service update

I think Underestimated said it for all of us. Most of us view the union as what it is: it is not a solution for every problem, nor is it incapable of making mistakes. It is a tool we, the members, use to improve our lives and those of our family members.

Those that seek to tear us down do so from their misguided or perhaps downright evil viewpoints that an unobstructed ability to "reign" over their employees results in a better, more profitable business or more happy employees (or at least less troublesome).

Those non-union workers that ridicule us do so from a perspective of ignorance or perhaps jealousy; unsure how to take employees who do not simply knuckle under to imperious and overbearing management. Most never spent any or much time in a union, and those few who did, often were uninvolved or ignorant. They often come from a simplistic viewpoint thatt management always knows best, and that anyone who stands up for his or her rights or who seeks to improve themselves in a collective fashion are whiners, complainers, lazy or simply socialists in the making.

How do you combat such ignorance? By educating them. By showing example after example of how unionism and collective bargaining, when practiced on a level playing field (Of course, the playing field is not level, and has been tilted towards the side of the employers for a very long time), is not only beneficial to the workers, but often just as beneficial to the employer.

How? Happier workers with better pay and benefits leads to higher employee satisfaction levels, increased customer service satisfaction, and a consequent drop in on-the-job injuries, downtime due to illness, and employee turnover.

We are the union. The union is us. That is our strength, and the one thing every employer who chooses to take us on seems to forget. The saying we live by, "UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE BEG" is simple, logical, and so very, very true.

David and Ed will not be the first to learn a very hard lesson, but we will be happy to teach it to them in a way they will unlikely ever forget...
 
November 12, 2008

To our valued customer, we want to give you an update in some key areas.


Business Progress

In the last week, we have made some good progress. We are seeing our business coming back. Some of our large customers have come back and some of the existing customers that were giving us trial shipments have returned us to pre strike levels. We want to thank you for that.

Is it me or is this paragraph intentionally misleading? Existing customers that were giving trail shipments decided to return you to pre-strike levels?

The first draft;
To be honest.... things are pretty bad, (chugging noise in background) Ed has given up on the lord and turned to the bottle, and apparently our invitation to the family Thanksgiving dinner has been "lost in the mail". It seems they don't want us around begging for extra cash to continue our selfish endeavors. Fortunately Mr. Payne has been gracious enough to invite us over for a look at his scrapbook of failed companies, funny thing, they just couldn't sustain a long term labor dispute such as the one we have instigated here. I am sure there will be a toast to the misfortune of the common folk for not having multi-million dollar businesses given to them. Maybe he'll play Monopoly with us again, it's super fun cause he always lets us win!


A couple of notable things from last week, the Salem, Oregon terminal opening went successfully. Congratulations to the staff for their exceptional work. In addition, the company is handling some charity moves in the Bend, Oregon area for Samaritan's Purse, a ministry founded by Franklin Graham that gives shoeboxes of Christmas gifts to kids all over the world. You can check it out at here.
See hoW good we are? We picked up boxes that shoolkids filled with toys and we didn't even charge them!

Our Personnel

Now would be a good time for us to review some of the things that we have to take into consideration. We have a moral responsibility to all our employees. We currently have 1422 employees system wide. 440 of those employees are represented by the Teamsters union and are exercising their right to strike. 125 are represented employees that have chosen to exercise their right to cross the picket line and work, along with 113 newly hired strike replacement employees. We have 731 employees not represented by a union. We believe that continuing to operate our business is the best way to ensure all our employees can exercise their rights and it provides the best opportunities to maintain our business flow. Closing our business during a strike was obviously never an option.

In other words, we are 327 employees short and operating at 30-50%. Do they actually think anyone believes they did all of this to somehow help the 731 non-represented employees? Union busting is somehow an act of mercy? Greed plain and simple they know it otherwise they would not try to dispel it as charity.

Negotiations

From the start of union talks our goal has been to negotiate a contract we believe will work for us into the future. With that in mind, we met with the Teamsters negotiating committee in federal mediation on November 7 where they presented to us a number of new proposals for our review. We are reviewing them now.


Translation; After our previous contract was penned we began work on a long term union busting plan. We secured a firm to supply drivers and security, we increased security at existing facilities, because we totally wanted to bargain in good faith. We apparently read very slow because the proposals were presented over a week ago, we refuse to have someone present at meetings that can make decisions and we refuse to meet for any kind of duration that could possibly allow actual progress.



