YRC Worldwide Breaks Off Contract Talks With Machinists Union
YRC Worldwide said it has broken off contract talks with the International Association of Machinists, which represents about 200 workers at the less-than-truckload operator, effective Monday.
The company said late Friday that the move was taken because the machinists, whose contract with YRC was scheduled to expire on March 31, did not accept the same 15% pay cut and pension reductions that have been in place with the Teamsters union.
YRC’s 25,000 Teamsters members have worked for four years with those cuts in effect.
The company and the machinists continued talks after the contract expiration through an extension.
CEO James Welch told Transport Topics there won’t be any disruption of service because other workers will take over the tasks of the workers at fewer than 10 terminals where IAM union members work.
“We feel that everyone has sacrificed so much, and the machinists haven’t accepted the shared sacrifice,” Welch said. “We don’t want to have people working side-by-side under different contract terms.”
The expired machinists’ contract was negotiated before the Teamsters agreed to the wage and pension cuts in exchange for an ownership stake in YRC, which is ranked No. 4 on the Transport Topics 100 listing of U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
The machinists’ union did not respond to requests for comment.
