With the breakup of the Teamsters from the AFL-CIO UPS workers can approach the AFL-CIO and request help in organizing our own independent union.
An independent union that will cut dues in half, increase pensions, and enforce our contract to protect jobs. Its time we took a page from Hoffas play book and divorce the Teamsters that take UPS workers hard earned dollars to subsidize and enrich the lives a million NON-UPS workers.
While a million non-UPS workers enjoy pensions and health benefits that return to them 300 to 500% gains vs what their companies pay in for them, UPS workers continue to have their benefits slashed and requirements to qualify harder to achieve. This while UPS pays is a record amount of hourly contribution 60%, and growing, gets diverted to NON-UPS workers and if the funds UPS pays in for their employees where SEGREGATED it could easily double the pension and health care benefits for UPS workers.
Its time to end the our participation in the Teamsters socialist Multi-employer pension fund that penalizes the best worker and companies and rewards the worst workers and poorest companies. Its time to stop subsidizing the Million NON-UPS workers and all those new members that Hoffa wants to organize.
A union of our own and freedom to guide our own path. I hope the APWA approaches the AFL-CIO for assistance or a union in the AFL-CIO comes in and helps us shrug off the unjust yoke of the Teamsters.
A UNION OF OUR OWN!
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51 replies to this topic
#2
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Posted July 26 2005 - 02:19 PM
Excellent idea. Maybe the AFL CIO can do better for us.
#3
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Posted July 26 2005 - 08:06 PM
Dumb asses like you should look at your pension plan and figure out where your money goes. Maybe you should get out of the Teamsters UPS is welcome to stay but you just dont get it.
#4
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Posted July 26 2005 - 08:37 PM
Airborne .... instead of your anti-Teamster messages .. why don't you try to help yourself and your brothers and sisters. Your fairytale called APWA ranks up there with Pinochio ... lies being a major part of the story.
Instead of trying to divide our union, why don't you try to organize instead; help it grow. If you succeed in doing this, there will be more money for the union coffers. Then, we can hope you join the real world and leave fantasy land!
ps scb wants you to start with Fedex. Go out and get em.
Instead of trying to divide our union, why don't you try to organize instead; help it grow. If you succeed in doing this, there will be more money for the union coffers. Then, we can hope you join the real world and leave fantasy land!
ps scb wants you to start with Fedex. Go out and get em.
#5
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Posted July 26 2005 - 09:25 PM
If Ups workers get out of the teamsters, Ups will eat your lunch. Look at the pilots, they got out. And going on 4 years without a contract.
Airborne you need to get a clue. If you want to do something constructive, try getting involved. All these negative posts do nothing to futher the labor movement. It isn't about you or me or the Ups workers or the teamsters. It's about organized labor.
If you think we have problems now, go ahead and try your decert. And our problems will only be starting.
I wish people would frickin think. We have alot to be thankful for. Sure we have problems, but if we get out our problems now will pail in comparison.
Airborne you need to get a clue. If you want to do something constructive, try getting involved. All these negative posts do nothing to futher the labor movement. It isn't about you or me or the Ups workers or the teamsters. It's about organized labor.
If you think we have problems now, go ahead and try your decert. And our problems will only be starting.
I wish people would frickin think. We have alot to be thankful for. Sure we have problems, but if we get out our problems now will pail in comparison.
#6
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Posted July 26 2005 - 10:02 PM
Actually I think you two lame brains completely missed the point. It appears what Airborne is saying is you folk now have other options besides the teamsters and apwa including organizing under the AFL-CIO.
#7
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Posted July 26 2005 - 10:03 PM
You scb there was a time when real upsers with a brain would post here and engage in intelligent conversation. In todays world the brain dead like bumblestrips, ass wedgie, sidewinder and krash and burnt litter this board with their stupidity.
#8
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Posted July 26 2005 - 10:09 PM
UPSSup said:
Actually I think you two lame brains completely missed the point. It appears what Airborne is saying is you folk now have other options besides the teamsters and apwa including organizing under the AFL-CIO.
Organizing under the AFL-CIO? What planet are you on? The reason we pulled out is lack of organizing. Our money would be better spent on organizing, rather than spending it in Washington. (For now)
#9
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Posted July 26 2005 - 10:23 PM
Oh really teamster . You say the only reason "we" pulled out?
Could you please tell me when "we" the brotherhood of the teamsters actually voted on pulling out of the AFL CIO. How many of "we" actually voted on doing so?
While your at it tell me how the membership "we" feels about turning their backs on the organization that financially supported the teamsters 97 strike?
I'll await your response.
Could you please tell me when "we" the brotherhood of the teamsters actually voted on pulling out of the AFL CIO. How many of "we" actually voted on doing so?
While your at it tell me how the membership "we" feels about turning their backs on the organization that financially supported the teamsters 97 strike?
