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Yellow | Yellow Bankruptcy & The Devastation of Corporate Greed

Razorblade said:
Actually, it's $826,000.00 to date. An amount I have always said is outrageous. Whoever thought that million dollar pensions for everyone would be sustainable. I have also written many times that Butch-Lewis is welfare for Teamsters, no different than corporate welfare that all of you hate. I wrote that I was overpaid because of the system of socialist regulation. Overpaid because my skillset was not worth what I should have been paid in an American free market system. There can be no debate that deregulation of the industry has shown that I was correct. Carriers that could not compete failed. Carriers tied to outdated defined benefit pensions, no premium, no deductible healthcare, work rules and classifications failed. Unions that refused to adapt, unions that demanded more than already stressed carriers could pay forced companies out of business. Carriers with more flexibility and lower costs prospered and thrived. Their growth was possible because those companies were able to hire quality employees at market based compensation. Market based meaning tens of thousands of employees agreed to accept the compensation packages offered by those employers.
I accepted the wage reductions proposed by Preston Trucking in 1994. I watched as Preston slowly and steadily declined from having the best operating ratio in the country into bankruptcy. I accepted the pay and benefits until the day Preston closed and the following day, I was back in an orange truck pulling doubles for Yellow. I did not tell the interviewer that I would not work at 70%. I did not say I am worth the top rate because I have 2 million safe miles and am triples qualified. 70% was the rate because the IBT had negotiated a contract saying 70% is what the job was worth.
I take every dime of my pension because it is a third party annuity. My employers paid the premiums and I am entitled to collect as long as there is money to pay. If I am wealthy, it is not because of the pension but because I never depended on a pension to fund my retirement. I exercised personal responsibility and funded a retirement independent of the Teamster negotiated pension.
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well stated..
 
Real Teamster said:
I think you're forgetting one important point Blade. That Teamster contract pretty much set the bar for the industry (and perhaps ancillary industries too) for decades.
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I would say that was true at one point
For the past 20 years or so there seems to be no fear of carriers getting organized thau forced to issue pay raises to offset ant threat of organization.
As we just saw on the west coast some teamster organizing victories soon turn into embarrassing decertification losses.
There has not been an LTL organizing victory in scores of years for the teamsters. Yet no one internally has asked why do people not want what we have to offer???
 
Puff Driver said:
I would say that was true at one point
For the past 20 years or so there seems to be no fear of carriers getting organized thau forced to issue pay raises to offset ant threat of organization.
As we just saw on the west coast some teamster organizing victories soon turn into embarrassing decertification losses.
There has not been an LTL organizing victory in scores of years for the teamsters. Yet no one internally has asked why do people not want what we have to offer???
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I actually agree with some of this...organizing has been a failure for some time
 
Puff Driver said:
I would say that was true at one point
For the past 20 years or so there seems to be no fear of carriers getting organized thau forced to issue pay raises to offset ant threat of organization.
As we just saw on the west coast some teamster organizing victories soon turn into embarrassing decertification losses.
There has not been an LTL organizing victory in scores of years for the teamsters. Yet no one internally has asked why do people not want what we have to offer???
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And I was so hoping you would find a nice bridge club and get over this teamster thing.
Did you ever consider knitting or a quilting class in your neighborhood?
I'm afraid if you don't get over this obsession, the rubber room will be in your future.
 
seabreeze said:
And I was so hoping you would find a nice bridge club and get over this teamster thing.
Did you ever consider knitting or a quilting class in your neighborhood?
I'm afraid if you don't get over this obsession, the rubber room will be in your future.
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And it will likely be pink rubber in that rubber room.
 
