ABF | Ernie Soehl, National Freight Director

Your idea has a chance, the other none. How about this. Vote a give back of say 15% on pay. All that money goes i
Thirty years ago the picket line would have already been at the gate.
Ya got that right. Now, you can't get 2 Teamsters to agree on which direction the sun sets. Today's Teamster has evolved from Teamster to measter. Brotherhood should be removed from the IBT name. For it no longer exists. von.
 
Since I don't know the details of the Volpe situation I won't give an opinion on it. But I do wonder what you expect Ernie to do? Should he do Volpe a favor and pull the men out on strike? Wouldn't that give Volpe an easy out like the Red Star walkout called by Hoffa and Co Shouldn't it be up to the Volpe Teamsters, their local union, and their pension fund to try and work out a solution with the company? I really don't know so I'm asking for your opinion.
My solution would be to freeze their pensions where they're at right then and there then leave it up to the workers if they want to work or walk but there is no way in hell I would jeopardize the pensions of the rest of the membership if that couldn't be done, put 'em out.

Edit: Then they should move towards collecting the withdrawal liability.
 
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Thirty years ago the picket line would have already been at the gate.
Yes but 30 years ago we had some strength and a strike had an affect on the LTL industry. Today the non union companies control the industry and a stike at Volpe would probably give the company exactly what it wants. I
 
Your idea has a chance, the other none. How about this. Vote a give back of say 15% on pay. All that money goes i

Ya got that right. Now, you can't get 2 Teamsters to agree on which direction the sun sets. Today's Teamster has evolved from Teamster to measter. Brotherhood should be removed from the IBT name. For it no longer exists. von.
Sorry about all that money. System crashed hard & it took all afternoon to recover it. von.
 
Yes but 30 years ago we had some strength and a strike had an affect on the LTL industry. Today the non union companies control the industry and a stike at Volpe would probably give the company exactly what it wants. I
I don't think that Volpe needs anyone's permission to close up due to being unprofitable. I don't get the notion of a strike giving them what they want.
 
My solution would be to freeze their pensions where they're at right then and there then leave it up to the workers if they want to work or walk but there is no way in hell I would jeopardize the pensions of the rest of the membership if that couldn't be done, put 'em out.

Edit: Then they should move towards collecting the withdrawal liability.
My post was based on your question as to what Soehl was going to do about it. How can he freeze their pensions?
 
My post was based on your question as to what Soehl was going to do about it. How can he freeze their pensions?
One way would be to get with the company and open up their contract and ::shit:: out an MOU booting them out of the fund, participation IS contractual, that would do it toot sweet. You can dance around it all you want, I hold ALL of them responsible for the health of our pension funds and any company that is not paying their bills should be dealt with accordingly. He can order them out on strike for non payment too that's another way. Now what's your next attempt to clear Ernie of his responsibilities?
 
One way would be to get with the company and open up their contract and :::shit::: out an MOU booting them out of the fund, participation IS contractual, that would do it toot sweet. You can dance around it all you want, I hold ALL of them responsible for the health of our pension funds and any company that is not paying their bills should be dealt with accordingly. He can order them out on strike for non payment too that's another way. Now what's your next attempt to clear Ernie of his responsibilities?
My posts have nothing to do with defending the Freight Director. I could have asked the same question if it were still Tyson Johnson. Isn't Volpe a house/white paper contract? Wouldn't any MOU or concessions/give backs be negotiated at the local level?
 
Your posts are all defending Ernie. I don't know if they're white paper or not but the union has a fiduciary duty to protect the pension funds and as I see it that goes from the local all the way to the international. And Hoffa's as guilty as the rest. Leadership starts at the top, Ernie is at the top of the freight division. I doubt that the local could or would put Volpe or any other company out without coordinating with the international.
 
Your posts are all defending Ernie. I don't know if they're white paper or not but the union has a fiduciary duty to protect the pension funds and as I see it that goes from the local all the way to the international. And Hoffa's as guilty as the rest. Leadership starts at the top, Ernie is at the top of the freight division. I doubt that the local could or would put Volpe or any other company out without coordinating with the international.
I know from peddling freight with them that they are not under a master freight contract. I think it was a house contract with one local. I don't think the IBT Freight Director should be involved in local issues. Why are you pushing to put Volpe out based on a rumor? Since you think that it's the international's job to settle pension fund issues then tell me if they were involved in the Western States decision to not accept YRC's 1/4 pension payments? If so then why were the other funds allowed to accept the lesser YRC contributions?

As to my defending Ernie it's because I have hope that he may do better than Johnson. Kind of like most members on this site defending Trump in the hope that he may "make America great again". You know from our PMs that I have my issues with Soehl. And I know you have had many issues with him at the conference level. But he's now freight director and I wish him well. I say lets give him a chance. I doubt that he can do much worse than Johnson.
 
