July 27, 2005: On June 29, a congressional committee passed a pension bill that would endanger Teamster pensions by making it easier for multi-employer plans to cut retirement benefits.

The misnamed “Pension Protection Act” contains a dangerous provision that would allow troubled pension plans to cut benefits that members have already accrued—and even cut the benefits of Teamsters who have already retired for less than one year. Under current laws, these cuts are illegal. Only future pension accruals can be cut.

Not surprisingly, UPS management lobbied heavily for the bill’s passage (HR 2830). But the bill was also supported by the trustees on the Teamsters Central States Pension Plan. And James Hoffa himself hailed the bill as a “great first step.”

All 29 Republicans on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce supported the bill, introduced by Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), and all 22 Democrats refused to vote on the measure. The bill will be considered in other committees and by the Senate

Teamsters, take warning: this bill is dangerous. UPS management supports this bill because they want the Teamster Central States Pension Fund, and possibly other Teamsters funds, to be able to cut already-earned benefits.

If passed into law, the bill would reduce pension security for Teamster members—and all working families. That’s why the Pension Rights Center, the organization in Washington that protects and promotes the pension rights of American workers and retirees, opposes changes that allow cuts in earned pension credits.

Your Pension in Danger

The proposed bill would make it easier for a troubled multi-employer pension plan to go into “reorganization” status. Once a plan is in “reorganization” the trustees would be free to drastically cut benefits, even benefits already accrued.

If this happens, a Teamster with 30 credit years in Central States could possibly be told, “Sorry, your 30-and-out credits won’t work. You have work until you are 62 to get it.” Disability pensions could be cut, 25-and-out and 30-and-out benefits could be cut for working Teamsters and for those who are retired less than one year.

Only retirement benefits at “normal retirement age” would be legally protected. This is age 62 or 65 for most pension funds.

Employers, Hoffa Want More Power to Cut Your Pension

Under present law, these cuts are illegal.

UPS management wants that changed. So does the Hoffa administration. In a letter to all local leaders in February, IBT leaders complained that “Trustees are limited by ERISA and can only affect [cut] future accruals.” ERISA is the federal pension law that makes it illegal for pension plans to cut benefits that employees have already accrued.

Hoffa, sold his “Best Contract Ever” at UPS as well as the freight and carhaul agreements on the promise that our benefits would be protected. Now he is using your dues money to lobby Congress so Teamster plans can cut benefits that members have already earned! Hoffa’s own lucrative pension plan is unaffected by this proposal.

Why would the Hoffa administration do this? Because Hoffa and other top Teamster officials are intimidated by UPS management. UPS has told them either the company get pension cuts or they will try to pull out of the Teamster pension plans in the next contract.

Time to Fight Back, Not Give Up

Instead of caving in to the company’s threats three years before the next negotiations, our union leadership should be leading members in a fightback to protect our benefits. We should be lobbying Congress for pension reform that protects Teamster retirement security—not undermines it.

The IBT should be educating members about the threat that a UPS pullout would pose both to all Teamsters’ retirement security. Instead, the IBT has let UPS’s rumors and attacks on our pensions go unanswered.

Finally, the IBT should be mobilizing members to fight for adequate funding of our pension plans in the coming contracts. It may require some sacrifice such as reduced wage gains, but we can negotiate these increases.

In fact, on August 1 another sixty cents per hour will go into the Central States Pension Plan for UPS, freight, carhaul and certain other Teamsters. That increase alone will put nearly $100 million a year in new money into Central States. More of that can be done in the next contract.

What You Can Do

This is time for Teamsters to speak out. Write your Congressional reps and Senators. Urge them to oppose any pension bill that allows for cutbacks in earned benefits. Ask your union officers to do the same.

We also urge Teamster members to contact James Hoffa and tell him to use our dues money to fight to protect our benefits—not to lobby for legislation that will make it legal to cut pension benefits we have already earned.


Click here for a downloadable TDU Pension Cut update to distribute to fellow Teamsters

Central States Teamsters click here for a flyer from the Central States Pension Improvement Committee

July 27, 2005: The IBT election is more than a year away and already TDU has caught James Hoffa using members’ dues money for campaign purposes.

On July 15, independent Election Supervisor Richard Mark ruled that Hoffa used union funds to poll carhaulers on how they would rate Hoffa’s job approval. As a result of the violation, Hoffa was ordered to pay $2,000 to the union and to share the results of the poll with opposition candidates who later become accredited.

