TransportFool

It has to be a bit embarrassing to have a contract recommended unanimously and then be soundly defeated. TDU has a petition on their site asking for a new negotiating committee. Of course there are two sides to every story and truth be told it has been a long time since times have been this tough for the big three that are the carhaul teamsters main customers. This means the customers are holding the rate down and in turn the union carriers are finding it hard to turn a profit. Allied ,PTS, Active, and Unimark are examples that come to mind. The union carriers have in the past set the standard, but as I travel around it has become apparent that the scales are tipping. I see more good jobs with decent benefits in non-union trucks than ever before. I see more cutting-edge technology like vin scanners and GPS navigation in the non-union trucks! As a matter of fact some of the union drivers have been asked to use some pretty sorry equipment!

Teamsters for a Democratic Union is reporting that the contract and all of its supplements were rejected! some of the margins are close but I’m surprised there was a clean sweep. Here is a quote from their site:

“The national contract was rejected by 2,939 to 2,076, and all three supplements were rejected as well. The Central-Southern supplement was rejected 2,555 to 1,500, the East by 316 to 304, and the West by 184 to 171.”

From the official union site the reaction is less than enthusiastic. Fred Zuckerman is quoted as saying:

“We hope to resolve this contract without going on strike.”

here is the vote count

Here is a post From teamsteronline that I think accurately expresses the feelings of a majority of the drivers:

On TEAMSTERSONLINE.COM 2chained SAYS:

Could be the start of the end of Union Carhaul, lets just hope not

While we can debate whether or not this contract vote will determine the future of the teamsters union, I think most will agree that it is at least a very important vote. There is a post on The Carhauler titled:

“Ballot count may decide our Future or Failure!“.

The truth is both those voting NO and those voting YES believe that they are doing what is best for their union and for their jobs!

Here is a recent pro union comment:

P. Wazluski Says:

I am Union and glad to be for over 20 years, I dont Always agree with the front office but I agree with the sharing the wealth and making me and my family’s life a little nicer. If it wasn’t for the teamsters everybody would br running for .10 cents a mile and/or $8.00 an hour! Now you can believe that or not, but teamsters keeping the rates up has helped EVERYBODY!!!. I’m sure there will be some say “I wouldn’t run for less than BLAH BLAH BLAH” I heard it a thousand times, from all types of truck drivers, but without teamsters you couldn’t refuse a load for better pay!!.. the beginning scenes from “Hoffa” sure do tell alot, where Danny Devito (without the union) has to take a load and drive all nite to deliver and back with little or no sleep or he was FIRED!!!! C’mon, that was for real not just movie hype!!!!! are you kidding me, thats ridiculous, but true!!!! My grandfather drove when there were no interstates and no union, my uncle was with Yellow Freight(ret.) and my dads with UPS(retiring soon) and now me with 20 yrs. in.. Im sorry but I like the union and what stands for, besides my Granpa said it Best 60 yrs ago,
“There are lot of guys driving trucks out there, But very few Truckers !!!! now that was 60 yrs ago, imagine what we are dealing with today!!!! I dont like what the world is looking like right now, but I dont want to be insanely rich, I just want to go fishin with my kids and not have to take out a loan to do it!!!!!! Im sorry so long winded…..

I drove carhaulers for years but always non-union and it has been my observation that the union trucks haul more one-way freight than the non-union guys. I always thought that it was because they were less likely to let a guy sit around waiting for a load when he was on the clock. I was paid on commission so I was willing to sit tight and hope that we could secure a load back home that might almost double my pay for the trip. I think that in this era of expensive fuel everybody needs to be as efficient as possible and running 50% empty miles is not good!

Here is some examples of what the members are posting on TDU: .

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Local 604, St. Louis
Members Vote Unanimously to Oppose Deal

“We had over 130 carhaul members at our contract meeting. Not a one supported the contract when they spoke. We had a unanimous No vote. There’s nothing in this contract for the membership. It’s a sad day when all that was fought and bled for just gets bargained away. We need to stand up and fight to maintain our jobs. We’re Voting No to send them back to the bargaining table.”
Gary Burch, Jack Cooper
Local 604, St. Louis

“Local 327 held a carhaul meeting on Monday morning to go through the proposed changes. Our steward and our members made it very clear that this agreement is not acceptable. Jimmy Neal did not leave with any uncertainty: he knows the contract is going down in our local.

