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From demanding the Teamsters go back to the bargaining table to voting Hoffa out of office, here are five ways that UPSers can fight back.
UPSers are furious and rightly. We organized and Voted No to reject contract givebacks and Denis Taylor is threatening to impose them anyway by saying the contracts we rejected are “ratified.” We need to focus our anger where it belongs—and put it to good use. Hoffa and management want us to give up or turn on each other and blame the members who didn’t vote. But more members voted this time than last time—and a clear majority of us united against contract givebacks. We are on the rise. Here are five ways UPSers can fight back 1. Demand Negotiations & a New Contract VoteUPSers need to demand that General President Hoffa respect the vote of the members, return to the bargaining table, and put an improved contract offer out to a vote. 2. Eliminate the Two-Thirds RuleThe two-thirds rule in any form needs to be eliminated from the Teamster Constitution. Members can make this happen at the next Teamster Convention. Vote No activists will make plans to win this and other reforms at the upcoming TDU Convention. 3. Take Back Our LocalsToo many UPSers are represented by Local Union leaders that side with Hoffa and the company. We need to take back our union. Some UPSers are already leading the way. UPSers in Dallas Local 767 and New York Local 804 are running for union office right now to throw pro-Hoffa, pro-company officials out of office. TDU has launched the Future Reform Officers initiative to help Teamsters run for office and build local unions that stand up to the employers. 4. Give Hoffa the BootWhen this contract is over, the job is to elect new International Union leadership. The UPS contract betrayal proves beyond any doubt that Hoffa needs to go. UPS Teamsters cannot vote out Hoffa by ourselves. But we are by far the largest voting bloc. UPSers are located in every city and town in North America. We can form the backbone of a grassroots campaign that can drive Hoffa out of office and elect new leadership that will fight the company and not the members by teaming up with members from other industries through the Teamsters for a Democratic Union network. 5. Check Out Teamsters for a Democratic UnionTDU launched the UPS Teamsters United campaign to involve every interested UPSer in opposing givebacks and fighting for a good contract. But winning real change takes more than a contract campaign. We need an ongoing national network. TDU brings Teamster activists together from every industry to:
TDU’s national Convention is coming up, November 2-4 in Chicago. We’ll be planning next steps after the contract vote and holding educational workshops, too. |
Category Archives: Union
UPS workers reject contract offer
The ballots are counted and UPSers have spoken loud and clear by Voting No to reject a bad contract . The International Union announced they will return to the bargaining table with UPS.It’s up to UPSers to make sure that the negotiations are serious, and not for show. UPSers want the givebacks that caused us to Vote No to be taken off the table.
Defying a massive Vote Yes campaign run jointly by UPS management and the Hoffa administration, UPSers voted to reject the UPS contract, 50,248 to 42,356. Voters in the hubs and cities at the heart of UPS’s network Voted No. The 10 rejected supplements include over 47% of UPS Teamsters. From New York City and the Atlantic Area to the whole Central Region to Northern Cal, UPS Teamsters rejected their supplemental agreements. See the Contract Vote ResultsWe Can Win a Better ContractOur union already had the leverage to win a better contract. The No Vote increases our bargaining leverage even more. UPS is making record profits. The economy is strong and there is a nationwide shortage of truck drivers. Just this week, Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour, putting pressure on UPS to raise part-time pay. On Wednesday, Hoffa negotiator Denis Taylor told local officers that he would ignore a No Vote by the members and accept the UPS contract if less than half of the members voted or fewer than two-thirds of the members Voted No. Angry UPSers responded by calling the Package Division and circulating an online petition demanding that the IBT return to the bargaining table. After the vote count results were announced, Taylor reversed course, but left himself a loophole. In a weak statement, Taylor claimed that under the IBT Constitution, “we have a ratified agreement,” but that he will return to the bargaining table to see if the company is “agreeable” to making adjustments. Keep Up the PressureAs a negotiator, Taylor needs to step up or step out of the way. UPSers have spoken and they expect the next contract offer to address the issues that caused members to Vote No, including two-tier 22.4 drivers and low part-time pay. That will only happen if UPS Teamsters keep the pressure on. We’ve already made history. Organizing Teamster-to-Teamster, the UPS Teamsters United campaign overcame the opposition of UPS and our own International Union leadership to reject contract givebacks. We can win a better contract, but it will take even more membership involvement.
