March 31, 2015: The 2014 financial report of the IBT is available, as of today, as are the financial reports of nearly all Teamster local unions.

Hoffa’s salary rose to $305,759, and including his lucrative “housing allowance” he made $379,411.

To access your local’s 2014 report, just follow the instructions here.

Today is the deadline for every local, joint council, or international to file its 2014 LM-2 financial report with the U.S. Department of Labor. All U.S. locals must file a report, unless they are composed solely of public employees.

The Teamster Rank & File Education and Legal Defense Foundation (TRF) will be compiling information for hundreds of reports, and will produce an analysis for Teamster members. We know our Teamster dues are a great investment, and want to make sure that all members understand how our dues money is being used.

You can access our report compiled last year.

If you have any questions or need help getting an LM-2, please call the TDU National Office at 313-842-2600, or click here to ask a question or send us a message.

Thirty-six grievances have been carried over to be heard at the national grievance panel in Boston in June. A number of them address the serious problem of subcontracting. There is one new case from the Eastern Region addressing premium pay for Sunday work, along with a few new cases from the Central and West and South.

The link for the docket is here.

March 21, 2014: The UPS Freight National Grievance Committee met for panel hearings in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on March 4-6. The minutes are available here.

The committee ruled on 20 grievances. 34 grievances were postponed  or put on hold, and 9 were settled or withdrawn.

The new contract stipulates that the national grievance panel will meet only three times per year.

Unionized workers at UPS Freight, the less-than-truckload (LTL) division of UPS Inc., over the weekend overwhelmingly ratified a five-year collective-bargaining agreement a bit more than six months after they rejected an earlier version by an equally decisive margin.

The roughly 13,000 UPS Freight workers, which are represented by the Teamsters union, approved the contract by a margin of 5,222 to 2,107. In late June, workers rejected the company's initial proposal by a margin of 4,244 to 1,987. About 69 percent of eligible voters cast ballots for the current contract, while 58 percent cast ballots in the first go-round.

Click here to read more at DC Velocity.

UPDATED January 8, 2014: 69% voted NO on the first offer. We can do it again, and this time can win real improvements.

Be at the meeting this weekend to cast your vote—your one chance in five years for a better contract.

Click here to download the new leaflet and help spread the word.

The new UPS Freight deal is very little changed from the first proposal, which members rejected by 69%. Basically they put lipstick on that pig. The full proposal is available here.

There are two substantive changes since the coast-to-coast rejection. First, on page 23, there is a change to allow senior drivers who have final average wages over $73,000 to retain an enhanced pension. (See italic language on page 23; Article 25, Section 6)

The second change is to tweak the language of the two-tier wages for proposed Line Hall Drivers (LHD). This change is to Article 44 Subcontracting. See the italic language on pages 32-34. The changes since the first disastrous proposal are in italics.

One union rep asked Ken Hall if the new language would eliminate subcontracting. It will not. There will be a new two-tier scale for road drivers that will still allow subcontracting. So the company has two options: they can subcontract, or hire LHDs at essentially nonunion wages.

Members had set four goals for improvement:

• Improved pension benefits. The new deal provides some protection for a small minority of drivers, and no change from the first proposal for over 80% of Teamsters.

• Elimination of subcontracting and no LHD drivers who will be paid essentially nonunion wages. The new deal tweaks the language to tighten it up, but leaves it basically intact and continues to allow subcontracting.

• Wage increases at least in line with UPS package, as we got in the 2008 contract. No change here.

• No payment of premiums for health coverage.  No change here.

These are reasonable proposals, not pie in the sky and zero of them have been met.

Vote this Weekend

Ken Hall tried to justify the quickie vote this weekend, and no mail ballot. After waiting seven months, Hall claimed they need quick approval to make pension improvements in 2014. When one union rep stood to call for a mail ballot, he was quickly shot down.

The procedures for voting provide that only those who come to the meeting will make the decision.  

Be there! Make your vote count. Send them back to the bargaining table. One more No Vote will win more than token changes.

Do not be scared off by the language about, “authorizing a strike.” The key word there is authorize; Hall does not want a strike and neither does UPS. If members stand up to the bluffs and threats, we will win a better contract through our solidarity.

Be informed. Spread the word. Be at the meeting and cast your secret ballot vote.

Sign up for email updates and get involved in the movement for a strong contract.

January 3, 2014: UPS Freight Teamsters have been attacked by their own union leadership in the worst way: the denial of the right to a fair vote.

The question is, what will you—and other Teamsters nationwide—do about it?

The Hoffa-Hall leadership has announced that they will not allow a mail ballot vote on the UPS Freight contract. For decades, this is how all contract votes have been done for UPS package, for freight, for carhaul, airlines, and others.

Instead they have announced they will hold meetings to sell the deal, and then vote right there.

What’s wrong with this picture? Members need time after hearing about the contract to talk it over, and cast an informed vote. And all members—including those who cannot get to a union meeting—deserve the right to vote. And they deserve a vote which can be easily monitored so that all members will accept the result as fair.

Teamster solidarity sent Hoffa and Hall back to UPS management with powerful leverage to win a fair contract. Hoffa and Hall turned their back on their own members for six months, then came up with a dirty trick against them.

If you are fed up with them, don’t just complain, do something about it. Join the growing network of UPS Freight Teamsters working together for change.

New York Local 707 UPS Freight Teamsters

October 17, 2013: UPS Freight Teamsters wonder what happened to their union. They've heard next to nothing since they rejected the proposed contract in June with a 69 percent No vote. Four months of silence. It's clear that Hoffa and Hall have no plan for winning significant contract improvements.

So where does that leave Teamsters working at UPS Freight? We can still win a good contract if we unite behind solid issues.

With the 2008 contract, Hoffa and Hall both spoke of the importance of having the same expiration dates for the parcel and freight contracts, to have more leverage. But when the membership stood together in solidarity to reject the first offer, Hoffa and Hall didn't hear the wake up call.

UPS Freight Teamsters couldn't believe how little headway was made on improvements from the original contract. What changes were proposed, in many areas, were for the worse. And to top it off, the negotiating committee agreed to a new line haul classification with lower wages and benefits.

Some key areas stand out if members are to approve the next proposal:

• There has to be clear language banning subcontracting of Teamster work and the elimination of the proposed substandard line haul driver classification. 
   
• We need pension improvements. Raise the accrual to keep pace with inflation.
   
• No premiums for health insurance. We should get what our sisters and brothers get in the UPS Parcel and freight contracts. 
   
• Raises of $1 per hour or at least a match with the UPS Parcel wage increases.
   
• And better language on layoff recall rights.

There's no reason UPS Freight Teamsters should get anything less from their contract. In fact, they should expect the union to deliver more from a corporation that made $4.5 billion in profits. With the strong No vote, members sent a clear message to the IBT that negotiations had to win more.

UPS Freight Teamsters across the country are networking and continuing to build solidarity. "We're going to have to continue to vote NO if they don't come up with more," commented Kurt Kronemberg, a city driver form New York Local 707. "We have to keep talking up the issues and build off the first no vote."

It's up to working Teamsters to fight for what we deserve. That means keeping informed and getting involved. Click here to learn more, or join TDU and help build the movement for change in our union.