Hoffa inserted his campaign questions into an IBT poll of Teamsters who work for Allied Holdings, the largest carhaul employer. The members were also asked if they would accept mid-term contract concessions. On June 1 carhaulers got their first wage increase in three years, and Allied balked at paying it. Allied has been losing money (and cutting Teamster jobs) consistently for several years.

The poll questions were written by Hoffa’s campaign consultant, Richard Leebove, and his campaign manager, Todd Thompson. Neither has any experience representing carhaulers.

The election protest was filed by Allied driver and Local 957 member Rob Hackett and by TDU, both represented by attorney Barbara Harvey. Hoffa was represented by his campaign attorney and son, David Hoffa.

July 27, 2005: In an embarrassing retreat from his promises to “run a corruption-free union” and “get the government out of the Teamsters,” James Hoffa has officially sacked all plans to try to negotiate an end to federal supervision of our union.

On July 20, Hoffa’s General Counsel, Pat Szymanski, told the Daily Labor Report that the Hoffa administration has given up its goal of ending federal supervision until at least 2007.

According to the Daily Labor Report, “Szymanski said the controversial conclusion of Project RISE, which might have served as the self-policing mechanism taking the place of the IRB, leaves the union in an inferior position to be able to end federal supervision.”

The article went on to report, “Szymanski said that the damage resulting from Stier’s departure has derailed the union’s plans” to try to end the federal consent order.

Embarrassing Failure for Hoffa

The announcement is an embarrassing admission of failure and a huge retreat for the Hoffa administration, which spent $15 million over five years on Project RISE. Hoffa’s goal was to use RISE as leverage to end the consent order for the Teamsters.

But Hoffa’s leverage disappeared when RISE director Edwin Stier and his entire staff of investigators resigned in protest in April 2004, and issued a report blaming Hoffa for stifling anti-corruption efforts, including investigations of organized crime influence.

In the year since then, Hoffa paid another huge sum of union money to Edward McDonald to issue yet another report, supposedly to get to the bottom of the corruption allegations that led to the collapse of RISE.

Instead, McDonald issued a whitewash. The Hoffa administration released a portion of the McDonald report on July 14. It says nothing on the anti-corruption program. It consists solely of a denunciation of Stier, the former federal prosecutor Hoffa handpicked, paid millions of dollars of dues money, and hoped would end federal supervision of our union.

Just a week after the McDonald report’s publication, the Hoffa administration has openly admitted that this effort not only failed, but backfired, making any efforts to end federal supervision of our union pointless until at least 2007.

Union Far from Clean

Hoffa first promised 10 years ago to rid the union of corruption and establish an independent anti-corruption program.
After Hoffa’s two terms in office, experts say we are farther than ever from that goal.

The Association for Union Democracy’s Herman Benson told the Daily Labor Report, the Teamsters “are no place with respect to reform and they are worse off than they were before Project RISE. The very guy they hired to do the job now says they can’t do the job.”

So now our Teamsters Union has no anti-corruption program and no hope of replacing the Independent Review Board (IRB) with an internal clean-up program as long as Hoffa is at the helm.

No wonder Hoffa is hunting for a scapegoat and Teamster members are looking for new leadership in 2006.

Click Here for Past Coverage

July 5, 2005: For the first time in recent history, the grocery contracts in Southern California will be negotiated separately. If it’s done right, it will be an opportunity to address problems that have been ignored in past negotiations.
In June, Teamster leaders had a meeting on how the separate negotiations would proceed. They agreed that the first target would be Stater Brothers. Stater is not a national chain, so it would be harder for the company to take a strike.

Additionally, they were not hit by the battle with the UFCW last year, so they are in a better financial position to improve the contract. Finally, Stater’s is opening a new distribution facility this year and it doesn’t need a labor dispute to interfere.

Regional Organizing Strategy
The plan is to use the Stater’s settlement as a pattern for the others.
This was a good strategy, but then Local 630 Secretary-Treasurer Paul Kenny jumped the gun. In a surprise move, Kenny announced a tentative agreement with Unified Western Grocers.

Even though other locals involved with Unified were not aware of the deal, Kenny scheduled a ratification vote for July 19 at the work sites.
The contract does not expire until mid-September so there was no need for a rushed vote.

Members also wanted written copies of the proposed agreement before a vote was taken so they could thoroughly review the offer.

Then, suddenly the vote was called off. Whatever the reason, now there is the opportunity to use the strategy used in other parts of the country. The union should let the warehouse companies know that each settlement must be better than the previous one, and then stick to it. This has resulted in improved contracts in the industry. It’s time for Southern California to do the same.

