ABF | ABF-Teamsters Contract Negotiations Update 4-19-13
- Thread starter Jeff
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You keep helping me! LOL! I said...." You'd rather see 7500 Teamsters making 0% instead of 85%.". Again going back to what he said about "closing the doors"
Who cares get over it, it's a message board ...
Ya, easy for you to say.
$outh$side $tre$$
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I dont work for abf but I am a fellow union brother working at ups freight, my thoughts on abf's issues directly come from yrc. When yrc was in big time trouble, the non union LTL coms like fed-ex con-way, averitt, o.d. etc wanted to underbid yrc so much just to take them out with the huge discounts, especially fed-ex. So then yrc took all the concessions just to stay afloat so they too could give the big discounts juat to compete, and they were able to. And since ups freight has ups package to keep them afloat with the billions of dollars of profits each year us too were able to give decent size discounts. And then there is abf, the company that didnt take any concessions at all.(and im proud that u didnt). But at the same time abf cant give out big discounts like all the others can, becuz of the overhead. With ups reaching a tenative agreement that should help abf alot, becuz now the non union companies cant say times are tough and follow suit and take money from their employees to give even bigger discounts. I hope to he!! That you guys get a fair contract and fast. Becuz the longer abf crys broke, and all the other trucklines salesmen approach ur customers and try and scare them out of doing business with abf, the more freight u will lose. Heck i believe fed-ex ground,air and freight started telling our customers the same and they just sped up the process of ups agreeing to terms. Good luck brothers and sisters, becuz we need all the teamsters rolling down the road as we can get.
The big layoff was the lie ABF was spreading in 2010 remember
I got skills I'm like a cat ill land on my feet somewhere. I left UPS in 1992 maybe it's time to go back if there gonna pay.
ABF can cut the pay an they will get what they pay for low skill drivers and lots of damaged freight and tore up equipment.
I vote no for a pay cut.
ABF can cut the pay an they will get what they pay for low skill drivers and lots of damaged freight and tore up equipment.
I vote no for a pay cut.
canaryinthemine
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Adam Smith, who wrote "Wealth of Nations", back in the 18th century, gets quoted quite a bit by conservatives nowadays. Your marketable skills should reflect your worth in the marketplace. Open up any newspaper, and you'll see 25 truckdriving jobs,....$3000.00 sign-on bonus, various perks and benefits, average between $45,000 and $75,000 earnings a year..................................................and one dishwashing job for minimum wage. What does this tell us? They are crying for QUALIFIED drivers everywhere,....regulations and conditions in this industry have made this job undesirable to many people,....or unattainable.....in a depressed economy. I believe many business groups,....the ATA, Chamber of Commerce, Truckload Carriers Ass'n......are trying to artificially depress wages in the trucking industry before the economy picks up to the point they can't. Our skills and qualifications are a marketable commodity, and as such,....should go to the highest paying employer we could find.......that's pure Adam Smith, lasseiz-faire, market-place capitalism....funny how so-called conservatives who believe in capitalism are trying to defeat the very system they profess to believe in.............and no, Stoney,.....I don't mean you,.....I mean our Captains of Industry. They're moving heaven and earth to convince us that truck drivers are a "dime a dozen",...when all the empirical evidence points the other way, There never will be 7500 unemployed truck drivers. We'll be employed within hours, if we wish. There certainly will be a lot of long-term unemployed dispatchers, clerks, sales people, middle-management office-types,...if ANY carrier closes. Those skills don't seem to be very "marketable" nowadays........
dave larson
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great post canary. I have one disagreement though. I would say AS gets misquoted and taken out of context by conservatives nowadays. LOL what we have going on nowadays I would bet is a long way off from Smith's vision.
canaryinthemine
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..While Adam Smith recognized greed as a factor in economics, neither he, or Milton Friedman, or any other economist ever expected greed to be institutuionalized, and accepted as a normal condition in raising capital. Yes, Brother Dave, I agree with you,.....they pull out the bits and pieces that they think will justify their rampant, amoral, actions, and try to plaster the "Free Market" label over everything. Scientists, in the last 30 years have detected a slight variation in the constant speed of the rotation of our planet. I think it's caused by all the economists spinning in their graves..........
I'm not worried about finding a job that pays just as good or even better. And I too believe most of us would find jobs in that HYPERTHETICAL event of ABF going under.
But drivers are a dime a dozen. Just look how many so called truckers these CDL mills shoot out.
