All standard corporate pre-contract talk. I would hope ABF upper management got rattled .....just a little bit.......after the disaster of the last contract. Kind of hard to hire quality employees when you don't give vacations and your competitors are paying better wages.
But,.....who knows? The ignorant hubris exhibited by most upper management types is only exacerbated by the corporate custom of giving out "Golden Parachutes" even if you screw up a company badly. No incentive to actually care how the rank-and-file think , until it's way, way too late to reverse the unintended consequenses of idiotic management decisions.And,....of course, the Idiot-In-Chief who made the decision is safely ensconsed on some golf course where he,....or she....was quietly removed to by the shareholders,....along with the appropriate stack of moneybags.....
Pay a co-pay for health insurance? Are you kidding? That money goes out of your paycheck RIGHT BACK to your employer,....to merely MAINTAIN your health care plan.......Doesn't go to your "health care". If it did, you could cut the check directly to the insurance company yourself, right?
Yeah, Right..........Ask the payroll department if you could do that..........
People who pay co-pays are too ....obtuse.....to realize their employer is surcharging them for maintenance,......and the money goes RIGHT BACK to the employer........
Good Contract in '18! Tell them to fix the thing or Strike..........and if the company threatens to close,....remind them that FedEx/OD/Estes are hiring at higher wages for CDL holders,.....so if they close, you'll be working in a week,....but all those dispatchers/ terminal managers/ clerks/ salespeople will have to infest the unemployment and welfare lines......
Threatening closure would be highly Stupid....