Trucking Industry Labor Relations

Transcon Lines, a big Los Angeles trucking company, was running on fumes when Leonard A. Pelullo took the wheel last spring. It was losing money--$5 million a month--as it tried in vain to compete with such industry giants as Roadway and Yellow Freight. It was late paying its bills; one of its unions had sued to collect an overdue pension payment. The company was in bad shape. Only a patient investor with deep pockets could reverse its downhill slide. Don't look to Lenny Pelullo.

In a ruling that could hamper efforts to unionize truck drivers at the nation's ports, a three-judge panel has found that drivers who haul goods from Los Angeles harbor are independent contractors and not trucking company employees. The complex class-action lawsuit was filed by Los Angeles attorney Fred Kumetz on behalf of hundreds of drivers, mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

Most of Transcon Lines' 3,000 truck drivers and freight handlers have been abruptly laid off by the money-losing Los Angeles-based long-haul carrier, it was learned Monday. No announcement of the layoffs was made by Transcon or by Growth Finance Corp. of Miami, the private investment firm that last month acquired Transcon's trucking business. Transcon had run into deepening losses as a result of rate wars unleashed by deregulation.

Union Pacific Corp.'s Overnite Transportation Co. said its trucks were making scheduled freight pickups and deliveries as a pre-holiday season strike spread to 20% of its U.S. terminals. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said the walkout spread to 33 of Overnite's 166 terminals in the U.S. in its second day. The union said its biggest weapon will be strikers who follow Overnite trucks and picket at each company where freight is picked up or delivered. Overnite, based in Richmond, Va.

In a move that could disrupt freight shipments nationwide, the Teamsters launched a strike Tuesday night against 22 major trucking companies after both sides failed to agree on a labor contract covering nearly 80,000 workers. The strike, while not expected to paralyze transportation, could be widely felt across the country by consumers, retailers and factories. The companies hit by the walkout, which began at 9 p.m. PDT, handle about half of the nation's mid-size shipments over long distances.

In the first nationwide trucking strike in 15 years, the Teamsters shut down 22 large trucking companies Wednesday, forcing customers to scramble for available carriers and raising fears of serious disruptions to commerce if the walkout continues. With no new labor negotiations scheduled, about 75,000 Teamsters across the country walked picket lines outside truck terminals in one of the largest strikes since the mid-1980s. There were only a few reports of scattered, minor violence.

Three more trucking companies Tuesday asked the Teamsters Union for interim agreements that would permit them to return to the highways pending an overall settlement of the week-old strike. If approved, the agreements would permit the companies' 4,350 drivers and dock workers to join Teamsters members of two other carriers who had been exempted from the strike in earlier, separate agreements with the union. Trucking Management Inc.

A Missouri trucking firm on Monday closed its doors and laid off more than 2,000 workers on the sixth day of a nationwide trucking strike while the Teamsters called off the walkout against another company that agreed to resume negotiations. Trucking industry officials blamed the strike involving about 75,000 Teamsters for leading Churchill Truck Lines to permanently shut down after nearly 70 years in operation.

More than 2,000 people and scores of political leaders gathered at a Labor Day celebration in downtown Los Angeles on Monday to herald the resurgence of organized labor and support delivery drivers on strike at Southern California's largest tortilla company. "I have a message for everyone here and for everyone all the way back to the East Coast: Working people are not going to take it anymore," said AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez Thompson, who spoke at the rally.

Shippers hampered by the labor slowdown at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports said Monday that the flow of freight is returning to normal even as thousands of union truck drivers stay off the job for a second week. "It's high enough to where we're not getting an accumulation of containers at the terminals," said Robert Kleist, an advisor to the Evergreen America Corp. and a member of the Steamship Assn. of Southern California board.

Union Pacific Corp.'s Overnite Transportation unit is preparing for a possible strike by the Teamsters this weekend as the trucking industry enters its busiest season. The union has been threatening for several weeks to call a strike "at any time" against the largest U.S. less-than-truckload carrier without a labor agreement. Talks between Overnite--whose California terminals include Los Angeles, Fullerton and San Diego--and the union broke off Sept. 17.

The Teamsters union and companies that haul new vehicles to dealer showrooms agreed Wednesday to a tentative four-year contract that averts a strike that threatened to disrupt surging auto sales. James P. Hoffa, the newly elected president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said the contract provides for improved wages and pension benefits without making major concessions to the companies.

Auto makers are making contingency plans as the Teamsters, the nation's second-largest union, head toward a Tuesday morning deadline and possible strike against trucking companies that haul 90% of autos to dealers. Teamsters President James P. Hoffa is promising to deliver a three-year national contract with higher wages, pension benefits and better job security for about 12,200 members who haul cars between factories, ports, auctions and rail yards.

With less than a week before the current contract expires, the Teamsters union is threatening a nationwide strike against 17 trucking companies that deliver new vehicles to dealer showrooms. A walkout by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents about 12,200 drivers, yard workers, mechanics and office workers, could disrupt booming auto sales and eventually slow the nation's economy. "We hope that a strike isn't necessary," said Teamsters President James P.

Members of the Teamsters ratified a new five-year contract with the nation's long-haul trucking companies, the union and an industry association said. The contract, approved by 70% of the voting members, features pension and benefit improvements, a $750 bonus in the first year, and 35-cents-an-hour wage increases over the next four years--so that senior drivers will make $19.86 an hour by the final year.

A California Teamsters union official in San Francisco is leading an effort to reject a tentative contract agreement between the union and the nation's long-haul truckers. Chuck Mack, president of the union's 55,000-member Joint Council 7, called the accord "too little for too long," and urged the 136,000 drivers to vote it down in balloting later this month. His opposition runs counter to what has been a joint union-management effort to reach a quick and uncontested agreement.

Truckers, Teamsters Resume Talks: Negotiators for the Teamsters union and trucking firms resumed negotiations in an effort to resolve a 12-day strike involving 70,000 workers. The Teamsters and Truck Management Inc., which represents 23 trucking firms, said they had "serious discussions" and agreed to another round of negotiations today as union members remained on the picket lines nationwide.

A strike by at least 75,000 Teamster drivers and dock workers kept 22 trucking companies across the nation shut down for a second day Thursday, and no further contract negotiations were scheduled. The Teamsters, torn recently by bitter internal feuding on other union issues, maintained a united front on the strike, keeping all the trucking companies' facilities closed from coast to coast.

From gasoline to fresh fish, yogurt and cauliflower, staples were starting to run short across France as striking truckers on Wednesday widened a blockade of roads and highways with their rigs to push for better pay and working conditions. The strike, in its third full day, began to pinch painfully at the arteries of Europe's increasingly integrated economy, which depends more than ever on deliveries by big trucks.

The 185,000 Teamsters who work at United Parcel Service have authorized a strike if a new contract isn't reached by July 31. During a weeklong vote, the Teamsters voted "95% in favor of a strike authorization," union spokeswoman Nancy Stella said. The vote "doesn't mean a strike will be called," Stella said, but it empowers union negotiators to call for a work stoppage if there is no agreement when the contract with Atlanta-based UPS expires at the end of the month.