well.

A strong bargaining plan in the national contracts will be an important factor in ending pension accrual cuts, providing medical coverage to retirees, and protecting our pension plans. The other key is leadership from union trustees, who hold 50 percent control of the funds. Teamster trustees wield 50 percent control of the fund but have not used their authority to counter employers and defend members from benefit reductions.

How Can I Find Out More About My Own Fund?
One positive aspect of the new law is that funds will require that more detailed information be given to participants starting in 2008.

Presently the best single source of information is the annual “5500” form your pension fund must file. These are just becoming available now for the year 2005. And certain information, such as the funding level, is often for the beginning of the year, and thus about two years old by the time you see it. These forms are available to any participant; contact TDU for info on how to obtain them.

Click here: Road Ahead for Pension Justice

Click here to download the informational bulletin "The Pension Protection Act: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"

October 18, 2006: It’s up to Teamster members to lead the fight for pension justice.

The past three years have proven that the Teamster leadership’s approach is a complete failure. They lied to sell us contracts, let the employers take over our pension funds, slapped Teamsters with the first-ever cuts, and tried to cover it all up.

Members have learned to fight back, and in some cases, gain ground.

We need action around the upcoming contracts. Contracts covering over 300,000 Teamsters in national agreements expire in 2008. With or without early bargaining, we should focus on building campaigns in 2007 to win back our benefits. Neither UPS nor the freight employers want disruptions or even uncertainty during this critical growth period for their businesses. This puts us in an excellent position.

We need rank and file networks that have the ability to vote down any offer that fails to improve benefits.

We need local action as well. We need to continue to build TDU and Pension Improvement Committees in our locals and link nationally to educate Teamsters and retirees to exert the kind of power we need to win.

Teamsters are hungry for information and for positive action around benefits. It’s up to us to help turn that concern into action and provide a positive plan to win.

TDU will be there with information, with legal help, and with a network to help build this movement as broad and strong as possible.

Click here: The Pension Protection Act: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

October 18, 2006: "Our last contract was terrible. Can we get the right to elect our bargaining committee?"
"Our local officers keep raising their salaries. Can we put limits on them?"
"Our local elections are a joke. Can we get some protections that will make them more fair?"

Yes, there is a way to gain new rights and protections like these. Over the years Teamsters in many locals have organized to change the bylaws of their local unions, winning valuable new rights that help members protect contracts, benefits and working conditions.

Bylaws are the constitution of your local union and they define your rights and responsibilities as a local member. In many locals bylaw changes can only be proposed in January, so the fall is a good time of the year to start putting together a plan and a campaign.

By-What?
Many members are probably not aware that the local even has bylaws. Even when they do understand, they may not feel that strongly about some legalistic document.

So you’ve got to focus on issues that matter.

“Seeing what other locals did was instrumental for us,” Local 82 member Joe Wright explained after they won a bylaw change vote in 2006. “We sat down and started going through the bylaws but just got bogged down. Then we found out from TDU what members in other locals had done and that made it easier to focus in.”

Local 82 members succeeded in reforming their local bylaws after a campaign for positive changes.

Voting on a Bylaws Amendment
Most local bylaws have a similar procedure for amendments: after a proposal is properly submitted (often this must be in January), it is read at three union meetings and then voted at the third one. So you will need an organized plan for turning out supporters at that third meeting. Some local bylaws state that changes have to be approved by a two-thirds majority of those voting.

Pick Your Issues
If members are fired up about an issue your chances of getting their support will be greater. So timing can help. Rather than focus on issues that members haven’t cared about for a while, zone in on the one that packs the most meaning for members at this time.

Promote Changes with Good Materials
“The way we presented the changes helped a lot,” Joe Wright pointed out. “There was a guy before in our local who proposed a bylaw change and handed out a mimeo sheet that just looked like a lot of chicken scratches. We made our flyers as professional as we could and put everything in layman’s terms, as well as technical, so it would be clear. Otherwise you would lose a lot of guys.”

Get the Language Right
Since bylaws are legally binding documents, it’s important to get the language in your proposal right. In some cases, Hoffa has vetoed reforms approved by local union members because of language technicalities.

TDU can help on this front. We have copies of bylaws language that has been approved by the IBT and lawyers who can review your bylaws proposals before you run into a legal challenge.

For legal and organizing advice on bylaws reform campaigns, info [at] tdu.org (contact TDU) today.

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.”

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.

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.