On the heels of its successful effort to begin organizing workers at LTL giant UPS Freight, formerly Overnite Transportation, under a “card check” with the LTL’s parent company United Parcel Service, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters plans to step up other transportation unionizing campaigns.
See Teamsters advance on UPS Freight
At the union’s 27th convention in Las Vegas last week, some 7,000 delegates, representing a membership base of roughly 1.4 million, backed several transportation initiatives to increase unionization in several key areas. Teamsters specified DHL’s delivery network, port drivers and school bus workers.
The Teamsters also plan to continue efforts to keep the border closed to Mexican trucks, seek early negotiations for the 2008 National Master Agreement contract with UPS, and beef up initiatives to protect Teamster retirement security at various trucking-related companies.
On the benefits front, the Teamsters notched a victory on behalf of 3,700 members working for bankrupt car hauler Allied Holdings, which withdrew a court filing requesting an extension of pay cuts Allied imposed on car haul workers in May and June of this year.
The union said it planned to authorize a strike under the terms of Article 16 of the National Master Automobile Transporters Agreement (NMATA after Allied attempted to extend the 10% wage cut and elimination of cost of living adjustments (COLA) and benefit increases.
For more information, go to www.teamsters.com
