ABF | 4 Red Herrings Part 1

[walker63]

4 Red Herrings from the 2018 – 2023 ABF contract proposal.



#1 Profit Sharing is actually a concession because it will never happen.



This is just a hollow “feel good” win from our lackluster negotiating team.

It’s a hold over from the concessions of 5 years ago.



During the last 5 years, ABF made sure they had enough money to buy multiple companies while also making sure ABF would never turn enough of a profit to pay employees profit sharing.



Does anyone remember U-Pack coming off the official books and becoming a subsidiary of ArcBest, while most of the trailer moves went to Old Dominion or Estes?



If you vote YES because of the Profit Sharing clause, you’re voting for NOTHING.



#2 Red Circle protection is a continued concession.



Another hold over from our last concessionary contract that created a 2 tiered system of protection of road work being subcontracted.



Like 5 years ago, those who vote YES gain protection, while throwing new hires to the wolves of subcontracting, now with the added bonus of diminishing Red Circle gains.



If 2 Red Circle protected drivers retire, one unprotected driver gains Red Circle protection.



Let me explain it the way a road driver explained it, in easy language that both city and road men can understand.



Imagine you work at a terminal that has a trailer pool of a 100 trailers. Each time a road driver came in he brought one trailer while taking away 2. Pretty soon you wouldn’t have any trailers to work with.



This is simply ABF’s way of gaining the ability to give away a higher percentage of road work, rather than pegging it to a certain percentage. Each year as drivers retire and are replaced, that percentage increases as the contracts ages out to the 5 year mark, simply because new road drivers have no protection. This bad deal is then reset and then repackaged as a Union win, while the same cycle repeats itself.



What makes a “win” is language banning subcontracting completely, unless everyone is working in both the road and city boards, while also including a mechanism that adds road jobs, if certain levels of subcontracting is reached.



If you vote YES because you think the Red Circle language is a protection, it’s actually a concession that allows ABF to pay a subcontractor a cheaper total wage package than someone who is already employed by ABF.



#3 A streamlined grievance procedure for ABF.



The grievance panel change in the last contract was a huge concession, and could have only been worse if the current proposals had been added then.



The old way, with multiple employers on the panels, made winning grievances tough, but completely possible if the union had a good case.



Single employer panels become a kangaroo court, which is what we were left with after the last contract.



The current proposal eliminates levels in that already bad process, ending up with one single biased courtroom, where all grievances will die a deadlocked death.



This, above and beyond the wage concession from the last contract, should have made everyone vote no in 2013, and is enough reason to vote no for the the current proposal.



We can not have a strong Union without an unbiased grievance system, and the International should be ashamed to call themselves Union members by allowing this continued concession.

(See Part 2)

 

[walker63]

Part 2 of 4 Red Herrings

#4 Pension cuts with the false promise of a $6 per hour 401K contribution.



ABF’s offer of paying $6 per hour into your personal 401K is another empty promise that they have no intention of delivering.



Let’s use the New York State Pension Fund as the example to prove this point.



Currently the contribution rate to that fund is based on 40 hours and totals $638.86 per week, or $15.9715 per hour. It’s very important to remember later on, that the contributions are capped at 40 hours per week.



If ABF was forced to withdraw from the fund, they would still be liable for their withdrawal liability, which would come from the $15.97 per hour they already pay for each man, only those men would no longer see any benefit to their pensions from those payments. Those payments would be a “Easy Payment Plan” that would fund ABF’s withdrawal liability over time, instead of a up front lump sum payment to the NYS fund.



To believe the $6 per hour 401K contribution fiction, you have to also believe that ABF plans on paying a total pension contribution of $21.97 per hour, per man, up to 40 hours each week.



This $21.97 per hour amount would be broken down into 2 components. The current $15.97 level (shifted to withdrawal liability payments) and also the additional $6 per hour 401K component.



The New York State Pension fund needs a 3.5 % increase each year. The fund requires 56 cents in the 1st year, then .57, .60, .62, and 64 cents in the final year, to keep their current default pension schedule.



A grand total of $2.99 over 5 years. Those amounts are too much for ABF to pay? But both our International Union and ABF alike, talk about an additional $6 on top of the current $16 per hour obligation to the NYS fund.



A little actual perspective on those increases. Let’s list the rate of inflation for the last 3 years. 2018 was up 2.21% from the previous year. 2017 was up 2.13%, and 2016 was up 1.26%. The 3 year average was a 1.866 % rate of inflation.



