U.S. Trucking Pact to Go Into Effect Despite Rejection by Teamsters

Teamster truck drivers and loaders around the country overwhelmingly voted against a new national contract negotiated with large trucking companies, the union announced Thursday.

But, in a move certain to spur further controversy within the union, the pact will go into effect anyway.

The adoption of the contract stems from a clause in the Teamsters’ constitution providing that a contract can be rejected only if there is a two-thirds vote against it, said Jack Yager, co-chairman of the union’s national master freight negotiating committee.

The master freight agreement, which covers more Teamsters than any other labor contract, calls for about an 8% wage increase over 3 years for the drivers and loaders, who currently make an average of about $15 an hour. It has drawn widespread criticism, however, from union dissident groups and others because of its work rule changes and concessions.

Almost 64%, or 64,101, of the drivers voted no and 36%, or 36,782, voted yes. About 80,000 drivers didn’t vote, according to the union announcement, issued late Thursday in Washington, many hours after the results had leaked out.

The heavy no vote represents a political hot potato for Weldon L. Mathis, the union’s secretary-treasurer, who is serving as interim president for four months while Teamster President Jackie Presser recuperates from surgery for brain cancer in a Phoenix hospital, according to Ken Paff, organizing director of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a Detroit-based dissident group.

Paff said this was the first time in the union’s history that a majority of the members had voted down the master freight agreement after the leadership had recommended approval. At the same time, leaders of large locals in a host of cities, including Boston, Los Angeles and New York, urged a no vote on the pact. Those leaders included William McCarthy, a member of the Teamsters executive board.

“It’s a touchy problem for the organization, not just for Weldon,” said one Teamster leader who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Paff said TDU sent a telegram to Teamster leaders in Washington and to Trucking Management Inc., an alliance of large trucking companies, urging them not to implement the new contract because of the heavy no vote. Nevertheless, Yager said in a prepared statement that the union has no choice but to put the contract into effect.

Yager said the Teamsters would attempt to reopen negotiations with the companies to get certain parts of the new three-year contract modified. However, union sources acknowledged that the companies, many represented by Trucking Management, are under no obligation to alter the contract.

Paff said the vote represented “broad discontent” on a host of provisions. Among them is one that would require all Teamster members at a trucking company that is losing money to give back 15% of their pay, in exchange for a share of future profits, if 75% of the workers at that company vote in favor of such a deal.

He said members also objected to terms that would: force drivers to pay for loss of freight or truck damage, lower pay rates for part-time workers and require drivers to pay for any excess of the standard insurance charges if the employee is determined to be an assigned insurance risk.

Since trucking was deregulated nearly a decade ago, lower-paying, non-union firms have proliferated, creating pressure on unionized companies to lower their pay rates, and some of the nation’s largest trucking firms have closed. The Teamsters membership has declined to its current level of 1.6 million from a mid-1970s high of 2.3 million. About 200,000 trucking-related jobs have been lost.

The Teamsters adopted the controversial two-thirds rejection rule at its convention in 1961 when Jimmy Hoffa was union president. Previously, a majority of members voting on a contract could reject it, but another section of the union constitution provided that there had to be a two-thirds majority approval for a strike.

Yager’s statement Thursday said that in several instances members had rejected a contract but had not given the required two-thirds strike authorization vote. That left union negotiators in a weakened position, leading to adoption of the current rule.