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Teamsters for a Democratic Union · United States
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| If management and Hoffa get their way, Teamster new hires at UPS will soon be making less than nonunion Amazon workers.
Today, Amazon established a new minimum wage of $15 an hour, effective November 1. But under the contract givebacks negotiated by Hoffa’s Package Division, tens of thousands of UPS part-timers will be stuck at just $13 an hour. We cannot allow Teamsters under our union’s biggest contract to be paid less than nonunion workers at Amazon. We can stop this disgrace by Voting No.Voting is being conducted online. If you do not have your PIN, call your Local Union and BallotPoint will send you a PIN to vote online or by telephone. Vote No—and spread the word to other UPSers.You have until 1pm on Friday, October 5 to vote. Don’t wait!
Teamsters for a Democratic Union |
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Pensions made America great
Another blow for heartland workers: Slashed pensions
February was a bad month for Larry Burruel and thousands of other retired Ohio iron workers. His monthly take-home pension was cut by more than half from $3,700 to $1,600.
Things have been rough in the Rust Belt, but this was a particularly powerful punch in the pocketbook for Burruel, who started in the trade at 19 and worked 36 years before opting for early retirement to make way for younger workers. Unfortunately, this sagging industry doesn’t have enough younger workers to pay for retirees like Burruel, whose pension plan is in what the U.S. Treasury Department calls “critical and declining status.”
Burruel and the 400,000 members of his Central States Pension Fund are the canaries in the coal mine as far as pension cutbacks go. At least 50 Midwestern pension plans — mostly the kind jointly administered by trustees for a labor union and a group of employers — are in this decrepit condition. Several plan sponsors have already applied to the Treasury Department to cut back retirees’ allotments.
This cross-section of America includes more than a million former truck drivers, office and factory employees, bricklayers and construction workers who are threatened with cutbacks that could last the rest of their lives.
The Central States Pension Fund was the first to actually be approved for this triage under a 2014 law known as the Multiemployer Pension Fund Reform Act. Many pension advocates call it unfair.
“It was run through Congress in the dead of night, and President Obama — who was supposed to be for the working class — signed it,” complained Burruel. The fund is overseen by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, known for dividing up huge settlements in cases such as the 9/11 terrorist attack and the BP (BP) oil spill in the Gulf.
However, it’s not clear what would be fair. The hammer is falling on the private pension funds that are running out of cash. And those shortfalls have many reasons. “The stock market crash had a huge effect,” said Outreach Director Joellen Leavelle of the Pension Rights Center. “Some plans lost billions.” It was a loss from which they never recovered.
When people such as Burruel retired, fewer workers in fewer jobs were available to contribute to the pension plan. That created a lopsided and unsustainable equation. Low interest rates made matters worse. The area economy was yet another factor.
Although things improved economically on both coasts, the Ohio region where Larry and his fellow workers lived remained depressed. When companies there failed, they couldn’t continue to pay pension benefits and, in some instances, declared bankruptcy.
This placed a burden on other failing companies’ pension plans and ultimately the U.S. government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which picks up a portion of a bankrupt company’s pension liability. But the PBGC is limited to payments of slightly more than $1,000 a month in cases of multiemployer funds. And since the PBGC itself is on the verge of bankruptcy, private pensioners like Burruel might endure even bigger cuts if the situation persists.