I'll await your response.
#10
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Posted July 26 2005 - 10:47 PM
UPSSup said:
Oh really teamster . You say the only reason "we" pulled out?
Could you please tell me when "we" the brotherhood of the teamsters actually voted on pulling out of the AFL CIO. How many of "we" actually voted on doing so?
While your at it tell me how the membership "we" feels about turning their backs on the organization that financially supported the teamsters 97 strike?
I'll await your response.
Could you please tell me when "we" the brotherhood of the teamsters actually voted on pulling out of the AFL CIO. How many of "we" actually voted on doing so?
While your at it tell me how the membership "we" feels about turning their backs on the organization that financially supported the teamsters 97 strike?
I'll await your response.
"We" elected delegates. And "We" will have to live with the decision they made. If you want to get into it, Sweeney should have retired. It's a power struggle.
#11
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Posted July 26 2005 - 11:18 PM
Does'nt this thread belong in the APWA forum?
alex y.
alex y.
#12
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Posted July 27 2005 - 12:22 AM
alex_y said:
Does'nt this thread belong in the APWA forum?
alex y.
alex y.
Why? We're not talking about APWA (at least I'm not), we are talking about the survival of the labor movement.
#13
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Posted July 27 2005 - 02:44 AM
Its about choices. This is America! Why do you think theres more than one cell phone company? Why is there more than one brand of milk? Why is there more than one store? In America we can choose which company will get us the best deal. We do not have to be stuck in a loser deal.
If your too stupid to see that, move to Russia where you'll never have any choices.
If your too stupid to see that, move to Russia where you'll never have any choices.
#14
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Posted July 27 2005 - 04:22 AM
Could it be that Jr. pulled the Teamsters out of the AFL-CIO in order to get his greedy hands on 10 million more dollars a year?
#15
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Posted July 27 2005 - 04:22 AM
Could it be that Jr. pulled the Teamsters out of the AFL-CIO in order to get his greedy hands on 10 million more dollars a year?
#16
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Posted July 27 2005 - 05:40 AM
Teamsterman,
I "get it" just fine. Why don't you address the pension issues and the injustice it meets out on the UPS workers. Are you saying, because you don't say anything to the point, that the UPS workers are getting a fair shake?
Are you tell the UPS workers that the Teamsters are acting in their best interest?
Are you saying the UPS pilots, who are some of the highest paid in the industry, won't inevitable get their contract? Are you saying that because the are an independent union they some how can't negotiate a good contract?
Seem your wrong on all account? The independent pilots union, I say again, enjoy one of the best wage and benefit packages in the industry and didn't need the Teamsters to get it.
Fact is the UPS workers suffer greatly from the yoke of the Teamsters and see there years of labor wasted by the socialist redistribution of the wealth they create and is supposed to be paid to them. This voice of outrage I speak to isn’t about dividing labor or union busting its no more than the same call for change Hoffa made when the Teamsters split with the AFL-CIO. If its not working its time for a change.
The Teamster socialist pension fund is slap in the face to every UPS worker. I have NO DOUBT that an independent union made up of rank and file UPS workers could negotiate a better deal with the company and enforce it better than the Teamsters do now PERIOD. Yours and the rest of the fear mongers that believe the decades of sellouts, kangaroo grievance panels, healthcare and pension subsidies to the million of other Teamsters, will convince the UPS workers that can’t do a better job is naive and contradicts the realities on the ground.
FREEDOM FOR THE UPS WORKERS.....A UNION OF OUR OWN!
Like Over9 5 said its about CHOICE!
I "get it" just fine. Why don't you address the pension issues and the injustice it meets out on the UPS workers. Are you saying, because you don't say anything to the point, that the UPS workers are getting a fair shake?
Are you tell the UPS workers that the Teamsters are acting in their best interest?
Are you saying the UPS pilots, who are some of the highest paid in the industry, won't inevitable get their contract? Are you saying that because the are an independent union they some how can't negotiate a good contract?
Seem your wrong on all account? The independent pilots union, I say again, enjoy one of the best wage and benefit packages in the industry and didn't need the Teamsters to get it.
Fact is the UPS workers suffer greatly from the yoke of the Teamsters and see there years of labor wasted by the socialist redistribution of the wealth they create and is supposed to be paid to them. This voice of outrage I speak to isn’t about dividing labor or union busting its no more than the same call for change Hoffa made when the Teamsters split with the AFL-CIO. If its not working its time for a change.
The Teamster socialist pension fund is slap in the face to every UPS worker. I have NO DOUBT that an independent union made up of rank and file UPS workers could negotiate a better deal with the company and enforce it better than the Teamsters do now PERIOD. Yours and the rest of the fear mongers that believe the decades of sellouts, kangaroo grievance panels, healthcare and pension subsidies to the million of other Teamsters, will convince the UPS workers that can’t do a better job is naive and contradicts the realities on the ground.
