Teamsters Expect to Vote Next Month on New Agreement With Car Haulers

Teamsters union members who deliver new vehicles will vote during July on the 51-month tentative agreement reached earlier this month by union leaders and carrier negotiators, the labor group announced.

The agreement offers wage increases totaling $1.35 per hour, or about 1.3% over the life of the contract, preserves health benefits and creates a new owner-driver option, according to a Teamsters website posting. A tentative vote count is slated for Aug. 2, with ballots scheduled to be sent on July 7.

The vote, with an estimated 8,100 members eligible to participate, will follow last week’s approval of the tentative agreement by local union leaders. Under the union’s contract ratification procedure, local officials’ approval was necessary before balloting could begin.

“This is a solid tentative agreement and the negotiating committee is confident our members will ratify the agreement,” said Fred Zuckerman, director of the union’s car-haul division. “From the beginning, we were determined to protect our members’ existing health-care and retirement benefits.”

Jack Cooper Transport, Cassens Transport and Allied Systems Holdings are the largest unionized car haulers. Robert Long, lead negotiator for the carriers through the National Automobile Transporters Labor Division, didn’t return calls requesting comment.

The agreement, if approved, would run through Aug. 31, 2015, and would be retroactive to June 1, when the prior three-year pact expired.

Robert Farrell, executive director of the Automobile Carriers Conference of American Trucking Associations said provisions of the agreement such as the owner-driver plan “seem to give the carriers the ability to expand their business in non-traditional ways.”

It calls for increases of 30 cents an hour in the first and second years, followed by 35 cents an hour in the third year and 40 cents an hour over the final 15 months for all members. The base wage is about $20 an hour.

Also included are adjustments in mileage pay, which will add up to 6.75 cents per mile during the life of the agreement.

Cost-of-living allowances also will be paid annually if inflation exceeds 3% annually in any year.

Health, welfare and pension contributions will be calculated by pension plan trustees and increased each year on Aug. 1, a summary of the contract stated.

The owner-driver program would apply to drivers hired after June 1 and would be voluntary. Under the program, as described by the union, eligible workers could choose to become owners of their own equipment.

Employers would still pay health, welfare and pension costs, while drivers would be paid a percentage of revenue similar to the owner-operator agreements used by non-union fleets.

“With a new car-haul rig costing about $240,000 each, [management] insisted on having options to add drivers and equipment in the most economical manner possible,” the statement said. “The parties believe good jobs will be created and the unionized sector of car-haul can regain market share lost to non-union companies.”

“Every car-haul employer covered by this agreement has just come off three years of sustained losses, and are struggling to find ways to responsibly grow their fleets,” the union stated.

When the prior contract was being negotiated, auto sales were about 10 million vehicles a year. The annual sales rate for May improved to 11.8 million but remained far below the industry record set in 2005, when vehicle sales were made at a rate of nearly 20 million annually.

Unlike the contract that just expired, the new tentative agreement was reached without an extension beyond the day of expiration.

The pact that just expired took more than four months to approve and featured a rejection of the initial agreement, a strike and the bankruptcy of Performance Transportation Services, then the second-biggest car hauler.