Category Archives: Union

Union, UPS

Teamsters to Focus on Wages in Early Talks With UPS


 



Mark Szakonyi, Associate Editor | Jun 12, 2012 2:54PM GMT
The Journal of Commerce Online – News Story





     Job security, health care and pensions are also expected to dominate negotiations
     An early start to negotiations with UPS will allow the Teamsters union to focus on discussions over job security, wages, health care and pensions in January, the union said.
     Teamsters leaders unanimously agreed earlier this month to begin negotiations on contracts covering approximately 250,00 union members on Sept. 27, roughly 10 months before the current five-year contract expires. The UPS and UPS Freight contract is the largest Teamsters contract and biggest U.S. collective bargaining agreement, said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters general president.
     The UPS contract covers package delivery drivers, loaders and sorters, while the UPS Freight agreement covers drivers, dock workers and clerks.
     “The struggling economy and the company’s recent announcements about record quarterly profits make this good timing to open negotiations,” said Ken Hall, Teamsters general secretary-treasurer. “We want to address operations issues now so we can concentrate next year on other important issues such as wages, health care and pensions.”
     UPS profit in the first quarter rose 6.3 percent to $1.6 billion year-over-year, as revenue expanded 4.3 percent to $13.1 billion. The union said it plans to address work preservation related to subcontracting, workload and safety, and health this fall.
     “This progress is the right thing to do for our employees and our customers,” UPS spokesman Norman Black said. “An early start to the negotiations greatly increases the chances of an early finish.”
     Health care is expected to be a dominant negotiation issue, as members face rising costs and the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Health Care for America Act looms, Hall said. He warned members that if Republican Mitt Romney won the presidency, the union would face an attack on “health care plans like we’ve never seen before.”
     “Romney has made it incredibly clear how he feels about labor unions,” Hall said.

Union, UPS

Q&A


UPS Won’t Guarantee Benefits After 2013





     April 10, 2009: On January 1, 2008, UPS transferred some 44,000 full-time Teamsters out of the Central States Pension Fund, and into a new UPS-only pension plan.
     Many members have questions about their benefits in the new fund. TDU consulted pension attorneys and experts to answer some of the most frequently asked questions.
     Do you have a question or concern about your benefits in the new UPS plan? Call TDU at (313) 842-2600, or email us at info@tdu.org.
     Q: If I retire and Central States fails to pay me their portion of my pension, will UPS guarantee me the difference?
     Yes and No. If you retire by July 31, 2013, yes. If Central States fails to be able to pay its full portion, UPS will make up the difference to guarantee your pension.
     But if you retire after that, all bets are off. It all depends on what is bargained in the 2013 contract. This illustrates a major problem: the UPS pull-out weakened the Central States Plan, but UPS Teamsters are still dependent on it for a large portion of their pension benefits.
     You can be sure UPS management will make good use of this hammer in bargaining, to try to extract more concessions from the Teamster leadership.
     Fortunately there is an IBT election in November 2011. Teamsters have a chance to vote out Hoffa and elect leaders who will protect the pensions of all Teamsters.
     Q: When I retire, will I get two checks?
     UPS pays your full pension until age 65. Once you are 65, you will get two checks. Central States and the UPS Plan will each pay a share, based on how many years you have in each plan. Your years prior to 2008 will be paid by Central States; your years beginning with 2008 will be paid by UPS.
     Q: Can you count your part-time years toward early retirement?
     Your part-time years can be counted in order to qualify for a 25 or 30 year early retirement, but will not count toward your benefit amount. For example, a Teamster with 25 full-time years and five part-time years qualifies for 30-and-out, but will get $2625 instead of $3,000 per month because the part-time pension pays very low benefits. (This is the same rule as previously, under Central States.) If you qualify for a part-time pension and a full-time pension, you will receive two checks, and three checks after you reach age 65.
     Q: How do the benefits under the new UPS plan compare to other Teamster plans?
     They compare unfavorably, and that situation is going to get worse by 2013. Benefits in the UPS plan are frozen for the life of the contract, whereas those in most other plans are increasing. For more information, see The Teamster Pension Divide at www.tdu.org/pensiondivide.
     The UPS Plan also has no reciprocity with other pension plans. This means if you transfer into the plan from the West or East, you cannot add your pension credits together from the UPS Plan and another plan. It also means if you leave UPS and take a job at another Teamster company, you cannot add your years together in the two plans.
     Q: Can UPS take over other Teamster plans?
     UPS gave the International Union a letter agreeing not to try to take over more pension plans until the contract after next. However, that is no solid guarantee. If they see a weak leadership at the International Union, they may seek to take over more pensions.
     We Do the Same Work But We Get Less
     “Our pension is the lowest for any UPSers in the country. We do the same job, but in the end we get less.
     “You can bet that if we can ask to improve our pensions in our next contract, UPS is going to put a steep price tag on it.
     “I’m helping to put together a TDU meeting in Florence so that we can educate other members. UPS is already planning for the next contract. We should too.”

James McLeod, UPS Local 71, Florence, S.C.

Union, UPS

Always a Factor in Contract Negotiations


















UPS 2nd Quarter Profits: $1.12 Billion


Headed into contract negotiations, UPS continues to make big profits.


UPS announced it made $1.12 billion in profits after taxes for the 2nd Quarter on $13.35 billion in revenue. Not a bad haul for three months.