“The IBT says Article 48 is not gutted. But members think otherwise. Members are up in arms about being forced to haul up to two loads from a foreign terminal and being forced out onto five tours.

“Also there’s no snap-back to bring ‘New Business’ up to the full contractual rate.

“We all know that times are tough and the car industry in particular is in a bad spot. We also know that what we give up, we don’t get handed back. It’s been a long hard fight to get where we are. We’re not about to give it all up because times are tough.

“We made plans to mark and mail our ballots together and turn out the strongest possible No vote here in Local 327.”
Matt Studd, Cassens
Local 327, Nashville

“I can’t find a driver here in Kansas City that supports the contract. We’re already living with a 15 percent pay cut. There’s nothing in this contract that’s for the members; it’s all about money savings for the companies.”
Jimmy Travis, Allied
Local 41, Kansas City

Local 120, Twin Cities
“We Need Clear Language Not Promises.”

“We’re concerned about the five tour deal and getting home off the road. At our meeting, we got an explanation about how this will work out for us drivers. But none of that’s written in the contract. 24 years in the Teamsters has taught me not to count on interpretations. We need clear language in the contract or the companies will run right over us.”
Dave Murphy, Allied
Local 120, St. Paul

• July 13th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

  ethan Says:

  I KNOW OF TWO DRIVER AT THE COOPER FAIRFAX TERMINAL THAT SUPPORT THE NEW CONTRACT, ITS NOT ALL ABOUT THE MONEY, WANTING TO BUILD A TWO YEAR RECORD AGAINT A DRIVER IS B.S. , NOT TO MENTION BEING FORCED TO RUN AND ADDITIONAL UP TO 5 LEGS AT HALF/ RATE.

We can talk all day about whether the Allied Auto Transport drivers did right to accept a pay cut to attempt to save their jobs. There has been a lot of discussion along the same lines about the union rejecting Performance Auto Transports attempt to force a similar pay cut through the bankruptcy court. The facts are that Allied is still hauling cars and paying their drivers the lower wage and PTS is closed.

Is my sense of fair messed up when I think it is UNFAIR for a driver with seniority that lost his job because he voted to strike rather than accept a pay cut to take a position at Allied, that results in either less work or possibly no work at all for a guy that has been driving for a year at Allied under the wage concessions!

This post on The car hauler is what set me thinking about this:

1. Active Car Hauler says:
   June 21st, 2008 at 10:17 pm - EditIf PTS workers came to work and the doors were locked I wouldnt have any arguement for their seniority rights, but this is not the case.. Allied drivers understood what would have happened if they didnt except the pay reductions, they did and their still working..PTS drivers rolled the dice and lost…now me and 40 other drivers some of who transferred cause our work was given up by the our company now face losing our jobs cause PTS drivers struck their company out of business…PTS drivers opened a can of worms…Ur former owner is still in,changing ur PTS logo to Allied as we speak, Uniited road is hauling PTS freight ,some of ur drivers who are being absorbed are looking at pay cuts. So who benefits from the strike and closure..the most senior men..and the question is asked why united road and others are taking our freight? maybe because the junior guys the future of the teamsters are dissatisfied and fed up with constantly being stepped on. But realize this, PTS went out of business while u guys struck..at that point You had no work 2 claim your own, you gave up that right ,just as u gave up the right 2 claim severence, vacation, and unemployement . The union has scrabled to force u guys down our throat but were not going 2 stand by and get stepped on cause u guys lost.. In my barn my shop steward went out on comp the day before u guys struck, that was the first sign., he wont return any active drivers call, and he has said he will not take any greveinces….see a pattern here? The teamsters is a democracy not a autonomy….Cassens and Allied have sent u 2 the bottom of their list……why isnt Active doing the same?

