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TForce | Great article about the demise of the teamsters in trucking

If the unions would get out of the social justice and left wing politics/ideology and focused on wages, benefits and working conditions they would have more support from the conservative side of the country. Free enterprise and big business loves stability in the workplace but they are not going to sell guns to their enemy only to be shot by them later on down the road. European companies and industry engage in sector bargaining and it works quite well over there to maintain stability in labor costs and employment, guaranteed jobs, etc. but over here the unions have become an extension of the militant left wing fruitcakes especially with education and the teachers union.
 
and when i say militant left wing fruitcakes i mean the fringe 1% ideology of the country that thinks men are women women are men boys are girls girls are boys, America is bad, illegal immigration is good, night is day day is night, Superman is Superwoman..etc etc ..basically living in Bizzaro world, you know the fruitcakes that I speak of....
 
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Public unions are a grift.
You have politicians bargaining contracts paid for by taxpayers in return for political support and donations from the same public unions and their members . It is legalize public theft and money laundry.
 
RumRunner1 said:
If the unions would get out of the social justice and left wing politics/ideology and focused on wages, benefits and working conditions they would have more support from the conservative side of the country. Free enterprise and big business loves stability in the workplace but they are not going to sell guns to their enemy only to be shot by them later on down the road. European companies and industry engage in sector bargaining and it works quite well over there to maintain stability in labor costs and employment, guaranteed jobs, etc. but over here the unions have become an extension of the militant left wing fruitcakes especially with education and the teachers union.
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Conservatives will never go for unions. They believe in trickle-down. Let's look how that's gone over the last 40 years.

Boss makes $100, I get a dime.
Boss makes $100,000, shareholders get a penny, I get a dime.

Boss makes $1,000,000, shareholders get a dime, I get a dime.
Boss makes $1,000,000,000, shareholders get a dollar, I'm lucky just to HAVE a job!

Bamboozled, hoodwinked, etc.
 
LTLAnonymous said:
Conservatives will never go for unions. They believe in trickle-down. Let's look how that's gone over the last 40 years.

Boss makes $100, I get a dime.
Boss makes $100,000, shareholders get a penny, I get a dime.

Boss makes $1,000,000, shareholders get a dime, I get a dime.
Boss makes $1,000,000,000, shareholders get a dollar, I'm lucky just to HAVE a job!

Bamboozled, hoodwinked, etc.
Click to expand...
Why didn't you become a shareholder? :poke: :hide:
 
SuperCourse said:
Reagan was right firing public sector employees involved an illegal strike involving an essential public service. Private sector unions need to distance themselves from public sector unions if they ever want to gain widespread approval. Federal workers are not allowed to strike, labor disputes can only legally reach the point of an "impasse". An impasse can be resolved by appeals to mediators, fact-finders, or a higher authority[3]—or it can be ignored by management, and the status quo allowed to continue.[5]

Executive Order 10988 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Public sector unions, such as the teachers union, are giving unions a bad public image.
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You might have missed the point by cherry picking that incident. I would recommend that you read about folks like Milton Friedman and Robert Bork to understand how and why American Organized Labor has been systematically dismantled and at this point neutered by conservatives. We will have to wait and see what will become of the new UPS contract as it pertains to the company as a whole (although they did shake off their freight division quickly and easily). As far as government employees either federal or state, they have the right to organize. They are also workers just like you and I. Some of the strongest unions are the teachers and the police unions and possibly one of the strongest Major League Baseball.
 
calvin said:
As far as government employees either federal or state, they have the right to organize. They are also workers just like you and I. Some of the strongest unions are the teachers and the police unions and possibly one of the strongest Major League Baseball.
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They're strong because taxpayers, the ultimate payer, have no voice at the table. Politicians don't care, it's not their money.
 
LTLAnonymous said:
Conservatives will never go for unions. They believe in trickle-down. Let's look how that's gone over the last 40 years.

Boss makes $100, I get a dime.
Boss makes $100,000, shareholders get a penny, I get a dime.

Boss makes $1,000,000, shareholders get a dime, I get a dime.
Boss makes $1,000,000,000, shareholders get a dollar, I'm lucky just to HAVE a job!

Bamboozled, hoodwinked, etc.
Click to expand...

