No "leaks" from the IBT/ABF negotiating sessions? No tantalizing glimpses of $10,000 signing bonuses,...........extra three weeks vacation for all bearded employees?,.........paid maternity leave for all City Peddle drivers?.............
Or,..........like many teacher/school board impasses,.............will ABF continue to operate on extensions of the old contract,......for years?
The fact of the matter is that ABF is sitting on piles of money,...........saved in their "war chest", ....in case contract talks don't go their way.
When contract talks "went their way".....last time,.......they went on a spending spree,......New corporate headquarters for ABF and Panther........other company acquisitions,...........bonuses for all who sit behind a desk,....flouting contract language to the contrary.........
Time will always bring the Truth out in a rotten deal,............as it certainly has about our last contract. Fric (Johnson) and Frac (Sweeton), who .....umm...."negotiated".....our last contract,...completely fell down on the job. They were NOT advocates for us........They went for the company schmoozing, that us Hoi Polloi on the bottom of the economic pile,......were "overpaid",.......and that the company, in it's munificent benifiscence,....would "take care" of us....
Just sign here........
I sincerely hope Ernie & Co. know better, and won't fall for the corporate Sackcloth'n'Ashes routine,......like Fric and Frac did...........
Customers leaving? Put yourself in the customer's shoes.............A good tactic to lower your freight rate is to threaten to leave,....and contract talks have ALWAYS provided a good reason to use that tactic.........If I was a customer,....the first salesman that mentioned their competitor was "going on strike",...in the attempt to hustle them into changing their carrier,.......I would smile, and say: "Yeah, I better ship with you, ONLY IF YOU WILL LOWER MY FREIGHT RATES!"
FedEx, OD, Estes, can pick up that freight.......at LOWER RATES.......
Don't think the customers are so stupid as to not take advantage of any situation.
Non-Unions want to scab out that freight.....at LOWER RATES? They will do it at the expense of their employees. They can fluctuate their Labor costs to reflect cut-rate freight......
Not very smart, if they want to hire/keep their non-Union employees..........