Remember, the New York fund only needs their 3.5% increase per year to stay the course, which is actually only a 1.634% increase over the last 3 year average rate of inflation.



The last 3 years were cherry picked, because there was hardly any inflation in 2015, but that statistical anomaly gets factored out by using a larger data set, making the 1.634 figure good enough for this example.



ABF is unwilling to increase the New York State Pension fund over the rate of inflation by 1.634% per year for the next 5 years, because they REFUSE to throw good money at any bad pension fund, but are willing to tell you that they would pay a frozen rate that no longer directly benefits their employees, while also paying an additional $6 per hour into a 401K for those same employees.



Ladies and Gentleman, they have no intention of paying $22 per hour for anyone in New York State, simply because they are unwilling to pay $16.53, this year, or $17.10 next year, or $17.70 in 2020, or $18.32 in 2021, and finally $18.96 during the final year of the contract.



It would take an additional 5 year contract with the same 3.5% increases to the New York State Fund, to reach that mythical $22 per hour figure.



For a perspective, after adjusting for inflation, an actual 1.634% increase on the current $15.97 is only an additional 26 cents per hour, for the 1st year of what the New York Fund needs.



In 2010, because of the previous financial meltdown on Wall Street, the fund was forced to reduce all premium pensions to their default levels.



ABF and UPS employees enjoyed a benefit schedule labeled as schedule E, that gave them the ability to retire with their full pension, if the recipient had reached both 30 years of pension contributions and age 55.



UPS immediately allowed their employees in the New York State Fund to use their own wage and shift a small, but yearly increased portion of their wage to the fund, in order to buy back into the schedule E benefit, thus keeping the age 55 with 30 years of service retirement benefit.



ABF refused that same request by their employees and the Fund in New York State.



This refusal came on the heals of the International Union refusing to allow ABF to reopen the 2013 – 2018 contract, in order to allow a new hire to gain a vacation week in their 1st year of employment.



One may rightfully ask if this refusal was coincidence, or payback?



At the beginning of the last contract, those employees were able to fund their own schedule E pension upgrade, but at a heavy handed demand by ABF.



Pension contributions are based on 40 hours and not all hours worked, which was pointed out earlier on this topic.



UPS paid for their upgraded schedule E benefit only on a their base 40 hours



ABF demanded that they be paid the increase for all hours worked, while only remitting the 40 hour contribution amount to the pension plan.



The current amount that the New York State ABF employees pay to fund their schedule E upgrade is $1.5923 per straight time hour, while paying directly to ABF, $2.38845 per overtime hour, that ABF gets to keep as their profit, for allowing their men in NY to buy back into a better pension.



In New York State, there was the wage concession everyone took part in, and then there was the second silent wage theft by ABF, of men desperate to retire before age 65.



The New York Fund has 86 active participants who work at ABF. 20 of those participants have less than 5 years and are not vested.



The fake 401K offer is designed to entice those 20 employees and other, who have less than 10 or 15 years in the pension fund to think that they have a free cushion coming from ABF.



It’s criminal to use those men as means to destabilize their own pension fund with a false monetary promise.



Also note that the New York State fund did not throw YRC or New Penn out of the fund for a significantly reduced pension contribution, nor will they throw ABF out for freezing contributions that are significantly larger than YRC’s payments.



Meaning, the $6 per hour 401K contribution is simply a false carrot dangled in front of uneducated and frustrated employees who deserve protection from their own International Union.



If you vote YES for a 401K protection, you’re voting for NOTHING.



To reiterate.



No one is ever going to collect on the profit sharing language.



Red Circle continues to throw an ever increasing number of road drivers under the bus, and the 2 for 1 protection is ludicrous.



Even less protection with a streamlined grievance system that only benefits ABF.



The 401K contribution is a fantasy, designed to simply gain yes votes from men who haven’t had enough time to put pen to paper, in order to figure out the economics for themselves.



Our International should be ashamed to both present this contract, while also maligning good and honorable Teamsters who attempt to educate ABF employees to the truth.



A no vote not only strengthens the employees position at ABF, but helps to strengthen the positions of the future leaders of the Teamsters Union.



The recent General Executive Board vote showed that there are 9 out of 13 International Officers who are already on the side of reason and responsibility.



If we reject this proposal overwhelmingly, we strengthen their ability to influence both a revised contract proposal and the future of the Teamsters.



The only true and honorable way for a Teamster to be protected, is to protect those who came before, while also protecting those who follow.

 

[canaryinthemine]

Very good post, Brother!