Cry me a river. It's amusing to read crybaby posts from guys riding around in $70k pickup trucks, living in 3 bedroom houses, where they watch there 98" TV when they're not looking at their $1,000 iPhone, while wearing their Chez Guvara T-shirt. First world problems. :crybaby:
 
SuperCourse said:
You were the one that brought it up.
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SuperCourse said:
You were the one that brought it up.
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The original Thread of this discussion was the slow dismantling and demise of the LTL trucking industry and the teamsters specifically. I was a trucker both prior to and after deregulation took hold. I was a Teamster as well as a member of the Unites Steelworkers of America. I ran the road (east coast to west coast and northern boarder to southern boarder) as well as a local yokel. I was trying to add in some historical facts from the view point of a driver. The how and the why. Being a teamster in a regulated trucking industry was far better than what happened after. When the politicians get involved at the behest of owners of these companies, problems occur. Running the road hauling special commodities before deregulation was extremely profitable. If I am wrong and this thread is about something else and drivers reading this can not see the big picture of how and why this happened and who is to blame then I apologize. This is a systemic problem that isn't only about truckers but about the American workforce as a whole.
 
LTLAnonymous said:
Conservatives will never go for unions. They believe in trickle-down. Let's look how that's gone over the last 40 years.

Boss makes $100, I get a dime.
Boss makes $100,000, shareholders get a penny, I get a dime.

Boss makes $1,000,000, shareholders get a dime, I get a dime.
Boss makes $1,000,000,000, shareholders get a dollar, I'm lucky just to HAVE a job!

Bamboozled, hoodwinked, etc.
Click to expand...
So why don't you become a shareholder? Shareholders do quite well when they invest in established companies that grow and prosper. The really great thing is that we as individual investors don't need to know which companies to buy. Mutual funds do that for us at very little cost. YTD, the S+P Index is up 14.73%.
 
calvin said:
The original Thread of this discussion was the slow dismantling and demise of the LTL trucking industry and the teamsters specifically. I was a trucker both prior to and after deregulation took hold. I was a Teamster as well as a member of the Unites Steelworkers of America. I ran the road (east coast to west coast and northern boarder to southern boarder) as well as a local yokel. I was trying to add in some historical facts from the view point of a driver. The how and the why. Being a teamster in a regulated trucking industry was far better than what happened after. When the politicians get involved at the behest of owners of these companies, problems occur. Running the road hauling special commodities before deregulation was extremely profitable. If I am wrong and this thread is about something else and drivers reading this can not see the big picture of how and why this happened and who is to blame then I apologize. This is a systemic problem that isn't only about truckers but about the American workforce as a whole.
Click to expand...
Nonsense, the LTL trucking industry is alive and well. Freight gets picked up and delivered better, faster and cheaper than in the days of regulated trucking. The economy is consumer driven and competition is always good for the consumer. The industry never should have been regulated. Government control of rates, routes and entry into the industry was the problem not the solution.
Why was hauling special commodities "extremely" profitable before deregulation? The answer you don't want to hear is, because government control of the industry limited the number of carriers causing the service to be "extremely" overpriced.
The Teamsters have only themselves to blame for the demise of unionized LTL trucking. The IBT refused to adapt to the deregulation reality. Clinging to 50 year old work rules and unsustainable benefit costs is what destroyed Teamster trucking.
What owners of which companies lobbied for deregulation? Was it the owners of the hundreds of companies that went under because they could not compete in a free market?
 
calvin said:
The original Thread of this discussion was the slow dismantling and demise of the LTL trucking industry and the teamsters specifically. I was a trucker both prior to and after deregulation took hold. I was a Teamster as well as a member of the Unites Steelworkers of America. I ran the road (east coast to west coast and northern boarder to southern boarder) as well as a local yokel. I was trying to add in some historical facts from the view point of a driver. The how and the why. Being a teamster in a regulated trucking industry was far better than what happened after. When the politicians get involved at the behest of owners of these companies, problems occur. Running the road hauling special commodities before deregulation was extremely profitable. If I am wrong and this thread is about something else and drivers reading this can not see the big picture of how and why this happened and who is to blame then I apologize. This is a systemic problem that isn't only about truckers but about the American workforce as a whole.
Click to expand...
No need to apologize. I joined the teamsters in 1972. I support the notion of unions. Doesn't mean I have to be in lockstep with everything they do. I've seen them make tons of blunders over the years. I defend Reagan's firing of the traffic controllers every time it comes up because he was absolutely right in what he did. Public sector unions are not the friend of private sector unions.
 
