April 21, 2008: UPS Teamsters in New York have overwhelmingly voted for changes that will put more pension and contract information in the hands of the members.

At a meeting on April 20, New York Local 804 members approved two changes to their local union bylaws by more than 90 percent.

By a 208 to 12 margin, members voted to require the Executive Board to give a report on the pension and health and welfare funds at each quarterly membership meeting.

By a 207 to 19 vote, members voted to require the local to establish a contract committee to keep members informed and united whenever a contract is being negotiated.

The bylaws campaign grew out of a rank-and-file mobilization against pension cuts and contract concessions at UPS—including a 30 percent cut in pension accruals in 2006.

Last year, members voted by nearly 3 to 1 to reject contact givebacks negotiated with UPS by Local 804 officials.

As a result, members won a better contract offer that both reversed the 2006 pension cuts and defeated new demands by UPS to cut pension benefits for new hires and divert part of members’ wages to pay for their pensions.

But Local 804 Teamsters didn’t stop after they defeated the givebacks. They formed a network called 804 Members United and launched a campaign to reform their local union bylaws.

Members fanned out across the local, distributing leaflets, talking Teamster-to-Teamster and collecting signatures. Two thousand members signed petitions supporting changes to the local union bylaws.

At the last membership meeting, Local 804 President Howard Redmond denounced members “who are handing out papers and dividing the local.”

But Redmond changed his tune yesterday—endorsing the bylaws proposals from the podium. Redmond also pledged to help members obtain pension documents that the Local 804 fund has failed to turn over to members in violation of the Pension Protection Act.

For more information, visit www.804membersunited.org.

April 7, 2008: The Teamsters union said on Monday that 9,900 workers at United Parcel Service Inc trucking unit UPS Freight have ratified a five-year contract with UPS that also makes them members of the union.

Click here to read more at Reuters.com.

March 20, 2008: A Teamster mechanic is a quarter million dollars richer after settling an OSHA whistle-blower complaint at UPS.

Teamster Local 687 member Dan Petersen was fired by UPS after he reported trucks in its Watertown, NY building were unsafe.

Petersen successfully won his job back through his local union and then took on the company for violating federal whistle-blower protections.

According to OSHA, UPS has paid Petersen $254,000 and pledged “not in any way interfere with, coerce or restrain its employees from exercising their rights…”

UPS admitted no wrong-doing, showing it’s easier to get Brown to pay up then to come clean.

Whistle-blower protections protect workers’ rights to report safety and health problems without fear of termination or retaliation.

Want to learn more about your health and safety rights?

Click here to send TDU a health and safety question.

Click here to buy the STAA Handbook, a guide on how to use federal law to enforce truck safety and protect your job.

Click here to watch 7 News reports on Dan Petersen’s efforts to ensure truck safety at UPS in Watertown, N.Y.

March 14, 2008: The UPS, freight and carhaul national contracts all have a Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) clause, to help protect against inflation eating away our wages. Teamsters are asking, with gas prices heading toward $4, will we get a COLA raise?

For UPS Teamsters the answer is No.

For freight Teamsters, the answer is apparently No.

For carhaulers, it is Maybe.

For DHL Teamsters, it is Yes, according to the proposed tentative agreement.

What’s up?

As prices for essentials like gas and milk go sky high, why no cost of living raise for UPS Teamsters? Because the UPS contract has language specifying no COLA for 2008. The next time any adjustment is possible is August 2009.

The freight contract language, as posted on the IBT website (Article 33), seems to indicate that Teamsters should get a COLA increase on April 1. However, other language received from the IBT states regarding COLA “No change except change dates to make effective in new agreement.” Apparently this language means No.

The proposed DHL tentative agreement states that COLA will be paid on April 1, 2008 (Article 21, Section 2 of proposed deal). We have calculated that it will be 16¢ per hour. Not enough to fill your tank, but certainly some help.

That same 16¢ is what freight Teamsters would have gotten this April 1, with language requiring it.

Carhaulers should get a COLA increase of 32¢ on June, assuming that the same clause in the existing contract is retained (the contract expires May 30) with a COLA pay out for this year. That remains to be bargained. Unfortunately Teamsters at Allied will get nothing, because of concessions signed last year.

Why twice as much for carhaul? Because the carhaul COLA formula pays exactly twice as much as the freight clause does. The mileage pay increase for carhaul (assuming the clause is in effect this year) will be 0.8¢ per running mile (1.6¢ per loaded mile).

The Devil in the Details

UPS and freight Teamsters get zero, DHL Teamsters get 16¢ (at least according to the language of the proposed deal), carhaulers will get 32¢ if the present clause is retained for this year.

