Teamsters, Management to Resume Car-Haul Talks
The Teamsters and management negotiators seeking to reach a car-haul agreement will resume negotiations Nov. 17, a month after rank-and-file union members soundly rejected a tentative agreement.
“We are reconvening this week for the first time since the agreement was rejected to begin the process of arriving at a new tentative agreement,” James Osmer, a Detroit area attorney and lead management negotiator, told Transport Topics.
The resumption of talks between the National Automobile Transporters Labor Division and the union involves two major car-haul fleets, Jack Cooper Holdings and Cassens Transport Co. and smaller carriers including JHT Holdings, which transports new tractors. Jack Cooper and Cassens rank No. 43 and 74, respectively, on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada.
About 6,000 union members are covered by car-haul contracts. Workers have remained on the job after the four-year tentative deal, which was meant to replace a contract that expired Aug. 31. The tentative agreement was put out for a vote a month later. Results were announced in mid-October.
The proliferation of nonunion fleets has left those carriers with two-thirds of the car-haul business, Osmer said.
Union workers are represented by the Teamsters National Automobile Transporters Industry Negotiating Committee. The union didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from TT.
The Teamsters for a Democratic Union group said 85% of those voting turned down the tentative agreement. The union didn’t release specifics called the rejection “overwhelming.”
