July 22, 2009: WASHINGTON — The American Conservative Union, which bills itself as the nation’s oldest conservative grass-roots lobbying organization, has found itself fending off charges that it put its principles up for sale.

In a letter sent last month to FedEx, the group offered its support in a bitter legislative dispute with United Parcel Service, but said it wanted a contract of up to $3.4 million to wage a campaign to win support for FedEx’s position. When FedEx did not agree, executives at the company said, the conservative group’s chairman, David A. Keene, turned around and signed a letter using the group’s logo endorsing the UPS view and blasting FedEx.

Click here to read more at The New York Times.

July 21, 2009: Teamsters have a right to discuss union issues and exchange union-related literature at work.

TDU is at work defending and expanding that right.

Teamsters have the right to distribute Convoy Dispatch [now Teamster Voice] and other union-related materials at the workplace, during nonwork times and in nonwork areas. Most Teamsters take these rights for granted. But some employers need to be reminded of this fact, via legal action to protect the rights of all Teamsters.

Anheuser-Busch (InBev), at its Los Angeles brewery, needs a reminder that its Teamster workers do have rights. NLRB charges are pending after the company denied workers the right to distribute leaflets opposing a proposed merger to dissolve their Local 896. Workers successfully stopped that merger, but A-B management insists they have the right to “approve” literature that members distribute in the break room and other nonwork areas.

UPS management in Lumberton, North Carolina, illegally told steward Nichele Fulmore that she could not distribute Convoy Dispatch near the drivers’ counter, before work starts, when drivers are off the clock. The NLRB has issued a complaint against UPS and the case is set for trial soon.

The UPS case is important because it involves a so-called “mixed” area in the workplace, which may be a work area during work hours, but is also an area where workers can visit or drink coffee—and distribute TDU and other union-related materials—during nonwork times there, even though the same area becomes a work area at other times.

“We can not allow anyone or organization to control the flow of information,” said Fulmore, a package driver in Local 391. “Those in power—including UPS—would much rather keep you ignorant because they realize that ‘Knowledge Is Power.’”

TDU counsel Barbara Harvey has taken both cases, to ensure that all Teamsters retain the right to discuss union issues and distribute TDU and other union-related materials in nonwork areas during nonwork times.

If the Teamster National Grievance Committee was a UPS employee it would be fired for poor job performance.

Our union won just four out of 59 cases at the last national grievance panel.

The decisions are in from the June meeting of the National Grievance Committee in Philadelphia and the results aren’t pretty.

In four days of hearings, the highest UPS grievance body under the contract ruled in favor of the union just four times.

The company won 13 cases outright. Another 42 cases were deadlocked. An incredible 78 cases were postponed. Only two of the 59 cases heard resulted in the company having to pay the grievant. One of these cases involved just 4 hours of overtime!

In the other two “victories” won for the members, the company was instructed to comply with the contract and a monetary reward was either assigned to another grievance body to decide or denied outright. What a system!

Thirty-five cases were settled or withdrawn with no details given.

The UPS National Grievance Committee will meet just one more time this year: Oct. 12-15 at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa.

TDU makes the docket and minutes of each national grievance panel available to UPS Teamsters online. The International Union does not. With results like this, who can blame them?

Read the national grievance panel minutes online at www.makeUPSdeliver.org.

July 21, 2009: Last month’s National Grievance Committee meeting was the International Union’s opportunity to make UPS create all 20,000 full-time combo jobs that are required by Article 22.3 of the contract.

Instead, Hoffa and Parcel Division Director Ken Hall continued to let management have its way with eliminating the full-time jobs we won in the 1997 strike. The number of full-time positions lost in violation of Article 22.3 has reached the thousands.

UPS Teamsters across the country signed petitions calling on Hoffa and Hall to fight for the full-time jobs we’re owed by the contract by consolidating the violations into a national grievance.Dan Kane, UPS, Local 63, Los Angeles

Instead, the International Union dealt with the violations on a case by case basis—and even then delivered no results.

The only Article 22.3 case settled at the panel went in management’s favor. That case (N-11-09) involved the Texas Full-Time Job Massacre where, in one blow, UPS eliminated more than 100 combo jobs at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport.

Of the dozen other grievances on combo job elimination slated to be heard at the panel, one was withdrawn and 12 were postponed.

Management continues to claim that they are relocating combo jobs, not eliminating them—but they refuse to turn over documentation about where the jobs have been moved.

UPS was required by the contract to provide the International Union with the job description and location of every Article 22.3 position in the country. The International hasn’t shared this list with local unions and it has ignored calls by UPS Teamsters to conduct a nationwide audit to find and fill all of the missing full-time combo jobs.

“UPS is playing a big shell game, and the International has totally dropped the ball on holding the company to the contract,” said Dan Kane, a combo Teamster at Ontario Airport in Los Angeles, where UPS has eliminated 68 combo jobs.

“If our locals care about this issue, they’ll stop covering for Hoffa and start demanding contract enforcement,” said Kane. “We went on strike to win these jobs. We expect our union to defend them.”

July 21, 2009: Congress may soon vote on a bill to close the FedEx loophole that makes it harder for FedEx workers to unionize.

For years the corporation has used its lobbying muscle to be classified as an airline. This puts FedEx under the Railway Labor Act, which makes it much harder for workers to organize a union. Every other freight and parcel carrier—including UPS—is covered by the National Labor Relations Act.

Both UPS and the Teamsters Union are supporting an effort to close the FedEx loophole. UPS is even having employees write letters to politicians on company time.