This shows that when it comes to a cost of living clause, the details really count. Waiving the clause in this year of high inflation was costly to Teamsters.

Our national contracts have some protection against runaway inflation, but few local contracts do. It’s not an easy item to bargain with most employers. But with inflation heating up, it may be time to put it on the bargaining agenda wherever possible.

February 21, 2008: DHL and UPS are launching new attacks on Teamster full-time jobs.

Members are uniting to say Part-Time America Won’t Work.

Good full-time jobs are under attack. Employers are replacing full-time jobs with part-time positions that don’t pay a living wage—even under our top Teamster contracts.

DHL is ground zero for the latest attack on Teamster full-time jobs. UPS also has a new scheme to undermine full-time jobs.

The good news is Teamster members are fighting back. If we stick together, we can win.

As we go to press, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) has obtained the details of a yet-to-be-released contract at DHL that would destroy thousands of full-time Teamster jobs over time.

The secret deal would let DHL hire an unlimited number of part-timers to load, unload, sort and work the ramp. These part-timers would be guaranteed just three hours work and can be scheduled to work any five days.

Wages and other contract details are still being worked out. But DHL Teamsters are not waiting for the other shoe to drop. They are already spreading the word and preparing to vote down the proposed contract concessions.

UPS pioneered the attack on good full-time jobs in our union, and they’re at it again. This month Brown launched a new initiative that uses part-time drivers to pick up ground packages.

The scheme violates contract language that exists precisely to stop the company from undermining full-time driving jobs by exploiting lower-paid part-time drivers.

Contact TDU for advice on enforcing the contract.

We Can Turn the Tide

Our union has already allowed too many full-time jobs to be converted into underpaid part-time positions—and not just at UPS.

The new freight agreement allows employers to hire part-time dock workers. And the International Union is behind the new part-time scheme at DHL.

Part-Time American Won’t Work. That was the slogan that united our union to win 20,000 new full-time jobs at UPS.

In 2008, we face new attacks. United, we can win again.

February 21, 2008: Two times in the last 18 months, UPS has blindsided Teamsters in New York City by demanding pension cuts. Now Local 804 Teamster members are organizing to get the information they need to defend their pensions.

Two thousand members have signed a petition to propose changes to the Local 804 bylaws that will put more contract and pension information in the hands of the Local 804 membership.

In November 2006, UPS forced through a 30 percent cut in pension accruals in Local 804. Management claimed that without the cuts the Local 804 fund would fall into “Critical Status” (the “Red Zone”) when the Pension Protection Act went into effect.

An actuarial report was leaked that revealed that the Local 804 pension fund had earned dramatically substandard returns on its investments for a decade. AON Consulting reported that, “The average investment returns over the past five years have been a little more than 3%; over the past 10 years the average return has been just 6%.”

Substandard Returns

Local 804’s pension investment returns were worse than the Central States Pension Fund over the same five and ten-year periods—and worse than other funds managed by AON Consulting.

“For comparison purposes, we looked at another substantial fund we work with and the average returns over similar periods were 6% over the last 5 years and nearly 10% over the past 10 years,” AON reported.

According to AON, the Local 804 pension fund had a $378 million shortfall—and approximately $100 million of this was due to poor investment performance.

“Members were shocked. We had always been told that our pension fund was in great shape,” said feeder driver Pete Mastrandrea.

“By mandating that our union include a report on our pension fund’s performance at every general membership meeting, we can make sure that the membership is never blindsided like this again,” Mastrandrea said.

Information Brownout

The second attack on Local 804 pensions came during UPS contract negotiations.

After months of secretive negotiations, UPS and Local 804 agreed to a new contract that would eliminate 25-and-out pensions for all new employees—a deal that was unanimously endorsed by the Local 804 Executive Board.

UPS sent every Local 804 member a letter saying that if the contract was not approved then it would be illegal for the fund to restore their pensions.

Members voted the contract down by 3 to 1 anyway.

As a result of their united stand, Local 804 members saved 25-and-out, defeated other givebacks and reversed the 2007 pension cuts.

Information is Power

The Local 804 Make UPS Deliver network showed that members can make a difference when they are informed and involved.

Many Local 804 members were still disappointed with the final contract and felt more could have been won if the membership had been better informed—about both contract negotiations and the real story with the Local 804 pension and the Pension Protection Act.

That’s when members decided to propose two changes to the Local 804 bylaws.

The first change will require the Executive Board to include a report on the Local 804 benefit funds at every general membership meeting.