As to my defending Ernie it's because I have hope that he may do better than Johnson. Kind of like most members on this site defending Trump in the hope that he may "make America great again". You know from our PMs that I have my issues with Soehl. And I know you have had many issues with him at the conference level. But he's now freight director and I wish him well. I say lets give him a chance. I doubt that he can do much worse than Johnson.
I agree with you 100% and I am not bashing Ernie...yet...I am speaking of a situation that requires his attention (IF the story is true). Day to day handling of situations at a shop, regardless of whether or not they are under a national contract, would, no doubt, be handled by the local. But this situation rises above those and this situation warrants Ernie's attention, as well as the attention of several others. If a company misses something as large and important as pension payments it is seen above the local level as well...actually, it is seen above the local level before the local even finds out about it. Given the state of most of the pension funds it would be imprudent for those at the helm to not jump on this problem and the local is not equipped to do so, not physically and not mentally. And since there are more livelihoods at stake than just the company in question the burden falls on many shoulders and Ernie's are included.

Unfortunately, given the union's track record of late I do come off pessimistically at this point but I do hope that I am concerned for no reason.
 
I have heard from yet another reliable source that Volpe is having problems and non payment of pension is only one of them. While I have 100% faith in both of my sources I have not confirmed the reports so I won't go into any more detail than that. All I will say is IF any employer misses their pension payments it should get the attention of ALL of our union leaders and fund managers and swift measures should be taken so as to not jeopardize ANY of the rest of our pensions, many of which are already in dire straights.
 
I have heard from yet another reliable source that Volpe is having problems and non payment of pension is only one of them. While I have 100% faith in both of my sources I have not confirmed the reports so I won't go into any more detail than that. All I will say is IF any employer misses their pension payments it should get the attention of ALL of our union leaders and fund managers and swift measures should be taken so as to not jeopardize ANY of the rest of our pensions, many of which are already in dire straights.

Amen! And........I've been asking for years,......Why did no committeeman, steward, B.A., principal officer, trustee, or member of the Joint Council...... notice that the four affiliated companies in the YRC group ,......had quit making their monthly pension payments,....... for FIVE months,..... Two months beyond the threshold....... until the pension fund in this area threw out all of the YRC employees for failure to make payments?

One of the two strikeable offences in the contract is failure to make a monthly pension or H & W payment. No one can tell me why it took FIVE months to notice this.....
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Amen! And........I've been asking for years,......Why did no committeeman, steward, B.A., principal officer, trustee, or member of the Joint Council...... notice that the four affiliated companies in the YRC group ,......had quit making their monthly pension payments,....... for FIVE months,..... Two months beyond the threshold....... until the pension fund in this area threw out all of the YRC employees for failure to make payments?

One of the two strikeable offences in the contract is failure to make a monthly pension or H & W payment. No one can tell me why it took FIVE months to notice this.....
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They should be personally held accountable and sending some of them to jail for a while would get their attention. The lack of accountability on their part makes for poor practices on their part. This is bullshit.
 
Yes, Hoffa and Johnson should have shut YRC down and that would have put 25,000 Teamsters out of a job. Some said it was only about the loss of dues that caused Hoffa to fight to save YRC. I'm no fan of Hoffa but I was glad that he worked to save YRC.
 
Just wondering did the benefit fund administrator inform the IBT of non payment ?
They don't share that kind of information with us peons but you can bet that they have moles perusing this site and they know it now.
 
Yes, Hoffa and Johnson should have shut YRC down and that would have put 25,000 Teamsters out of a job. Some said it was only about the loss of dues that caused Hoffa to fight to save YRC. I'm no fan of Hoffa but I was glad that he worked to save YRC.

That may be true, Brother, but if it was used as a tactic,..........even as a transparently unusable tactic,....... it might've helped shine a light on Bill Zollar's methods and his endgame.

Why didn't Mr. Hoffa even mention the strike option?
 
Yes, Hoffa and Johnson should have shut YRC down and that would have put 25,000 Teamsters out of a job. Some said it was only about the loss of dues that caused Hoffa to fight to save YRC. I'm no fan of Hoffa but I was glad that he worked to save YRC.
Why didn't Mr. Hoffa even mention the strike option?
And there are a lot of other things that Hoffa failed to address. When negotiating a contract there are items that are considered to be 'mandatory subjects of bargaining', ie wages, disciplinary procedures and start times. Many thing are off limits. Now...YRC had a contract in place and was begging for relief. At that juncture items that would normally be off limits suddenly become mandatory subjects of negotiation...things like wages and benefits of the upper echelon. You want to modify the contract because you are in dire straights? Sure, we can do that, CEO wages will be limited to...there shall be no bonuses for CEO, COO, CFO, etc. The fact is that Hoffa et al didn't give a ::shit:: and it's obvious. It's also obvious that we see it...we showed it in that last election.
 
My memory isn't what it used to but wasn't it the banks that dictated the terms to YRC? Requiring work rule concessions and give backs that were more in line with the non union competition? Didn't Hoffa have to give away the store in order to meet the bank's demands? Like I've said many times I have no use for Hoffa. I believe he threw the NMF Teamsters and our MEPFs under the bus when he gave UPSF/Overnite that sweetheart contract. He knew full wellback in 2006 that he was abandoning us. He knew we would have to come around and accept weak contracts or be squeezed out of business.

As for Zollars and his plans I will believe just about anything. I still believe he played a part in the shut down of USF Red Star. I believe Zollars had his sights on buying USF. But they didn't need Red Star because they already had the highly profitable New Penn to cover the North East.
 
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