FREEDOM FOR THE UPS WORKERS.....A UNION OF OUR OWN!
Like Over9 5 said its about CHOICE!
#17
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Posted July 27 2005 - 09:28 PM
I have been an active Teamster for over 40 years. I have worked at 5 different freight barns before I went to UPS as a casual, and many years after that, I was hired full time. I remember when UPS was the name of a joke by postal workers.
Let's face it. Our pensions are based on the number of hours worked and the amount contributed by the companies that you worked for. Workers collecting any pension have done some time for a teamster company. For me personally, after ACME closed down, I went to driving jobs that paid the most in my pension fund. And, I do admit, many freight companies went out of business since deregulation, but before they went under, they always contributed the most. And, UPS did not do so until the big growth in the 80s.
Freight not only had the highest paid members, but also had the highest health and welfare contributors in its heyday, before dereg. UPS employees did not complain then, when freight put the gold in the bank for our union. In most business cycles, there are highs and lows, but it is a cycle. Do not discard Freight, what it has done for this Union, or what it will do in the future.
Stand United!
Let's face it. Our pensions are based on the number of hours worked and the amount contributed by the companies that you worked for. Workers collecting any pension have done some time for a teamster company. For me personally, after ACME closed down, I went to driving jobs that paid the most in my pension fund. And, I do admit, many freight companies went out of business since deregulation, but before they went under, they always contributed the most. And, UPS did not do so until the big growth in the 80s.
Freight not only had the highest paid members, but also had the highest health and welfare contributors in its heyday, before dereg. UPS employees did not complain then, when freight put the gold in the bank for our union. In most business cycles, there are highs and lows, but it is a cycle. Do not discard Freight, what it has done for this Union, or what it will do in the future.
Stand United!
#18
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Posted July 28 2005 - 03:05 AM
-Night-Train-
Sorry to dispute what you're saying, but already by the late 60's, UPS was several times larger - and paying SEVERAL TIMES the total amount of contributions into the pension funds - as the largest Teamster-organized freight company (at that time RDWY) out there....while it had virtually no "receiving" pensioners at all. And even for several years prior to that, it was by far the largest Teamster-organized transportation company. In a word, UPS has been the "hulk" in the equation for close to half a century....as I mentioned earlier, practically the same length of time that the pension funds themselves have existed in any reasonable fashion.
As for contributions having been paid in by companies who later went out of business, or for members that have retired, that would be all fine and dandy if enough in the way of contributions had been made (full funding) to cover the pension pay-outs. But there weren't; those pensioners are getting money they didn't earn off their own hook (by way of contributions made by their firms, which have since gone out of business, and never paid enough in to begin with) in the form of a subsidy from UPS.
In truth (and I know I'm sounding rude here, but again, let's call a spade a spade), many would assume that what "freight" has "done" for this union is to pretty much bring it to it's knees; i.e. - a bunch of greedy, inefficient, short-sighted jokers drove company after company out of business, then demanded that those who were NOT so greedy, or ineffficient, or short-sighted make up for their deficiencies....and, in the process, cause them to risk their jobs as well.
Face it, Night-Train, freight never "put the gold in the bank for our union"; in fact, it never put enough in to even cover itself. Now, if their UPS union brothers choose to support freight members in order to "cover" their inadequacies,that, of course, is their choice. But lets at least be honest about things.
-scb-
Sorry to dispute what you're saying, but already by the late 60's, UPS was several times larger - and paying SEVERAL TIMES the total amount of contributions into the pension funds - as the largest Teamster-organized freight company (at that time RDWY) out there....while it had virtually no "receiving" pensioners at all. And even for several years prior to that, it was by far the largest Teamster-organized transportation company. In a word, UPS has been the "hulk" in the equation for close to half a century....as I mentioned earlier, practically the same length of time that the pension funds themselves have existed in any reasonable fashion.
As for contributions having been paid in by companies who later went out of business, or for members that have retired, that would be all fine and dandy if enough in the way of contributions had been made (full funding) to cover the pension pay-outs. But there weren't; those pensioners are getting money they didn't earn off their own hook (by way of contributions made by their firms, which have since gone out of business, and never paid enough in to begin with) in the form of a subsidy from UPS.
In truth (and I know I'm sounding rude here, but again, let's call a spade a spade), many would assume that what "freight" has "done" for this union is to pretty much bring it to it's knees; i.e. - a bunch of greedy, inefficient, short-sighted jokers drove company after company out of business, then demanded that those who were NOT so greedy, or ineffficient, or short-sighted make up for their deficiencies....and, in the process, cause them to risk their jobs as well.
Face it, Night-Train, freight never "put the gold in the bank for our union"; in fact, it never put enough in to even cover itself. Now, if their UPS union brothers choose to support freight members in order to "cover" their inadequacies,that, of course, is their choice. But lets at least be honest about things.
