What would happen if megas had a union brew up on their hands ?

Truckload carrier ECM Transport ( A subsidiary of Werner Enterprises) had 3 terminals in New Jersey join the Teamsters back in August. The big fear for the "C" Class is the overtime exemption for company truck drivers will pass in congress.

 

It is extremely unlikely a starter company is a target to be organized. The vast majority of the employees are short timers and aren’t planning to retire from most Mega’s.

 

There’s no way the megas would stand for the drivers to unionize…..

 

OO's and non union company employees would only be so lucky to see more unionization. Would increase pay across the board. Keeps others aware of competition for good drivers and the need to keep what they have, happy.

 

There is absolutely nothing illegal about Owner Operators leased to a carrier being represented by a Union or organizing a non union owner operator fleet. Which is what I assumed he was talking about. You may have interpreted his statement differently.

 

Many of the major union company's had O/Os that were union and hauled out of the mills along with gas products & reefers.
Since deregulation it has all but gone away.
This industry enjoys sucking hind tit and cutting each other throats.
Sad that many live like rats and look forward to that S.N.A.P card refill each month.

 

Stingy greedy Heartless Expressed can afford to be union.

133 million net profit for 2022 but not enough money for cab curtains.

 

First thing first, they would retaliate against any worker trying to organize- just like Starbucks, Amazon, and Walmart have in recent years. The difference is they'll get away with it. It's much easier to find grounds/build the paper trail to fire a driver than it is a store worker. Plus it's harder to prove the retaliation - a lot more variables at play as to why a driver's miles start dropping.

This all they really need to do. Even if there was a major desire to unionize, the practical issues are monumental. OTR drivers just don't see enough of each other to build relationships. There are about 20 guys I know, plus another 10-15 I see habitually but don't even know their name. When I get to the yard, I load my gear and leave. When I get home, I load my car and go home. I'm not hanging out in break rooms and other than TTR I don't do social media - so how are the organizers going to reach me? Even if they do get in contact, why am I going to listen to some random guy? I don't know if this guy is a Napoleon or a Snowball, so I'm not going to give him an opening.

And that's just the practical side. Getting into the actual issues is going to be more uphill.

But let's pretend for the minute that a magic wand is waved, and POOF we become a union company again. Of the 6 union guys we uave left, 3 are on a mileage pay scale that is just about the same as everyone else. Pension is about the same as the 401k match. The only real difference is the health insurance, but even that isn't much more. So at the end of the day, nothing would really change except having one more manager type putting his oar in my water.

 

My Heartland truck came with cab curtains