The biggest thing keeping trucker wages down is government subsidies going to these schools. They don't care what happens to the newbies after they leave. They just want to train as many as humanly possible to get that subsidy they get per student.
Pull those subsidies, make the companies and schools invest their own money into training. Once they do, trust me, training will get better, the quality of student will get better, wages/bennies will have to get better because Now the companies have a much deeper investment in these drivers, and they will want to retain em.
Its all simple supply and demand. And in this case the government is helping to flood the supply of drivers. It's a myth that there is a driver shortage.
As long as there is an ample supply of drivers, wages will stay down.
And I'm referring to the average trucker pulling general everyday freight. Not the specialized drivers like in heavyhaul, oil fields and LTL.
And I'll say the other biggest problem, is plain ol stupidity. Companies like Swift, Knight among others, just can't grasp the concept that paying more, getting drivers home more (weekly or even nightly), will actually benefit them profit wise. They won't have to spend millions on recruiting, and the cost of new hires.
They will also save millions with less accidents. Keeping drivers in the same areas is much safer. Getting them the proper rest increases safety. Reducing the amount of stress on driver ( the driver knowing exactly when they will be home and for how long) increases safety.
I don't think its greed from these poorly ran trucking companies keeping wages down, I think its pure ignorance and stubbornness( STUPIDITY ).
And STUPIDITY on the drivers part too. Too many drivers jump from one company to another and excepting the status quo everytime, and then do nothing but ***** about it.
Why do you say the ATA, Chamber of Commerce, Truckload Carriers Ass are trying to keep wages artificially low? What would they gain from that?
I always find it funny when those who complain about greed the most, are just as guilty of it.
Pay cut and benefit deductions ? Lets see here, as a checker/driver I was on call at ungodly hours at the mercy of the company when I started. Answered every call because I did what I had to do to work for my family. Missed a lot of time with the family too. Finally moved up on the board and got steady hrs on a bid. As a driver for ABF, I take the flatbed into residential areas, I also assemble treadmills, and other exercise equipment and put them anywhere in the house the customer wants them. Sometimes I do more than one at a single residence. Then I clean everything up and leave and run the rest of my route. I have delivered and set up office space, delivered cabinets up stairs. Even hand delivered several skids of books to the 5th floor of a client using only a handcart because my pallet jack was too big for the " Freight" elevator on an inside delivery. Store displays etc. so ABF gets a lot of extras out of this driver and they want me to give them money ? How kind of them
canaryinthemine
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Well....Stoney, I agree with about 90% of what you said. Whether it's government subsidies or not, the trucking industry seems to have a plan to flood the trucking industry with drivers to keep wages down. Only thing is.....it's not working. The job, what's expected out of you.....lifestyle....creates massive turnover rates. I can't think of any other industry that could survive with a 90% turnover rate........yet trucking does,...year after year. The point you made about Swift, Knight, and others is exactly what I mean. What prevents those companies from jacking up their pay, benefits, and improving the drivers' life by treating him like a human being? Empirical evidence suggests they're told not to........and , I would suspect, by those organizations listed above,....whose members....ABF included....have a vested interest in keeping wages low. The "stupidity" part on drivers is what I've always said about jobs and intelligence tests. Some of us pass the test......and a lot of us don't. Thank you for a good post........
Boilerpeddle
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The obvious answer is to stop the extras. You dont do anything beyond what is minimally required to do your job because you will be punished by either disciplinary action or by reduced pay and wear and tear on your body when something doesn't go quite right.
Now for me it is too hard to put that into practice. I eventually had to find a new job.
If we end up with concessions I hope its better here than it was at holland. For me the worst part of the givebacks was a complete lack of respect or acknowledgment for what the workers did to save the company. As a matter of fact it they way workers were treated got way worse after the giveback.
the point i was making is that we are just not drivers anymore. we do a lot more than just bump docks now a days.
You talk about not just bumping docks anymore. What about the smaller satellite terminals that does not have a clerk and we have to scan the bills at night and pull the paper work for the road drivers and other things involved with that. We are not just wearing one or two hats nowadays, we have many and then they want to give us more.
Stoney, do you really believe your statement that "I'm not worried about finding a job that pays just as good or even better. And I too believe most of us would find jobs in that HYPERTHETICAL event of ABF going under". I do not know of one company anywhere in the country that pays better than ABF, I was just wondering, do you? I might have to start putting applications in, if you would share this list of companies on here! Thanks!
D
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I know a couple of people (not many) who have better paying local driving jobs than mine. They seem to be in the chemical industry.