I have been doing some serious deliberations and now hope that the concession gets voted down. With the breaking news on the COO and KCM turning into a major sleeper hub, (and loosing our laydown bids to CGB, STP, DAL,SOU,OKC,KRY,and a few others) guys with 12 plus years will be forced back onto the sleepers. But I am sure someone would argue that "Hey, at least you get to keep your jobs!"
Hate to break it to you, but no sleeper job is worthy of a legitimate union job. Hoffa Sr. would be turning over in his grave if he saw how we let these guys run in kansas city. Many of them work six days a week averaging well over 6k miles a week and make roughly 100k a year. To make that kind of money means you give up having anything that resembles a normal life. Hoffa Sr. literally invented the 40 hour week work because he understood our work was not to consume our lives. A fact lost on many sleeper drivers who are rarely home more than 24 hours every week.
So now some number cruncher who sits in the office at corporate says "Hey, we want more employees like those in KCM who never go home and don't have a regular life." So we deserve what we get because we continue to allow these guys to run like a bunch of bull-haulers.
The fault is not with YRC, but with our own who supposedly represent us. A close examination of the facts clearly shows the International is only concerned with their survival, and not for the benefit of its dues paying members.
My wage and mileage pay will go back to standards of at least five years ago if it is approved. Yet my pension contribution has more than doubled in the same time period. And these lost wages will go to the pay a pension I will never see.
So when the International sits down at the negotiation table, they are serving two different Gods.
God #1 is the pension obligation that continues growing at unsustainable rates and God #2, the dues paying member who is actually working the job today. You cannot answer to two different Gods.
This is not the way our system was set up. It is the job of the pension trustees to maintain the fudiciary demands of our defined payment pension not the international negotiating committee whose purpose is to negotiate fair and equatable wages and benefits.
Cuts needed to made years ago (CS) and they were not. In fact, they were even raised. Pure political posturing based on fiction, not reality.
And many teamsters who have always denied the reality that our pension was in grave danger, face a looming reality of getting roughly 40 cents for every dollar they were promised for their retirement.
The system is broken. We deserve what we get because we elected many of the individuals who have allowed this thing to play out as it has.
Even if it is approved, YRC won't last 6 months because they still think the economy will come back soon, which it will never do.
YRC had combined revenue of almost 9.5 Billion in "07. The new reality in our economy will not allow us to have over 6 Billion in revenue in '09 and beyond. We have lost market share for 7 consecutive quarters while ODFL and Conway have gained in those same seven and FEDEX gained in five.
Brush up your resumes yellow drivers, the end is near.
the rich man creates jobs!