Razorblade said:
I answered truthfully. It isn't boasting if its fact.
It's also not anything that anyone else could not do. All that is required to have a comfortable retirement is financial discipline during your working years.
If you are asking if I have sympathy for those who can't save and invest a minimum of 10% of their income, whatever that income is, the answer is no. 10% of a yearly income is 5.2 weeks pay and at 10% out of each paycheck, it's not even missed.
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Your hatred toward the union should have absolutely nothing to do with anyone else being able to invest 10% of their income or not. No one faults you for enjoying your benefits that you’ve worked for all these years, so why then turn around and criticize the organization that enabled you to obtain some of those benefits? Do you think all that energy you waste venting on here could be more useful encouraging or assisting junior members to maybe get those same benefits as well?
 
Marlin444 said:
Your hatred toward the union should have absolutely nothing to do with anyone else being able to invest 10% of their income or not. No one faults you for enjoying your benefits that you’ve worked for all these years, so why then turn around and criticize the organization that enabled you to obtain some of those benefits? Do you think all that energy you waste venting on here could be more useful encouraging or assisting junior members to maybe get those same benefits as well?
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What is there to like about a union that has lost 99% of its LTL freight members since the first NMFA? Lost may be the wrong word. Abandoned seems more to the point. I know the responses will all say deregulation did that, but they will be wrong! It was the unions refusal to adapt to the new economic reality of a deregulated industry not deregulation itself that destroyed unionized LTL.
It was the union not accepting that healthcare increases at 5-10 times the rate of inflation while still demanding employer provided no premium, no deductible medical, vision and dental care. It was the union's demanding unsustainable defined benefit pensions, like mine, that pay $20.19 an hour. It was the union's 1970s classification system that forced employers to hire more workers than necessary to get the job done. It was the union that overpriced compensation and made union carriers unable to operate in a competitive industry.
Every union company went through the same shutdown process. Over the years, the Operating Ratio went higher until they were no longer able to capitalize the business. Tire banks began to shrink. Equipment maintenance intervals were longer. Rolling stock was getting older. Terminals were closed and existing locations had larger areas to cover. On the docks, forklifts were not being replaced and dunnage disappeared. Wage reductions and bankruptcy followed. It was a 10 year process at Preston Trucking. Some took longer and some went quickly. Watch carefully the OR at ABF and T Force.
If the IBT has so much to offer, why can't they organize truck drivers? Why are the employees at FedEx freight, Old Dominion and other nonunion carriers not running to local union offices asking for their help? Why are the nonunion companies thriving if working conditions there are so horrible?
All the IBT had to do to save hundreds of thousands of union jobs was to adapt to a deregulated industry.
 
Razorblade said:
All the IBT had to do to save hundreds of thousands of union jobs was to adapt to a deregulated industry.
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If they adapt to a deregulated LTL industry they no longer offer enough value to their members. Therefore they accept the slow death of their LTL carriers while collecting dues. They have moved on to other industries where they can compete.
 
EX396 said:
If they adapt to a deregulated LTL industry they no longer offer enough value to their members. Therefore they accept the slow death of their LTL carriers while collecting dues. They have moved on to other industries where they can compete.
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I have a close friend that believes that. He is convinced that the teamsters want out of freight all together. His theory is the teamsters much prefer to negotiate with organization who do not care about wasting peoples money or of the quality of work. Hence the big push to represent government employees, healthcare or casino workers.
On the other hand I believe any paying member must be considered valuable.
The behavior & history of the teamsters union proves me wrong..
 
Puff Driver said:
I have a close friend that believes that. He is convinced that the teamsters want out of freight all together. His theory is the teamsters much prefer to negotiate with organization who do not care about wasting peoples money or of the quality of work. Hence the big push to represent government employees, healthcare or casino workers.
On the other hand I believe any paying member must be considered valuable.
The behavior & history of the teamsters union proves me wrong..
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I don't know that they "want out" as much as they don't care to stay. Certainly they can offer much more when there isn't such concern about razor thin margins and profitability. The more they can offer the easier it is to organize. As to the LTL industry, every paying member is as valuable as his dues and his vote. All they need to do is offer just enough to discourage decertification, no more and no less.
 
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