CALLING CON-WAY FREIGHT DRIVERS: LLA {Con-Way Freight} Teamster Vote 9/12/14

I'm a Con-Way driver. What benefit would the union offer?

We have one of the best pay plans in the industry. How will the union help me make more money? How will I make more if I'm taking money out to pay them? Our top rate is higher than a lot of union shops we compete with. Will we make less if the union can't negotiate a higher rate?

We have pretty good health care. Health care is going up in every industry. Can the union fix that?

Retirement. I spent 8 years with the Teamsters and I get pension statements. The pension fund is a lot of millions in debt. Can the union guarantee that an underwater fund will be around in 30 years? Lots of steel plants in this area had guaranteed pensions that disappeared. With a 401K, I control the money, and it's mine.

Time off. Starting drivers get 3 weeks, plus 7 holidays. That's a month of time off. Will the union get me more?

Safety. Is there any company that is completely honest about safety? Would Holland spend money fixing an asbestos problem if they weren't forced to? Con-Way has some of the newest trucks of any fleet I've seen. They have one of the best CSA scores. Will the union improve that?

I think Con-Way gave the drivers more back because they listened to the drivers. The driver shortage is also a huge factor. Good companies better learn how to retain drivers because new ones aren't lining up.

How will a union make my work place better?

 

What will you do if Monday you arrive at work and there is a bulletin on the dispatch window that says effective today your mileage rate and hourly rate and all your other benefits are cut cut by 1/3 of what they were last week. What are YOU going to do about that, all by your self, not outside help.

 

In the short term, sure. But in the long term, the prices of goods go up, people buy less, the economy slows, those cushy jobs bankrupt some of the more unstable companies, banks take a hit and cut back on lending, people lose their jobs, the economy stalls, people buy even less, overseas economies slow - buying less from America, freight demand goes down, & rates plummet.

Union labor is just another form of price control, & price controls always hurt in the long run. Of course in the long run, we are all dead...

 

I was being sarcastic, ironic to try, try shake your thinker loose. The dominoes you cite, Bright One, are just polemics. Not real. When you have 3-year security what your pay will be, that's still pretty short term and it's not too much to ask. What's a price control, after all? Is it a hedge that an airline buys to secure fuel at a given rate? Is it an agreement between parties that we'll supply a resource for x period of time at x dollars? Is that your bugaboo, 'price control'? A price for something until the time-limited contract runs out!!

Is it a payment on your tractor or your insurance? Get real.

Yeah, there have been many problems on the union side, I'll grant you that. What it does, though, collective bargaining and having a contract, is put the worker on a level playing field where the boss can't come in on Tuesdays and fire everybody with blue eyes or wore plaid shirts that day because he's angry at his wife and doesn't dare kick the dog in front of his own kids.

A contract means there are financial penalties for bypassing seniority and grievance procedures to deal with transgressions (on both sides). It doesn't mean there's a monster in the basement that will eat and consume all the company's profits. Doesn't. Just doesn't.

Time to wake up...

 

Hey, Whip! Teamsters have already benefitted you. Promise you Con-way won't pay you 10-cents more than it figures it has to in order to keep the Teamsters out. But Con-way will pay you that and still have freedom to fire you tomorrow no matter where you are on the seniority roster and you have no recourse. Does seniority and grievance procedures matter when drivers are in such demand as they are right now. Maybe not. Will it stay this way? Probably not.

Are there recessions ahead in our future. Probably yes.

Do you like living/working on a banana peel?

 

see above. btw, why do you think the standards have been set so high?

 

this is political rhetoric from the right, it gets parroted a lot to derail drivers from standing up to keep the company in check.

are you an owner operator? if you are, ive read thd usual complaints. go and dig up some info about when the owner operators were union, and see how much better they had it.

i agree with your last part though, and thats a bigger point than many fail to realize. youve only got so long, might as well make the deal better for you and your co workers in every way you can, and nail those rotten pencil pushers to a contract!

 

In the examples you cite, prices can, and do, go down -- without causing a shock to the system (work stoppage).

It also means a Jack Welch can't come in, cut the dead weight, and reinvigorate a stalling company. Once a worker has reached a certain level of seniority, he has no external incentive to do anything but the bare minimum & is often discouraged from working as efficiently as he might like. (Recent example from this forum: union driver sitting, collecting 2 1/2 hours of overtime, while a mechanic comes out to unthread 1 nut and replace a landing gear crank handle).

Ostensibly good for the "common man," unions promote workplace mediocrity -- benefiting a few workers at the expense of the actual common man who pays too much for goods/services and can't find a job. Talk about irony.

 

I will agree with you that unions CAN promote workplace mediocrity. In fact, I used to rue that a good union job could have bad impact on a person's character.

You're right there, Bright One. No argument from me. Doesn't have to be that way and shouldn't. Unions failed to educate their membership; when the membership demanded militance and stridence and lost sight of what really mattered, the unions should have stood up to their membership.

Didn't happen.

Doesn't change the fact that the seniority system and a contract with procedures for grievances and workplace issues protects drivers' families from arbitrary and capricious managers, DM's, etc. It's worse in truckload than in freight by many, many a mile.

 

Jack Welch is a good exemplar to take up. He led GE through some remarkable growth with a single mantra. Every year, every manager had to identify his lowest performing 10%-15% and those folks were summarily let go. Every year. Every department.

Not too difficult the first year, harder the next and driven by the fact that every manager's manager was doing the same to each manager and his/her peers. Up and down the work force.

A few years out this becomes very problematic. It is harsh. You're cutting into good, reliable, productive people. What to do? But if you were a GE manager and your department wasn't showing constant improvement, guess what? You got YOUR walking papers because you fell into that 10%-15% with a bus ticket and a hand shake.

It is just this mindless, arbitrary and capriciousness why workers need job protections. As a result, GE's union folks did not suffer the same.