The second bylaws change will mandate Local 804 to set up a Contract Committee to inform and mobilize Local 804 members whenever a new contract is being negotiated.

“This bylaws vote is about what kind of contracts and benefits we’re going to have in the future,” said shop steward Tim Sylvester. “Local 804 has always had some of the highest retirement benefits in the country. But we’ve fallen behind other funds like Washington D.C., Upstate New York, and the Western Conference.

“Local 804 has won top contracts and benefits by leveling with the members and getting people involved. We did that to win 25-and-out before the rest of the country. We did it in 1997. We can do it again,” Sylvester said.

Mandate for Change

Two hundred signatures are required to introduce bylaws changes in Local 804. As Convoy Dispatch goes to press, 2,000 members have signed each bylaws petition.

“Winning strong contracts and pensions by informing and mobilizing the membership is something that every Local 804 Teamster can unite behind,” said Jim Reynolds, an alternate steward and one of the leaders of the bylaws reform campaigns.

“Members proved that by signing these petitions in such huge numbers. This is really a mandate for positive change,” Reynolds said.

The proposed changes will be voted on at the next Local 804 membership meeting on April 20.

February 21, 2008: For two years, UPS management has been violating drivers’ seniority rights in Virginia—and getting away with it.
Now drivers have turned the tables on the company to stop the violations.

For the last two years in the Staunton, Va. center, UPS management has been getting away with rearranging feeder runs in violation of the normal bidding process—and feeder drivers’ seniority rights.

Now Local 29 drivers have taken action to put a stop to the violation, and they’ve won a commitment from management that the changes won’t happen again.

Right after peak season last year, UPS management announced that they were changing the schedule for over half the feeder runs in the Staunton center.

According to the Atlantic Supplement, feeder drivers are supposed to bid on their runs in March and September.

This was the second December in a row that management had made big changes in feeder runs outside of the semi-annual bid in the contract. Both times the company ignored the bumping procedure outlined in the contract.

Phone Off the Hook

“Members started calling the hall to complain about the change in the runs, but the BA took the phone off the hook,” explained Doug Carpenter, a 30-year feeder driver in Local 29.

“We decided to hold a rank-and-file meeting to discuss how we could make the local enforce our agreement,” Carpenter said. “We brought in a TDU organizer, and we put together a plan to make UPS honor our contract.”

Members wrote a letter to their business agent, asking him to sit down with stewards and resolve the situation. Out of the 74 feeder drivers in Staunton, 63 signed the letter.

When feeder drivers showed up as a group at the union meeting on Feb. 10, the business agent announced that UPS management has promised to stop making major changes to runs in between bids.

“Our BA has done more in the last three weeks than he’s done in the last three years,” said Mark Painter, a feeder steward in Local 29.

But members are not letting their guard down, Painter said: “Right now we’ve just got a promise that management will enforce the contract. We’re going to keep working to nail them down and get their word in writing.”

February 21, 2008: UPS has wrapped up a new national contract—but the company’s contract headaches may just be beginning.

This week, Chicago Local 705 kicked off a contract campaign with T-shirts that tell UPS management: “8/1, We’re Done!” August 1 is the day after the Local 705 contract expires with UPS.

The Local 705 contract is independent of the national agreement and covers thousands of UPS Teamsters in the Chicago area.

“Members are determined to improve the contract. If push comes to shove, we’re ready to do what we need to do,” said Mark Day, a package car shop steward out of the Northbrook building. “That’s the message we’re sending with these T-shirts.”

Local 710 Teamsters are also covered by a local contract with UPS that is separate from the national agreement. The Local 710 contract covers UPSers in the rest of Illinois, much of Indiana and Davenport, Iowa.

February 21, 2008: UPS wants part-time Air Drivers to pick up ground packages—a clear violation of our contract.
This is the first big test of our contract. Will our union answer the call?

As Convoy Dispatch goes to press, UPS has launched a new program to use Air Drivers to routinely handle ground packages—a clear violation of the collective bargaining agreement.

This is the first big test of the new contract. Our International Union must answer the call and stop the company from undermining high-paid, full-time jobs at UPS.

The UPS contract prohibits Air Drivers from handling ground packages except under a narrowly defined “exception basis.” This language exists to stop UPS from exploiting lower-paid Air Drivers instead of creating high-paying package car positions.

The top pay rate for package car drivers is more than $28 an hour compared to as little as $11.50 for Air Drivers.

On Feb. 15 UPS announced that it accepts ground packages in its drop boxes and that Air Drivers can pick up these ground packages at their regular pay rate.