UPS’s anti-labor record is well known. But closing the FedEx loophole is one issue that UPS Teamsters and their bosses can agree on.

July 21, 2009: There will be no cost of living raise this year for UPS Teamsters.

Last year, UPS Teamsters should have gotten a 15¢ cost-of-living increase but our bargaining team gave UPS a pass on any COLA raise in the first year of the agreement—a giveback that cost UPS Teamsters $1,950 over the life of the contract. (Hoffa gave himself a $12,500 COLA raise last year.)

This year we won’t get a COLA raise because inflation was not high enough to trigger it.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), measured from May 2008 to May 2009, the period designated in Article 33 of the national contract, actually decreased by 1.9 percent. This is because of the soaring gas and food prices of 2008, which later declined a bit.

The CPI has to go up 3.5 percent before it generates anything at all to UPS Teamsters. That’s an area for improvement in the next contract.

July 17, 2009: The decisions are in from the June meeting of the National Grievance Committee in Philadelphia and the results aren’t pretty. If the National Grievance Committee was a UPS employee it would be fired for poor job performance.

In four days of hearings, the highest UPS grievance body under the contract ruled in favor of the union just four times. The company won 13 cases outright. Another 42 cases were deadlocked. An incredible 78 cases were postponed.

Only two of the union wins required the company to pay the grievant and one of these cases involved just 4 hours of overtime.

In the other two cases, the company was instructed to comply with the contract and a monetary reward was either assigned to another grievance body to decide or denied outright. What a system!

Thirty-give cases were settled or withdrawn with no details given.

Panel Fails To Enforce Contract, Protect Full-Time Jobs

The National Grievance Committee meeting in Philadelphia, June 8 to 11 was the International Union’s opportunity to make UPS create all 20,000 full-time combo jobs that are required by Article 22.3 of the contract.

Hoffa and Hall continued to let management have its way with eliminating the full-time jobs we won in the 1997 strike.

The only Article 22.3 case settled at the panel went in management’s favor. That case (N-11-09) involved the Texas Full-Time Job Massacre where, in one blow, UPS eliminated more than 100 combo jobs at the Dallas Ft. Worth airport and reduced full-time Teamsters to part-time pay and assigned them to work split shifts.

Local 767 officials report that the massacre will stand. The union will not require UPS to fill the more than 100 combo jobs eliminated at DFW Airport even though the company is thousands of jobs short of maintaining the 20,000 combo jobs required by the contract.

Of the dozen other grievances on combo job elimination slated to be heard at the panel, one was withdrawn and twelve were postponed.

The UPS National Grievance Committee will meet just one more time this year: Oct. 12-15 at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa.

Click here to download the decisions from the June national grievance panel.

July 2, 2009: Do you think Hoffa will be working on Friday, July 3? Too many Teamsters will—and without premium pay.

The postal service, government offices and thousands of businesses will observe Friday, July 3 as a holiday. But not UPS, the biggest Teamster employer and largest union contract in the country.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

UPS needs a limited number of workers to make air deliveries, but could easily recruit volunteers to work Friday, at premium pay. Instead, most members will be working for straight time; the others have to scramble to get the day off to have a three day weekend.

Some areas report UPS will not respect seniority when assigning who gets to take the day off without pay.

Freight and carhaul Teamsters won’t get premium pay for working on July 3 either. UPS Freight will recognize July 3 as the holiday. Our national master contracts should set the pace. Our union should stand for protecting our time with family, not giving it away.

It’s time to tighten up this language and insist Teamster leaders enforce it.

June 11, 2009: FedEx’s has launched a multi-million dollar PR campaign to stop federal legislation that would make it easier for drivers and package handlers to unionize. But experts say the campaign is misleading and may backfire.

FedEx is angry because the House of Representatives approved a bill that would bring the company under the National Labor Relations Act which would give employees there the same right to unionize as they have at UPS.

In response to the bill, FedEx launched a PR campaign accusing UPS of taking a government bailout.

FedEx’s campaign comes complete with a website called BrownBailout.com that accuses UPS of “quietly seeking a Congressional bailout designed to limit competition for overnight deliveries.”

But as the New York Times points out, “The real issue here is not government-supplied cash for UPS., but the labor laws under which UPS and FedEx are classified.”

The legislation, which now must pass the Senate and be signed by President Obama to become law, would simply put FedEx under the same federal labor law as UPS. Hardly a bailout!

One advertising exec told the New York Times, “You don’t have to surf very long to realize that this is clearly not a bailout…It’s a little bit of bait and switch.”

Another ad expert said the use of the term bailout is “the most questionably ethical thing on the site.”

As the Teamsters Union and UPS both have pointed out, it is FedEx that has enjoyed the “bailout.” For years the company has used its lobbying muscle to be classified as an airline. This puts FedEx under the Railway Labor Act, which makes it much harder for workers to organize a union.

The ad campaign has attracted some media attention because of how it stretches the truth. But the ad is apparently really aimed not so much at the public, but at U.S. Senators.

FedEx is signaling that they will spend millions to preserve their privileged legal status, and will go after any politician, presumably with their deep pockets, that votes for the legislation.

You can see the misleading ad for yourself at www.brownbailout.com

Click here to read The New York Times article “Campaign Against Rival Could Haunt FedEx.”

June 10, 2009: The word bailout has gone from descriptive to derogatory. In a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign introduced Tuesday, FedEx objected to legislation that would make it easier to unionize the company by accusing its rival, United Parcel Service, of taking a government bailout.

Click here to read more at The New York Times.