Retiree Healthcare

It appears that one of the things that has been coming up is the issue of retiree healthcare. Our position is: Oak Harbor has paid to the Teamster Retirement Trusts over a million dollars in just the past few years for the coverage of eligible retired persons. The trust is governed by Trustees and it is the Trustees who manage this money paid to them by Oak Harbor. The Trustees set the rules regarding who gets benefits and when. The Trustees establish what will be the payments by participants. There are hundreds of companies that participate in this trust. Oak Harbor has nothing to say about the operation of the Trusts. Accordingly, our participation has been in the form of over one million dollars contributed in the last few years for benefits used by approximately 50 retired families. Our experience is that less than half of our retired workers take advantage of this program and most apparently believe it is too expensive for them even though Oak Harbor had paid into the trust substantial amounts. Oak Harbor cannot make rules for the program. Oak Harbor has done everything it has agreed with its unions to do and that agreement is to pay into the Trust millions of dollars. One last point is that the Trust itself publishes the expectation retirees should have. The Trust's statement is: "No Plan participant should believe they have a vested right in these Plans or that the benefits of the Plans will necessarily be granted indefinitely." The Trust makes no guarantee of future benefits. In September 2008 we made an offer to the Teamsters that would continue retiree benefits. Our offer has not been accepted by the Teamsters. We have provided for the retirees everything we promised to them in our past collectively bargained agreement with the Teamsters.

That must be why all the retirees took to the street and protested your exclusion of this. Nothing is guaranteed, but in a plan like this retirees expect the company to do the right thing by them. As a matter of fact the pension contribution rate Oak Harbor has made has been so low by industry standards, at Oak Harbor the retiree health care was considered to be a supplement by most employees.

Summary and Thank You

Unfortunately, some organizations that appear to be at least partially funded by the Teamsters union are suggesting our customers move their business elsewhere. They are attempting to spread inaccurate information and implying motives that are untrue. How could this possibly help anyone?

For those of you that have been affected by the tactics we apologize and hope this communication helps you understand the impact this has on all our employees rights and security.

Motives are obvious, and no amount of typing or "myth and truth" papers is going to hide the elephant in the room. We will do anything and everything we can to hurt you business until you decide to cease operations, or agree to a contract the members can live with. It's somewhat ironic, things that worked in your favor such as having 1 driver do the same route forever now backfire because their relationship with your customers is more important to the customer than the relationship they have with your business, or whats left of it. Good start, but you have allot of apologizing to do!
 
Thanks for the real truth Silver.Think I'll go out and share our side with my customers once more just in case they believe the company bull.
 
Ok Silver I am ready to hear your rendention of the service update that only you can do so well!! I did look at OHFL site and off to the side it has the employee mugshots and their coached comments. I found it interesting that there were none from Portland or Auburn! hhhmmm. Interesting.
 
"oakh.com service update" said:
We have a number of the strike replacements, provided by our staffing vendor, that are seeking to stay on board as permanent employees

Wonder if they wrote this before or after the NLRB findings?
 
Ok Silver I am ready to hear your rendention of the service update that only you can do so well!! I did look at OHFL site and off to the side it has the employee mugshots and their coached comments. I found it interesting that there were none from Portland or Auburn! hhhmmm. Interesting.

Maybe this is all the employees they have left in Cal.
 
from OAKH.com

Oak Harbor Customer Update


November 26, 2008


Business Levels

In the last week, we have seen the return of even more of our valued customers and we can now see very clearly the impact the economy is having on our business. Until now, we have been working to convince our customers that our service is just as consistent and timely as it has been in the past. We believe that we have done that. We are currently running 98.57% on time for the month of November, which is higher than last November's 98.02%. At the same time, our SAFESTAT safety rating has improved from 23 to 21 (SAFESTAT is a DOT safety rating from 1 - 100, lower being better. 21 is one of the best we know of in the trucking industry).


Yes, it seems the economy is to blame, if it weren't for the economy, everything would be better than great..... Who cares and WTF is SAFESTAT? I don't think anyone really cares about your "safestat" rating. Maybe it's finally time to cease the charade, we all know what Oak Harbor has done here is wrong, and immoral, the suffering that has been endured by these dedicated individuals is noting short of heroic. You take the most dedicated, hard working individuals in this industry, throw them out like garbage, and then somehow think you can replace them overnight, you really think that what made this company successful is you? You are so off base it is inconceivable, even now, you still have an opportunity to deal in good faith, in my mind you don't even deserve that. You will never feel what these dedicated Teamsters have, they have something that your money cannot buy, and it is more valuable than all the cash in your inherited bank accounts. You have never lived, you simply exist.