Operating profit for U.S. domestic package jumped more than 12 percent. Package volume is up 3.5 percent. Not only are we delivering more packages; the company is making more money on every package we deliver. Average revenue per package increased 0.6 percent.


Click here to read our detailed coverage at www.makeUPSdeliver.org.

Union

Clearing air on erroneous beliefs about our Union


President’s Column-Rocky Mountain Teamster
By Steve Vairma, President Joint Council #3



Two facts discovered by a recent membership survey of Teamsters Local 455 in Denver were surprising to me.


One was that our membership doesn’t realize that the Teamsters Union uses only volunteer money for political campaigns. We do not spend your hard earned dues money on politics, and that fact counters blatant lies of our anti-union enemies who are waging war on the workers of this country.


Even though most Local 455 members (58 percent) know that the Teamsters Union does not contribute dues money to political candidates, a relatively large number – 35 percent – said they didn’t know the union’s political contributions were voluntary. It is interesting that 58 percent the same percentage that knew that union political contributions were voluntary – said the union should be involved in politics.


The money contributed by the Teamsters Union to candidates comes from DRIVE, our Democrat-Republican-Independent-Voter-Education program, which, in Local 455, is funded by about 27 percent of the members.


A second fact is that many members don’t realize that both the federal and state governments have the power to abolish the workers’ rights negotiated in a labor contract by a union and management.


Eliminating workplace rights is a common practice. In fact, some 23 states have passed so-called right-to-work laws, which essentially eliminate much of the protection afforded by union contracts while depressing wages and working conditions.


The state of Wisconsin passed a law last year prohibiting collective bargaining. Ohio tried to do it, too, but after the law was passed there, it was repealed by voters. These are not isolated cases; there have been many instances where states have eliminated workers’ rights in areas such as unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation and workplace safety, among others.


On the national level, presidential candidate Mitt Romney has announced he supports right-to-work laws. His so called “Plan for Jobs and Growth,” which was released for his presidential campaign, says he “believes that right-to-work legislation is the appropriate course for states, and he will use the bully pulpit” of the presidency “to encourage states to move in that direction.”


Teamster President James Hoffa recently cited an incident in which Romney, campaigning in Wisconsin, related a “humorous” story about his father closing an auto plant and laying off workers in Michigan. Afterward Romney was criticized for being “out of touch.”


But Hoffa recognized Romney’s real motive: “I think the problem with Mitt Romney is that he doesn’t believe working families should have good jobs at good wages.”


Because of the unfortunate Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court just two years ago, more than $100 million has already been injected into our political system through so-called superpacs.


And – unlike the Teamsters’ political contributions – superpac contributions aren’t voluntary, nor are they identifiable. They come from massive pools of corporate profits, which we all pay into but have no control over.


Their money is spent almost exclusively to support candidates seeking to make all working men and women scapegoats for a lousy economy.


They want us all to earn $8 an hour, with no benefits, no job protection, long hours and higher taxes.


They are now able to outspend us by a 20 to 1 ratio, and the gap is growing each day. In number, though, we are far more than they. That is our only weapon.


We must mobilize and beat them at the ballot box.

Union

It’s Contract Time


Teamster Leaders Vote Unanimously To Open Negotiations With UPS



June 7, 2012



Kickoff For Negotiations for UPS, UPS Freight Contracts Set For Sept. 27

Teamster leaders have voted unanimously to kick off negotiations Sept. 27 for the national UPS and UPS Freight contracts covering about 250,000 union members nationwide, announced Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer and Package Division Ken Hall.


The UPS contract is the largest collective bargaining agreement in the country. Negotiations will open Sept. 27 in Washington following yesterday’s unanimous vote by the national negotiating committee and local leaders gathered for the UPS and UPS Freight national grievance panels this week in Providence, R.I.


The current five-year agreements expire July 31, 2013. The UPS contract covers package delivery drivers, loaders, unloaders and sorters at UPS, as well as employees at Cartage Services Inc. The agreement with UPS Freight covers drivers, dockworkers and clerks.


Hall said starting negotiations this year means that three weeks will be dedicated this fall to address important operations issues, clearing the way to start focusing in January solely on the critical economic concerns of job security, wages, health care and pensions for both UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters.


The decision to push UPS to the bargaining table was triggered by the company’s recent strong financial performance and record profits.


“The struggling economy and the company’s recent announcements about record quarterly profits make this good timing to open negotiations,” Hall said. “We want to address operations issues now so we can concentrate next year on other important issues such as wages, health care and pensions.”


Operations issues that will be addressed this fall at the bargaining table include work preservation related to subcontracting, workload and safety and health.


“The UPS contract is the largest Teamster contract and the largest collective bargaining agreement in the nation,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. “We’ve assembled a great team as we head into negotiations, and you can expect that all of the strength, power and resources of the Teamsters Union will be focused on winning strong new contracts for our members at UPS and UPS Freight.”


Hall said he expects health care to be a dominant issue in negotiations, especially with continuing rising costs, the pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Health Care for America Act and November’s presidential election.


Hall cautioned Teamsters about the impact that a victory for Republican Mitt Romney would have on health care and pension benefits for union members.


“There will be an attack on Teamster health care plans like we’ve never seen before, mark my words,” Hall said. “Romney has made it incredibly clear how he feels about labor unions.”


Hall said he recognizes the concerns of UPS Teamsters about protecting and maintaining their strong health care benefits, and he will fight at the bargaining table to preserve them.


“UPS Teamsters who are in Teamster plans now will remain in Teamster plans after negotiations,” he said.

Teamster.com