Razorblade said:
Nonsense, the LTL trucking industry is alive and well. Freight gets picked up and delivered better, faster and cheaper than in the days of regulated trucking. The economy is consumer driven and competition is always good for the consumer. The industry never should have been regulated. Government control of rates, routes and entry into the industry was the problem not the solution.
Why was hauling special commodities "extremely" profitable before deregulation? The answer you don't want to hear is, because government control of the industry limited the number of carriers causing the service to be "extremely" overpriced.
The Teamsters have only themselves to blame for the demise of unionized LTL trucking. The IBT refused to adapt to the deregulation reality. Clinging to 50 year old work rules and unsustainable benefit costs is what destroyed Teamster trucking.
What owners of which companies lobbied for deregulation? Was it the owners of the hundreds of companies that went under because they could not compete in a free market?
Click to expand...
With all due respect it's all cheap freight now and when the industry was regulated the driver was much better compensated. There was no good old days. The rigs didn't have AC or power steering. There were no 53's or doubles. You sound more like a company man than a guy that wants his fellow driver to succeed. You also sound anti union. All of the trucking companies lobbied their congressional representatives for deregulation especially the southern ones that were non union and anti union. As far as the special commodity division, right after deregulation a lot of folks got into the high, heavy and wide business and drove the price down. Insurance rates went sky high primarily because of damage and in a short time that part of the industry went back to the way it was however there were added tariffs to every load which drove those costs up. That's how you bought your house and paid for your kids to go to college. It was called the middle class. . I am sorry to say, my anti union friend, that unless you are working for UPS presently (a union company), in the freight industry you (generally) are not in that once well established middle class. Free market? There is no such thing. You probably think that Reaganomics actually worked or Trump's tax cuts(?) were a good thing for this economy. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the middle class slipped away.
 
SuperCourse said:
No need to apologize. I joined the teamsters in 1972. I support the notion of unions. Doesn't mean I have to be in lockstep with everything they do. I've seen them make tons of blunders over the years. I defend Reagan's firing of the traffic controllers every time it comes up because he was absolutely right in what he did. Public sector unions are not the friend of private sector unions.
Click to expand...
Joined in 72, so you are my age. Were you in Vietnam with the rest of us. Why do you think that public sector and private sector unions are not "friendly"? In my opinion Reagan firing the controllers was wrong. I disagreed with a lot of his policies although I still have a special permit that was signed by him that allowed me and a co-driver to operate around the clock with special emergency privileges to deliver a trident submarine propeller to Bremerton Washington.
 
calvin said:
Joined in 72, so you are my age. Were you in Vietnam with the rest of us. Why do you think that public sector and private sector unions are not "friendly"? In my opinion Reagan firing the controllers was wrong. I disagreed with a lot of his policies although I still have a special permit that was signed by him that allowed me and a co-driver to operate around the clock with special emergency privileges to deliver a trident submarine propeller to Bremerton Washington.
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I never said they weren't friendly. It would be better if they weren't.
 
calvin said:
With all due respect it's all cheap freight now and when the industry was regulated the driver was much better compensated. There was no good old days. The rigs didn't have AC or power steering. There were no 53's or doubles. You sound more like a company man than a guy that wants his fellow driver to succeed. You also sound anti union. All of the trucking companies lobbied their congressional representatives for deregulation especially the southern ones that were non union and anti union. As far as the special commodity division, right after deregulation a lot of folks got into the high, heavy and wide business and drove the price down. Insurance rates went sky high primarily because of damage and in a short time that part of the industry went back to the way it was however there were added tariffs to every load which drove those costs up. That's how you bought your house and paid for your kids to go to college. It was called the middle class. . I am sorry to say, my anti union friend, that unless you are working for UPS presently (a union company), in the freight industry you (generally) are not in that once well established middle class. Free market? There is no such thing. You probably think that Reaganomics actually worked or Trump's tax cuts(?) were a good thing for this economy. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the middle class slipped away.
Click to expand...
He sounds anti-union? He's a retired Teamster with a pension!

In other words, "I gots mines, ****s all y'all!"
 
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