July 5, 2005: Many warehouse and grocery workers are probably familiar with RFID technology used to track inventory, but The Guardian, a major British newspaper, reports that warehouse operators in Britain are now tagging workers also. Researchers and the union are concerned that “the new technology is raising a host of ethical issues, with the danger that the computer is taking over the human rather than humans using computers” and that “the employee is unable to do anything without the machine knowing or monitoring.”

When our last contract was negotiated, the BA didn’t tell us the whole story. The local had a meeting where they just told us about the wages and a few other things. Months later, when we finally got a copy of the contract, we found new language that weakened our seniority rights. Isn’t this illegal?
–Won’t Be Fooled Again

Dear “Won’t Be Fooled,”

The IBT constitution requires a secret ballot vote on contracts, and federal law (the Landrum Griffin Act), requires a “fair and informed vote.” A verbal review of select improvements that leaves out important language changes falls short of that standard. I don’t blame you for having a beef.

The problem is that once the contract signed, it is likely legally binding even if it was not properly ratified. Even if you sued your union leaders, your employer would surely claim a valid, signed contract. When it comes to fair contract votes, it’s easier to prevent abuses than to correct them afterward.

To prevent this in the future, you need to talk to other members who “won’t be fooled again.” When the next contract talks begin, get signatures on a petition or group letter asking the local to take the proper steps to protect members right to a “fair and informed vote” by:

 

• providing advance notice of any contract ratification meeting;
• making the complete text of all changes available to members before any vote;
• providing members with time to review the changes, ask questions, and discuss the pros and cons before a secret ballot vote is held.

It’s up to us, the members, to enforce our right to a fair contract vote. For help, contact TDU.

I recently heard that some part-timers at UPS are in Teamster pension plans. As a part-timer I was in the company plan. After I went full-time, I didn’t get any credit toward my Teamster pension for my part-time years. After Central States announced the pension cuts, they said there are not enough active workers in the Fund. Then why aren’t the part-timers in the fund?
–UPSet at UPS

Dear UPSet,

What you heard is true. UPS part-timers are in Teamster pension plans in two of our union’s biggest pension plans, the Western Conference and New England, and they are also in the Upstate NY Plan. This dates prior to1979, when UPS contracts were regional and local.

When part-timers are in the company plan, it’s lose-lose just like you said. When you go full-time, your part-time pension credit doesn’t follow you. The small pension that comes from part-time years isn’t much. Reciprocal benefits with Teamster plans help members qualify for 30 & Out—but the monetary value of our part-time years is pathetic. In areas where part-timers are in the Teamster plans, members get a much better deal.

The fact is most part-timers don’t qualify for any pension, because it takes five years of part-time work to vest in the UPS pension plan.

Where do their pension contributions go? Where part-timers are in the company plan, that money goes right into the company’s pocket. But in the West and the Northeast, it stays in the pension fund where it benefits other Teamsters.

If part-timers were in the Central States Fund, UPS would pay approximately $140 million more per year in pension contributions to the fund.

The result would be a stronger pension fund for everyone and pension credit for our part-time years. Win-win instead of lose-lose.

As part of the fight to reverse the pension cuts and restore the long-term health of our Teamster pension plans, we should be working to include all UPS part-timers in Teamster pension plans in the 2008 negotiations. If UPS can do it in 18 states, they can do it in 50 states.

 

June 6, 2005: Teamsters from 15 different locals in the South and Southeast converged in Atlanta on July 9 to discuss plans for the 2006 IBT election and delegate races, and to learn how to be more effective Teamsters.

Nearly all of the 50 members on hand are preparing to run for IBT convention delegate in early 2006. The meeting was an opportunity to share ideas and strategies for the elections.“We need to take steps now to show Hoffa the way out of office in 2006,” Nashville Local 327 member Matt Studd said. “And then we need to shut the door behind him for good.”

Dan Scott, secretary-treasurer of Seattle Local 174, was a featured speaker at the meeting. Workshops addressed how to run for union office and how to overcome apathy and get members involved in the union.

“This was a terrific event,” Local 391 retiree Frank Bryant said. “We brought a couple of carloads of people from North Carolina. We learned a lot and had a chance to meet many other excellent members and officers from other areas.”

“At the conference, we brought together Teamsters from across the South who share the same goals,” said Willie Hardy, a retired Local 667 member and TDU staff organizer. “We want to dump Hoffa in 2006 and build a stronger Teamsters union. We’re building the rank and file network we need to make that happen.”

June 6, 2005: In May, concerned Teamster officers announced that we were forming the New Leadership Committee, to put together the program and leadership team that can defeat Hoffa in next year’s IBT election.