For now, both healthy public pension funds and private pension funds aren’t at risk. But for those who are affected, it hurts a lot, said Pat Overstreet of Hinckley, Ohio. She and her former iron worker husband refinanced their home to pay for their daughter’s brain tumor treatment. But since his pension has been cut from $2,500 to $930, they may lose their house, she said.
Pensioners like Burruel and Overstreet said they were used to receiving that monthly letter saying their pension plan was “critical.” But then came the more ominous letter reporting the plan was “critical and declining.” That was the tip-off. And the final letter said the plan sponsor had applied for retiree cuts.
For the iron workers, that meant battling to save what they could — not only against attorney Feinberg, but against part of their own membership — the disabled and those over the age of 80.
Burruel believes his nearly 60 percent monthly payment cut is unfair and that it should be 20 percent across the board. But, inevitably, certain groups are favored over others, one reason the former union leadership was voted out, he said.
This type of dissension will likely spill into union halls across the Midwest as more and more plans are slashed. “We are pitted against each other,” said Overstreet. “Those who worked the hardest and made the most are going to get hit the worst.”
Some would argue that these union workers should have contributed to IRAs because these investments can’t be touched. But that wasn’t the way these union workers thought. “When my husband got raises, everything went into the pension,” said Overstreet. And you looked out for your fellow worker, including the younger guy who was going to take your place and help you in your retirement.
“They encouraged me to retire early,” said Burruel. “Now I’d like to get at least a part-time job, but my knee and hip replacements make that impossible.”
Unfortunately, this is only a glimpse into the future awaiting at least a million pensioners in the Rust Belt and elsewhere. The New York State Conference of Teamsters applied for cutbacks then withdrew its application, but it plans to reapply, said pension rights advocate Leavelle. In the meantime, several states’ public pension funds are running dry, including Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut.
“This is going to hit everyone,” predicted Overstreet, “public employees, too.”
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Gun Attack at UPS in San Francisco
DOA —- The American Dream
Nowhere in America can a full-time minimum wage worker afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment
There is nowhere in this country where someone working a full-time minimum wage job could afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment, according to an annual report released Thursday documenting the gap between wages and the cost of rental housing.
Downsizing to a one-bedroom will only get you so far on minimum wage. Such housing is affordable in only 12 counties located in Arizona, Oregon and Washington states, according to the report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
You would have to earn $17.14 an hour, on average, to be able to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment in a safe area without having to spend more than 30 percent of your income on housing. Make that $21.21 for a two-bedroom home – nearly three times the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
The report details how much a household must earn to be able to afford rent in every metropolitan area and county in the country. Renters in the U.S. make, on average, $16.38 an hour.
The minimum hourly wage required to afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment, of course, depends on where you live – ranging from a low of $11.46 in some counties in Georgia to a high of $58.04 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The most expensive state for housing is Hawaii, where workers would need to make $35.20 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. They would need to make $33.58 in the District of Columbia, $30.92 in California, $28.27 in Maryland, and $28.08 in New York.
In the District of Columbia, where the hourly minimum wage is $12.50, a household — say a single parent – must earn $69,840 a year to be able to afford the fair market rent of $1,746 a month for a two-bedroom apartment.
Someone making the federal minimum wage would need to work 117 hours a week – or nearly three full-time jobs – to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment.
Many of the occupations projected to add the most jobs by 2024 pay too little to cover rent. These are customer service representatives, personal care aides, nursing assistants, home health aides, retail salespeople, home health and food service workers who make, on average, between $10 and $16 an hour.
Those whose earnings put them below the federal poverty level cannot even afford the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in any state. The national average rent is $892 a month for a modest one-bedroom apartment and $1,103 for a two-bedroom.
As a result, more than 11.2 million families end up spending more than half their paychecks on housing, the report said – a trade-off with other basic needs such as food, transportation and medical care.
Here’s What You Get Republican Voting Union Members!
House Votes to do Away with Overtime Pay
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/02/news/economy/overtime-pay-bill-passes-house/index.html
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