-scb-
#19
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Posted July 29 2005 - 07:52 PM
-scb-
Freight, paid more per hour worked into the pension plan than UPS much longer than the 1960s. The higher percentage that UPS now pays into health and welfare was based on Freight agreements. Many things in current UPS contracts are based on Freight contracts. In most places, wage progression, doubles pay, job bidding and maintainence of standards are all Freight originals. And, of course, higher health and welfare contributions (once they started to grow big time in the early 1970s.) I am sure when I sort through my old NMFA contracts, I could find more. You may try to bullshit your way out of this, but facts are facts, of which you never supply many. Besides pure bullshit rhetoric, you know I am not wrong.
ps Do you know any good organizers?
Freight, paid more per hour worked into the pension plan than UPS much longer than the 1960s. The higher percentage that UPS now pays into health and welfare was based on Freight agreements. Many things in current UPS contracts are based on Freight contracts. In most places, wage progression, doubles pay, job bidding and maintainence of standards are all Freight originals. And, of course, higher health and welfare contributions (once they started to grow big time in the early 1970s.) I am sure when I sort through my old NMFA contracts, I could find more. You may try to bullshit your way out of this, but facts are facts, of which you never supply many. Besides pure bullshit rhetoric, you know I am not wrong.
ps Do you know any good organizers?
#20
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Posted July 30 2005 - 02:44 AM
-Night-Train-
Sorry, but wishful thinking isn't going to make it true. I'll grant that UPS didn't make the MAJORITY of the contributions until very recently....but at for being the LARGEST contibutor; well, as I said before, even by the late 60s, there wasn't a freight firm out there that could match UPS. And one needs to recognize that the Teamster pension plans, as "Taft-Hartley plans", by definition hadn't really been around longer than UPS's dominant position in the first place.
In a word, while "freight" likes to maintain (dream, actually) that it was "carrying the freight" in terms of pensions, it really NEVER has in comparison to UPS. And, to be honest, "freight" has been a constant decline ever since the first Master Freight agreement was signed.
Might I suggest you take a look at the link....
"http://www.mfca.org/enews/2004%20Press/042904.html"
which discusses the decline of organized freight companies, dramatically pointing out that of the 50 largest LTL carrier in 1979 (it lists them....almost all of which were organized at the time, but even then LARGEST was but a small FRACTION of the size of UPS), only 7 still existed (only 5 of which were organized) when the list was compiled in April, 2004....and, of course, we recognize that the number has decreased since then. As the author also points out, there hasn't been a single, large company organized to replace the 43 missing ones during that time either. 'Course, I guess one could point to the other, non-small package, "core industry" division (car haul) to show what great contributions IT has made...but it's in even worse shape than freight.
Again...Teamsters "freight" - in comparison with UPS - has been a dead letter so long (and it's run of "good" years was so very short to begin with) that there really IS NO comparison between the two except in terms of the ratio of the number of freight pensioners collecting relative to actively "contributing" freight members. And, whether you want to admit it or not, things have BEEN that way for more than a third - and approaching a half - century now.
-scb-
Sorry, but wishful thinking isn't going to make it true. I'll grant that UPS didn't make the MAJORITY of the contributions until very recently....but at for being the LARGEST contibutor; well, as I said before, even by the late 60s, there wasn't a freight firm out there that could match UPS. And one needs to recognize that the Teamster pension plans, as "Taft-Hartley plans", by definition hadn't really been around longer than UPS's dominant position in the first place.
In a word, while "freight" likes to maintain (dream, actually) that it was "carrying the freight" in terms of pensions, it really NEVER has in comparison to UPS. And, to be honest, "freight" has been a constant decline ever since the first Master Freight agreement was signed.
Might I suggest you take a look at the link....
"http://www.mfca.org/enews/2004%20Press/042904.html"
which discusses the decline of organized freight companies, dramatically pointing out that of the 50 largest LTL carrier in 1979 (it lists them....almost all of which were organized at the time, but even then LARGEST was but a small FRACTION of the size of UPS), only 7 still existed (only 5 of which were organized) when the list was compiled in April, 2004....and, of course, we recognize that the number has decreased since then. As the author also points out, there hasn't been a single, large company organized to replace the 43 missing ones during that time either. 'Course, I guess one could point to the other, non-small package, "core industry" division (car haul) to show what great contributions IT has made...but it's in even worse shape than freight.
Again...Teamsters "freight" - in comparison with UPS - has been a dead letter so long (and it's run of "good" years was so very short to begin with) that there really IS NO comparison between the two except in terms of the ratio of the number of freight pensioners collecting relative to actively "contributing" freight members. And, whether you want to admit it or not, things have BEEN that way for more than a third - and approaching a half - century now.
-scb-