Since then, messages have poured in from Teamster members who want to be part of the effort to beat Hoffa in 2006 and rebuild Teamster Power.

We want to hear from you with your concerns about our union’s future and your ideas about how we can work together to dump Hoffa in 2006.

Get in touch with the New Leadership Committee by dropping us a line at P.O. Box 3392, Bayonne NJ 07002 or email us
at: newleadership2006 [at] gmail.com.

Here’s a sample from this month’s New Leadership Committee mailbag. . .

“It is getting closer and closer to start something, and if you are going to be honest about the bottom line, it will be MONEY. I was a big part of the Ron Carey effort and even worked for him and still feel that he got screwed by the government.

“Money is always the little man’s problem, as we do not have a job making two and three salaries as a lot of the others do.

“It will take at least a million in my opinion to pull off an upset. Thanks.”
Concerned Southern Region Teamster

“I wish to be involved in getting rid of Hoffa!!! I am a shop steward in Local 170. Thank you.”
Wanting Change in Worcester Local 170

“Please let me know what I can do to help. We are in the process of forming a Delegate slate in my local for the purpose of opposing Hoffa at next year’s Teamster Convention.”
Local 804 Teamster

“Mr. Hoffa has never had the members’ best interests in mind, only his own. He likes to create smoke screens and talk tough but we all know that money talks and bullsh__ walks. Hoffa is going to run this union into the ground if he is not stopped. I am a UPS employee and we members hate Mr. Hoffa with a burning passion. UPSers whom I talk to want Hoffa out! Best ever contract, my a__! Not best for the members! But UPS management sure is happy.

“I agree 100 percent that a grassroots army of good hard working Teamsters that care about what it means to be a Teamster can and will take down Hoffa.”
Metro Philly Area Feeder Driver

The way I see it, the Hoffa administration is a threat to my livelihood and to my pension. Putting my money toward electing strong Teamster leadership is an investment in my future.

That’s why I’ve donated $100 to the New Leadership Committee. I’m asking you to do the same.

Our goal is to have 500 Teamsters make that $100 donation. That would give us $50,000 in seed money to jumpstart our campaign to dump Hoffa.

How much is a stronger Teamsters union worth to you? $100 is nothing compared to what we will lose if we don’t act now. Donate to the New Leadership Committee today.

Allen Bunch
Local 549, Yellow-Roadway
Blountville, Tenn.

June 6, 2005:It's no secret that United Parcel Service wants to pull all their employees out of Teamster pension funds. Like any corporation, they'd rather have unilateral control over their employees' pensions and convert them to 401(k) plans.

UPS took a step forward on that plan in May with the acquisition of Overnite. Now they have 10,000 less-than-truckload freight workers who are not in any Teamster plan, and they plan to grow that number as fast as they can.

Already outside our pension funds are at least half of UPS Teamster part timers. We can’t let this balance reach a tipping point: we need to bring Overnite workers into our funds now, and the rest of the part timers in 2008.

That’s why we have to organize UPS-Overnite, into our union and into our Teamster pension funds. Doing that would:

• Bring 10,000 new Teamster participants into our pension funds;
• Greatly improve pensions for Overnite workers and their families;
• Provide strong protection against a UPS pull-out from the funds; and
• Strengthen our funds by improving the ratio of active Teamsters to retirees.

UPS management is not to going to volunteer to pay better pensions to UPS-Overnite workers. Certainly they’re not going to be eager to strengthen our Teamster funds when management’s plan is to bust out of those funds.

UPS management has a three-point plan to undermine Teamster retirement security. Part one is a legislative attack. Part two is a campaign to soften up Teamsters with false promises of wonderful pensions from the company. Part three is taking advantage of the IBT failed leadership on pension issues.

The IBT needs a plan, too. A campaign to organize Overnite and bring those members into the Teamster benefit funds is a good place to start.

If UPS Ran Your Pension, You Would Lose $1,000 a Month!

$2,394 per month after 30 years of full time service: That is what UPS management would pay you for a pension, according to calculations performed by TDU. The calculation was based on UPS Senior Vice President John McDevitt’s testimony last year to Congress.


That’s about $1,000 per month less than Teamster plans provide.
What this means: If the same amount that UPS contributed into the Teamster pension plans since 1974 had gone into a 401(k) plan instead, and earned 7.5% a year, you would have an inferior pension today.


We calculated this figure by using the amount UPS paid into the pension fund each year since 1974 for a full timer who worked every day.


We used McDevitt’s own figure of 7.5% annual rate of return and UPS’ conversion formula from a lump sum to a monthly pension.
The calculations can be provided by TDU to interested members.