From local 174 Website:
RE: OAK HARBOR FREIGHT LINES MEDIATION UPDATE
Message
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
We met with Oak Harbor management's negotiating team again on Monday, July 28, 2009.
We have very little progress to report from our second mediation session. To date, the Company has not come forward with a finalized comprehensive proposal. The Company's current offer would:
* eliminate health care coverage for current and future retirees,
* move you onto a substandard health care plan,
* freeze the Company's contributions to your retirement fund,
* eliminate paid sick leave,
* prevent Class B dockworkers from obtaining health and welfare benefits,
* allow the Company to use subcontractors to replace office workers, and
* deny new clerical employees any pay raises.
On July 25th, the Teamsters Union and Oak Harbor employees filed unfair-labor-practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board alleging Oak Harbor has engaged in "bad faith bargaining." The charges address Oak Harbor’s alleged violations of U.S. labor law, including negotiating directly with employees and illegally forcing union members to remove union insignias from the workplace. The filing of these serious charges is just another sign that the Teamsters will take action to show Oak Harbor that it needs to learn to respect its employees.
In the coming weeks, we hope Oak Harbor will come forward with a comprehensive final proposal that we can present for your review.
Stand Strong,
Your Negotiating Committee
cc: Tyson Johnson, IBT Freight Division Director & Southern Region Vice President; Gordon Sweeton, IBT Central Region Vice President
It does not look good, it looks like things are in the same place they were in Oct. the company has been stalling an ULP is all fine and good, but with bush's NLRB I don't expect too much. We all know where this is going, they didn't stick it out this long to just give up. So work as much overtime as possible, try to make those minimums for medical, and get ready to shut this company down forever. It's sad, it's wrong, and it is all a byproduct of this companies selfishness and greed. Fortunately the work that you do will still be in the regions so displaced employees should not have it too bad when it comes to finding new work. Who knows, it may be the best thing to ever happen to someone from this company. This replacement talk is just that, talk, no one can replace 500 highly skilled, fully certified drivers effectively overnight.