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Why did CF go under?

vetran peddleman said:
I agree w/ you SW on the difference of the labor set up between the two companies, but what I was trying to emphasize that there seems to be no change over the years operationally between CF, CNW and now XPO. The philosophy that was told to me many years age when I first hitched my wagon to CNW was this,( and I quote)... "No matter what you do for this company, it's never hard enough, fast enough, or good enough." That thinking, I'm going to assume, originated from CF way back when.
Even though CF was the best job you ever had...didn't they have this operational hard work ethic even w/ the teamster presence?
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I don't want to get in a war over con way and cf..... all I can say for myself is I would work as hard as possible to remain having that job..... management never pushed me.... I went to work did what was asked of me. .... then went home.

Some days were easy and others not so.... but I kept going back. ... some cannot grasp the concept of the best job ever.....
 
I worked part time P&D for Consolidated.
I don't know what the terminals equipment was like other than Rochester?
However the junky tractors I had to drive should have been deadlined,but the TM told me to drive it,or go home.
At that time Conway was an up & coming division with their tractors being leased.
We all thought then something weird was going on,& that was long before Corn Flakes gave out the 800 number to be called on Labor Day.
Saying they closed.
My opinion way back when Corn Flakes had it planed to go non-union by forming Conway Central & Western,then to close Consolidated.
You all know the stock holders rule in this business.

On a side note the CF Rochester terminal was sold to American a non-union LTL which became FedEx Freight.The terminal became to small & FedEx built a much larger terminal.
The old CF terminal now has another non-union company.
 
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I know some bankrupted LTL terminals around here are being used by other companies.
Where some have been abandoned.

There was another thing I thought about CF back in the day.
They had a few dedicated customers,that little by little Conway was taking over.
I remember one which manufactured moldings for new cars,it didn't happen overnight.
However in a matter of months Conway was in & CF hardly got any of the business.

Guess we should have seen the hand writing on the wall so to speak.
 
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Apostolic said:
I know some bankrupted LTL terminals around here are being used by other companies.
Where some have been abandoned.

There was another thing I thought about CF back in the day.
They had a few dedicated customers,that little by little Conway was taking over.
I remember one which manufactured moldings for new cars,it didn't happen overnight.
However in a matter go months Conway was in & CF hardly got any of the business.

Guess we should have seen the hand writing on the wall so to speak.
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We're seeing that handwriting at ABF as we speak...
 
There was also another indicator of things to come,that was weird to us.
However I guess we didn't want to believe it.
Which was all of the new pups, 28 foot trailers coming in & out of the terminal with inbound then outbound were branded with tape,instead of paint.
The Consolidated branding was all painted on the equipment,until Conway started showing up & bleeding the CF accounts away.
Thats when we noticed the branding was tape,or vinyl,which could easily have been removed with a heat gun..
Oh the sly way Consolidated fazed out their union division to become a non-union LTL.
As we look back to see how blind,or unbelieving all of us Teamsters were.
 
Not that there was anything you could have done about it. And watch as ABF does the same thing with their own twist.
 
The really sad thing was the union was not able to do anything to stop CF's push to go non-union.
There were so many Teamster LTL's going bankrupt,with non-union companies taking their place.
The union really lost a lot of their leverage to protect their members against the closures, where a lot of us including myself.
Were more or less left to take a withdrawal from the union & hire on with a non-union company,or leave trucking for another trade to make a living.

I myself was very blessed to hire on with Overnite doing P&D which I was used to doing.
At the time it was a Hugh pay-cut,however in the long run it really worked out for the best.
I went from $13.66 an hour with time & a half after 8 down to a starting pay of $9.50 an hour straight time.
At the time the way I looked at it was that a full time job was better than jumping around working a day here & maybe not able to get a full week with the remaining union companies,with little hope of hiring on with any of them with so many other teamster members available for the same jobs.

So after 22 years with Overnite UPS bought them out & 5 years later I retired with a Teamsters pension,as well as a combined Overnite, UPS pension,which I am happy with.
 
was RPS a division or Roadway? i had worked for them.

(roadway package services)
 
pro1driver said:
was RPS a division or Roadway? i had worked for them.

(roadway package services)
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RPS was a division of the holding company Roadway Services. After Roadway Services spun off Roadway Express,
Roadway Services changed their name to Caliper Systems. Federal Express bought Caliper and RPS became FedEx Ground.
 
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mud said:
RPS was a division of the holding company Roadway Services. After Roadway Services spun off Roadway Express,
Roadway Services changed their name to Caliper Systems. Federal Express bought Caliper and RPS became FedEx Ground.
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yeah, i left RPS long before Federal Express bought them, and maintained it as an o/o outfit, and rebadged that as FedEx Ground

i just wasn't to sure if RPS had indeed been a part of the Roadway family
 
Whoa I see some of us are really going down memory lane.
I back when Roadway Package Service first started in the Rochester area.
There was an ad for drivers,I was working part time when dock & P&D work was available at the LTL's around my area.
So I went to the orientation to see what was being offered.
The guy running the meeting cut right to the chase,saying if anyone there wanted to be a driver for them.
We had to fork over $2500.00 to by one of the fleet of vans they had just bought.
I didn't stay for the rest of the talk,when I left a lot of other guys went with me,& only a few stayed.

There was noway I was going to buy a job.
 
Apostolic said:
Whoa I see some of us are really going down memory lane.
I back when Roadway Package Service first started in the Rochester area.
There was an ad for drivers,I was working part time when dock & P&D work was available at the LTL's around my area.
So I went to the orientation to see what was being offered.
The guy running the meeting cut right to the chase,saying if anyone there wanted to be a driver for them.
We had to fork over $2500.00 to by one of the fleet of vans they had just bought.
I didn't stay for the rest of the talk,when I left a lot of other guys went with me,& only a few stayed.

There was noway I was going to buy a job.
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and neither was i, when i went there my first day. all the assistant manger could do all thru the day of training was ask me how much i liked it and if i'd consider getting a truck. seemed NO was not in his ears each time i said it. all i wanted was a job, nothing else.
 
Here is a history lesson on con-Way Eastern........Con-Way Eastern bought Penn-Yan Express that was located on the hill in Penn Yan, NY, with the promise the it would remain union....It did until the contract came up, at which time they wouldn't settled with the union....End of 30 days, they shut down the doors on the east coast and became a non-union company in the east.....Ask any of the east coast employees how CF would move out of a terminal and Con-Way would move in...At Springfield, Mass.....CF built a 600 door terminal and in less time a fence was put down the middle of it, splitting it with Con-Way...And the stories go on and on....And no one ever said anything about of did anything.....Big Business and Big Labor....Same old story...You're not gonna win..
 
And one more thing.I drove out of Buf and also Rfo...Two of the best places ever..great dispatch and you were treated as a man...Anyone disagrees. were one of the S_it heads...Every company has them.....Still trying to figure out where the Red Star terminal was next to CF in RCR.....???
 
jgb1,you are right about the Penn Yan buyout,although it was my understanding that Conway Central started servicing the east out of Michigan.

As for the CF terminal it was on Commerce Drive in Henrietta a town south of Rochester.
Red Star was on west side of Rochester,located on Norman Street a small street that runs between Emerson st.& Lexington Ave.
 
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