Teamsters seek UPS Freight contract

Ken Hall, president of Teamsters Local 175 based in South Charleston, is heading efforts to win union contracts for about 16,500 workers at more than 200 UPS Freight locations.

United Parcel Service, a longtime union trucking company, acquired the Overnite Transportation Co. last year. Overnite, which operated nonunion, is now called UPS Freight.

Hall, who is director of the Teamsters’ Parcel and Small Package Division, called Wednesday a historic day.

“It was our initial meeting with UPS Freight, formerly Overnite, which the Teamsters Union has attempted to organize over many, many years. We are putting together a plan we believe will be successful,” Hall said during a telephone conference call.

Under a “card-check, neutrality agreement” reached with UPS Freight in June, the Teamsters agreed to choose one facility to organize initially — an Indianapolis plant with 125 employees.

That agreement required UPS Freight to remain neutral during organizing efforts at the Indianapolis facility. It also allowed the union to be recognized as a bargaining agent once a majority of workers signed union cards, rather than requiring an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.

Based in Richmond, Va., UPS Freight has about 150 workers at five service centers in West Virginia, including centers in Charleston, Bluefield, Sutton, Parkersburg and Fairmont.

Hall said, “In Indianapolis, we will attempt to negotiate a contract which will serve as a model to extend union representation across the country. We hope it will answer questions for UPS Freight workers who fear joining a union might have some [negative] impact on their pensions and other benefits.

“Once we are finished with that, organizing other locations will be done very quickly. We are already certified as the bargaining representative for the workers at Indianapolis.

“We are not going to rush the process. I would hope we get close to an agreement sometime in early 2007,” Hall said.
Ira Rosenfeld, UPS Freight’s media relations director, said his company’s pension plan is fully funded. All money in that fund will remain there and not be moved to any other fund.

Rosenfeld said Teamster negotiators “now have to go back to their members in Indiana and find out what they want. When they have surveyed their members, they will come back to the table for talks with us.

“As far as their overall goal, it seems a little ambitious. The first thing we have to do is to see what the people in Indianapolis want that they do not already have.”


Rosenfeld said it would be “premature to talk about what might happen” after both sides agree on one initial contract.

Today, the Teamsters represent 215,000 UPS workers, who ship parcels and packages to homes across the country.

UPS Freight workers handle heavy freight, rather than smaller packages ready for delivery.

Teamster representatives will meet local workers in Indianapolis on Sep. 23. “We expect additional negotiations in October and thereafter,” Hall said.

Many former Overnite workers, Hall said, are asking, “If I join a union, could I lose my pension? Could I lose my health-care benefits?”

Hall said, “We want a contract that proves they will not lose their benefits. We hope to come away with an agreement that could be extended to any other group. We will have a small army of folk ready to go out to the different locations.”

Rosenfeld said, “We will negotiate a contract in good faith in Indianapolis. Both sides will sit down and we will take it from there.”