In a management memo obtained by Teamsters for a Democratic Union, UPS claims it has the green light from the International Union. But members who contacted the Parcel and Small Package Division were advised that our union has made no agreement with UPS and that grievances should be filed.

By standing up for our contract, we can defend package car jobs—and win monetary awards for Air Drivers.

Clear Language, Narrow Exceptions

Article 40 expressly prohibits Air Drivers from handling ground packages. The only exception outlined under Article 40 is when an Air Driver is making a pickup “after the regular driver has been to the customer’s premises, and the customer has an exception ground package(s) for shipment.”

Any violation of this language requires UPS to pay Air Drivers who pick up ground packages “the top regular package car driver wage rate.”

This language draws a clear line in the sand. UPS’s new drop box program doesn’t just cross the line; it eliminates it altogether.

A management memo makes it clear that its new service will be expansive and that Air Drivers will be picking up ground packages on far more than an “exception basis.” The memo even outlines instructions for how to respond to increased volume at drop box locations.

UPS Claims Green Light from IBT

In the memo, UPS claims that the International Union agreed to this scheme as part of the new contract. The memo states that, “The new labor agreement provides UPS with the flexibility for all drivers to pick up all packages in UPS Drop Boxes. Part- and full-time air drivers and package car drivers can pick up ground packages with no change in pay rate.”

The memo goes on to state that “The new Joint UPS/IBT Competition Committee will review this initiative in six months”—suggesting that the International Union discussed the new program under the committee which was created under Article 26 of the new contract.

With or without union approval, UPS is moving full speed ahead. Drivers are being instructed to post new decals on drop boxes that say, “UPS Ground, Air and International Packages accepted here.”

Enforce the Contract

If UPS management wanted to renegotiate Article 40, they should have brought their proposals to the bargaining table and put them to a membership vote.

Management is free to expand its drop box program to include ground packages. But until our contract expires in 2013, these ground packages are to be handled by package car drivers. If UPS needs to create more package car positions, so be it.

Our International Union needs to communicate clearly to the company and to Teamster members where it stands on this new program—and management’s contention that it is allowed to use Air Drivers to handle ground packages “with no change in pay rate.”

In the meantime, stewards and working Teamsters at UPS need to have our eyes open and file grievances on drop box violations.

Our grievances should demand that UPS pay Air Drivers who handle ground packages out of drop boxes the highest package car driver wage rate and that the company cease and desist from this practice.

To read management’s memo and for the latest updates, go online to www.makeUPSdeliver.org.

February 21, 2008: UPS Freight workers are joining our union by the thousands.
Our union can win big for them.

By mid-February UPS Freight workers have signed cards to become Teamsters at terminals that employ 5,600 drivers and dock workers. This means nearly half of UPS Freight terminals have joined the drive, and they are from all areas of the country.

Reports come in by the week from locals that get a majority of workers to sign Teamster cards. Since UPS management withdrew its opposition, it’s become a much easier effort.

Also in February, the International Union invoked Article 12, Section 2 of the IBT Constitution, asking each affected local to sign bargaining rights over to the International. Once a majority of locals sign the form, the International will control bargaining nationally.

Bargaining Power Growing

As the organizing drive spreads, so does our Teamster bargaining power. It’s likely that 10,000 or more UPS Freight Teamsters will be on board, joining some 240,000 Teamsters on the package side of the company.

This puts our union in a powerful position, and there is no reason we cannot win at least the National Master Freight Agreement.

That would mean bringing company-paid health care, through our union health funds. It would mean top-rung Teamster pensions. It would mean parity with 70,000 other Teamsters in our Freight Division.

It would mean that we are not signing a substandard deal that actually undercuts Teamsters in the Freight Division.

Why Settle Short?

The International Union has said they will instead settle short and use the Indianapolis agreement signed last year for 125 workers as the template for a national agreement. While that agreement has some gains (like overtime after eight hours), it does not have union pensions, it has company health care with an employee payment of $150 per month for family coverage, and low-wage part-timers.

We have the numbers. We have the power. The Teamsters Union should stand strong for the UPS Freight workers and for parity in the freight industry.

Defenders of the International Union’s plan have argued that a substandard contract at UPS Freight would at least give our union a foot in the door. They say we can bargain better terms in the second contract.

If the International Union is wedded to this strategy, then the first contract should be kept short so that UPS Freight Teamsters don’t have to wait five years to get up to Teamster standards.

A first contract of no more than two years would get our union’s “foot in the door” and we could start preparing now to win full parity in the next contract.