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Posted on 12/10/2009 7:43:12 PM PST by uptoolate
YRC Teamsters in Chicago Vote Down Wage Cuts a Third Time by Jane Slaughter / December 9, 2009
Despite pressure from Teamsters officials and YRC management, Chicago dock workers rejected a $1.16 per hour wage cut for a third time yesterday. City drivers voted no for the second time.
Teamster officials had told workers that floundering YRC, which employs 40,000 other Teamster drivers and dock workers nationwide, would go out of business if 1,500 Chicago workers did not accept the wage cut Teamsters voted up nationally last summer. But many members, as well as industry analysts, believe YRC is doomed in any case.
Chicago locals 710 and 705 have bargained separately from the National Master Freight Agreement for 45 years, usually getting the same wage increases but setting a better standard on some terms.
THE SQUEEZE
International VP Tyson Johnson and Local 710 President Pat Flynn, also an International VP, visited terminals to argue that it wasn’t fair for Chicago-area Teamsters to reject concessions that were accepted nationally. At the Chicago Heights facility the road show turned into a shouting match. One worker interrupted Flynn to ask who he was. Told he was the local’s president, the worker called him a liar: Pat Flynn never comes to the Heights night shift.
At the Holland McCook terminal the shouting was so loud that Johnson gave up trying to speak and walked out. Earlier, at the May Local 705 membership meeting, there were eight minutes of spontaneous chanting: "F&%# Hoffa, F&%# Hoffa."
NATIONAL TAKEOVER OF BARGAINING
On November 24, Johnson issued a memo saying the union’s executive board had taken the authority to abolish the Chicago-area freight contracts and impose the National Master Freight Agreement (and its lower standards). Teamsters for a Democratic Union, the reform movement, said the International had feared members would file a lawsuit if it imposed the concessions without a vote.
The vote count in Local 705 was low because balloting was held at the terminals during the day, when drivers were on the road. Teamster votes are usually taken by mail. Local 705 members voted 234 no, 132 yes, and Local 710 voted no by 337-319, with many challenged ballots. About 100 workers were brought back from layoff in 710 in hopes that they would vote yes. Earlier votes had turned the concessions down by 2-1 margins.
After the vote, Johnson issued a memo expressing “disappointment.”
A Local 705 rank and filer who asked not to be identified said that after a year spent watching “death by a thousand cuts,” workers are expecting YRC to fold. Will the company’s 50,000 shipments per day be taken up by non-union competitors?
“That’s on the Teamsters,” said the member, a veteran of earlier reform efforts in the local. “Had they been organizing the whole time, there’s 50,000 shipments that have to be gotten out that could have been taken over by union companies.”
Chicago Teamsters have a tradition of militancy. In the famous UPS strike of 1997, Local 705 UPSers stayed out two extra days for a better deal. In recent UPS negotiations, the local held out for better language and vacations.
Uncle Obama will save them.
Q: What’s black and tan and looks good on a Teamster?
A: A Doberman.
Once again, the parasite kills the host.
The non-union company I drive for has been gaining so much market share from them that we are all mostly working 10-12 hrs a day and have been on a hiring spree.
You happy with the work you're doing there? If so, then all the best to you -- and best of luck to your busy employer, too!
Back in the day (early 60’s), before I went into the military, I was a non-union driver. I still have a scar on my forehead gained from a union, non-union confrontation at a truck stop. The union drivers kept telling us that we were fools for not joining the union … yet, we were making twice the wages they were. And, because we were non-union, union dues were not taken from our paychecks. Fools they.
You were lucky. I distinctly remember some non-union truckers who were shot to death from overpasses. One, in particular, was hauling a load of dynamite -- and the shot set off the load.
Nothing but a crater left on I-44.
I had a very close call as a non-union truck driver in the mid seventies when the union thugs shut down the highways around Chicago. A group came up to my truck and a couple of them wanted to bust my legs and arms. I was eighteen at the time and the leader of them let me go. There had been some shootings and other non-union guys beaten badly, so I felt quite lucky to escape without harm. To this day I have great hatred not only for unions and their thugs, but for the police and the state of Illinois that allowed this to happen without arresting any union thugs.
It's the Chicago Way...
Frightening experience you had. It's absolutely distressing that such things can happen in America.
My wife works for Holland which was bought out by Yellow which merged with Roadway to become YRC. Holland is still run as a separate company but will die with the rest if YRC folds.
Union workers get to be stupid and refuse to accept reality. Just reading the story confirms it. It looks like my wife will be out of work sometime next year when YRC folds. She has taken 2 pay cuts and a 18 month long period where no retirement benefits will apply.
These Chicago jokers just want to piss in the pot and kill it for everybody.
My wife is not in Chicago although she is in the union as her job site is union. She is not a die-hard and is realistic about things. Fortunately, we paid off our house last year and her car will be paid off in Apr. My car will be paid off in another year.
We are not taking on any new debt. We had planned to get new cars next year, but that is NOT happening now. We will ride this out and pay off what other debt we have. She is 52 and will probably have a hard time getting work now, much less anything like what she makes now. Even so, just glad our debt load is small.
These idiots sounds like Eastern Airlines union goons. The company kepy sinking further and further. It finally died. The idiots were still down in Miami on the picet like 4 years after it was dead. I guess they got a few bucks a day for walking the line for the union.
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