We are seeing our revenue levels and bill counts continuing to increase month to month. We are also seeing that over 73% of our customers have resumed shipping with us, yet only 60% of our bill count has been restored due to the weak economy affecting our customers. In response, just like our customers, we are adjusting our staffing levels and modifying our costs, wherever possible, to better match our revenue levels. We are as committed as ever to providing the highest level of service in our industry. We believe that as long as we continue to do so our business will thrive.

I am a little confused, the economy was already in the red prior to the strike and it has not degraded by 40% since your employees stood up for themselves. Basically you are saying the economy was bad then you lost another %40 it's my estimation that you are running about %35 of pre-strike levels, where were all those empty's before?....they were on the road full of freight! You have lost the drivers that made your company a good value to customers, now Xpress may as well carry the freight.

Our Employees

We are proud to say that even during the pressure of the labor dispute, we have managed to assemble one of the best teams that Oak Harbor has ever had. Our customers have made comments about our improved service and that they are grateful. This is only possible because we have knowledgeable, committed employees that care about our business and our customers. Since the labor dispute, we have had over one hundred thirty (130) union represented employees choose to cross the picket line and return to work.

Currently we have temporary strike replacements working at two (2) of our thirty two (32) terminals, Auburn and Portland. We project that the temporary replacements will no longer be needed and regular employees put in their place by the end of the year. Our staffing vendor's workers have proven to us that they are committed to providing exceptional service and desire to do the best job possible for Oak Harbor and our customers. We have a number of the strike replacements, provided by our staffing vendor, that are seeking to stay on board as permanent employees. We welcome that opportunity.



I wouldn't be too proud, if a "team" of spineless traitors. If no moral fabric is what you are looking for, then you have accomplished that. Those customers are soo grateful, is that why the customer testimonials are now noticeably absent? you HAD knowledgeable, committed employees that cared about your business and customers. The ones that crossed are an insult to human decency, they make me ashamed of my species. Since the NLRB has found in favor of the union your plans to make permanent replacements went out the door so time to buck up and give these people what they deserve. When they do go back, I hope they treat you with the same respect you have shown them. I could never forgive this BS, you have taken hard working men and reduced them to paupers, your company would be nothing without these people, you have never interduced anything original to this business, you have copied and emulated and the ONLY reason for you success is the employees and the culture at the company that was left by the elder VP.
 
Silver I'm impressed again. Probably should make some copies for Oaks ex customers just so they know they made the right choice by not shipping. GREAT JOB!
 
Dad is one

Silver I'm impressed again. Probably should make some copies for Oaks ex customers just so they know they made the right choice by not shipping. GREAT JOB!
My dad is one of these great employees, He has given his life to this company and he gets thrown out on the street. Hell was made for the VPs, they put my family at risk of loosing everything. Remember the Bible story of Lazerous and the Rich Man. While Lazerous suffered the Rich man had not a care. Until he died. VPs you owe every man and woman on the picked line an apology and their jobs back with retro pay. SHAME ON THEM FOR HURTING GOOD FAMILIES AND CALLING ***** A "GOOD TEAM".
 
Where is the service update to the customers saying that yes we are scumbags and we treat our employees like garbage. Of course we were only found to be in violation of 3 out of 5 charges, but we are also making a name for ourselves in the International labor laws watchdog forum. We are the great vp's and we will keep you informed on our many more underhanded backstabbing tactics as they come to light.
 
Where is the service update to the customers saying that yes we are scumbags and we treat our employees like garbage. Of course we were only found to be in violation of 3 out of 5 charges, but we are also making a name for ourselves in the International labor laws watchdog forum. We are the great vp's and we will keep you informed on our many more underhanded backstabbing tactics as they come to light.

There are more charges pending that the NLRB has not
yet made a decision on, one of which I believe is not bargaining in good faith which
occured in front of a Federal Mediator Nov 7th.
 
ULRB has ruled that the company WAS bargaining in good faith, and the union has withdrew two of it's unfair labor practice complaints.
 
Thank you for clearing that up truckchick!! I hate company goons like gamakatsu that try to spread rumors!!
 
Thank you for clearing that up truckchick!! I hate company goons like gamakatsu that try to spread rumors!!

Not so. I received my info from a person at a local that was in a position to know. My understanding was that it was a part of the decision last week. Maybe my source did not the facts straight.
 
Not so. I received my info from a person at a local that was in a position to know. My understanding was that it was a part of the decision last week. Maybe my source did not the facts straight.
The Company is in Deep Do Do. They are not bargining at all. The Kidd
 
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