If this post from Thecarhauler is any indication then they have their work cut out for themselves:

1. JerseyDevil says:
   July 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm - EditWell in case anyone doesn,t know ,the contract updates were just made available. Check it out at http://www.teamster.org Read it and weep

UPDATE 7/03/08 Thecarhauler is running a poll and it is 80% against this contract

Leaders from local unions that represent
carhaul members will meet July 2 in Detroit
to review the tentative national agreement
that was reached June 19.
If the local leaders endorse the three-year
tentative agreement, it will pave the way for carhaul
members to vote on whether to approve the agreement.
Ballots are tentatively scheduled to be mailed
to members on July 10.

For updates, visit www.teamster.org.carhaulupdatenews_3

The union members posting on The Carhauler don’t sound impressed!

SKIDPIN

Dave,
Without UNION carhaul we are all going to take a big hit.The UNIONS were able to maintain a somewhat fair playing field by insuring negociated pay,benfits and rates.Now the CORPORATE big guys have succeeded in making it appear that the UNION put PTS out of business.The fact that UCOPIA (Ron Birkles company) was at the helm of both PTS and ALLIEDS bailout plans seems a bit odd to me . the number one and two carhaulers in the country and now number two is gone GEE thats kinda ODD.when PTS said they wanted sell all its assets the only bid was from ALLIED (pondering???)but they soon realized that was way too much and backed off.In the end We all know allied will end up with as much of PTS as they need to make RON BIRKLE awinner and AMERICAN LABOR THE LOSERSAS far as the non-union carriers I have some more insight but I have to go now and will be BACK

Danielle Morgan

They are upset about non union carriers coming in to pick up their slack, what about the union carriers like Jack Cooper that the day PTS went on strike they gave Ford Motor Company 179 trucks? Looks like they need to be upset with their own more then the non union carriers. Also the teamster care nothing more about themselves, what about the car dealers that are waiting for their cars? PTS locked up their trucks loaded with vehicles and now no carrier can get them to their respectful home. So our question is, why is it the car manufacuters fault? Also the teamsters act like we are in Iraq, we are in America where it is a free enterprise. Non union carriers are doing nothing more then what was asked to do by the Big 3.

My opinion is that the Union works real hard to protect their blue collar membership. A negative side effect of this is that they work against the middle class by trying to preserve union jobs and keep the union strong. I think we are seeing that the big corporations are taking over everything and when they do, they can set prices, wages etc. When that happens we need to band together and demand fair wages and prices. I would like it better If we could do it in a way that would allow a union driver to go into business for himself without being cut down by his own union. Right now the union will push out a guy that has managed to buy 4 or 5 trucks by trying to prohibit him from hauling for any of the big three. I’m not Anti-teamster but I’m not Pro-teamster either. I am pro free enterprise. Sometimes the unions help by keeping the big corporations in check and other times they hurt by suppressing the middle class operator.

What is your opinion?

Here is another quote from Teamsters for a Democratic Union:

June 17, 2008: In the wake of PTS’s closure, carhaul employers are trying to violate the national contract and deny the right of PTS Teamsters to follow their work.

This attack on our contract, our solidarity, and on Teamsters who struck when they were called out by the International Union cannot be tolerated. All these Teamsters ask is that Article 5 of the contract be honored by Jack Cooper, Allied, Cassens and Active Transportation.

At the national grievance hearing today, the employers refused to abide by the contract, and deadlocked initial cases, including Kentucky Local 651 vs. Cassens, and Dallas Local 745 vs. Jack Cooper. Those hearings will continue tomorrow, but the initial cases show that a stronger stand will be needed to protect our jobs and seniority rights.

They have battles on two fronts now with the non-union haulers and the union haulers. If they choose to battle the shippers they will have 3 plates spinning at once. Question is can they be effective on 3 fronts at once?

Here is a copy of one of the emails Jeff Cornish has received and posted on the PTS site:

To Mr. Cornish,
I want to thank you for trying to save your company. I have only worked for Leaseway Canada/PTS for a while, but this company was the best company I have ever worked for. Thank you for the opportunity to work for you. On behalf of all the Canadian drivers, we are sorry the US Teamster’s had their own agenda. For some reason, I see this as the beginning of the end for union car haul.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There is a tread going on this subject on the union site that has 37 comments as of 7-1-08!