Trucking company workers say bid to join union sparked layoffs

Representatives from the National Labor Relations Board will be in town next week taking statements from employees who were recently laid off from a local trucking company — just as they were trying to organize under the local Teamsters union.

Scott Armstrong, president of Teamsters Local 549, said 33 employees of Tennessee Commercial Warehouse (TCW) in Kingsport were permanently laid off as they tried to join the union.

A TCW official said Tuesday the company has no comment on the matter.

Armstrong said he was contacted in October by TCW employees.

“They were wanting to talk to me about organizing — said they had bad working conditions,” Armstrong said.

He said employees complained that their pay wasn’t consistent, that the company made payroll errors and altered the wage structure with little or no notice to workers, and that TCW offered expensive, insufficient health insurance.

“They just wanted better working conditions,” he said.

By mid-December, the majority of the workers had signed authorization cards to retain the union as their bargaining representative, and Armstrong filed for recognition for the employees on Dec. 19 with the National Labor Relations Board. The board planned to hold a recognition hearing Jan. 4 but canceled the meeting after TCW laid off its drivers Dec. 29.

“TCW staged an aggressive anti-union campaign against these workers, but the drivers stood strong,” Armstrong said. “Nearly 80 percent of the drivers had signed authorization cards, so the company permanently laid off the entire unit rather than bargain for fair pay and benefits.”

He said TCW retained its supervisors, office personnel, dispatchers and security guards.

“But they laid off all the truck drivers that I had petitioned for,” he said.

The company blamed the layoffs on lack of work. But former employees argue that position.

“Before we got laid off, the company had us working six days a week and was giving us job applications to pass along to other commercial drivers we knew because they couldn’t keep up with the volume,” said Tony Davenport, a former driver who had worked at TCW for more than three years.

Jeff Lane, another former TCW driver, said he grew up in a union household “and I know what it means to have a union in your corner.”

“I wanted to try to make things better at this company by bringing in the Teamsters,” he said.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said TCW’s actions are “sickening.”

“This is yet another example of how the deck is stacked against workers seeking union representation in this country,” Hoffa said.

TCW handles warehouse and distribution services for several companies, including Eastman Chemical Co.

Armstrong said officials with the National Labor Relations Board will take statements from those who lost their jobs beginning Monday.

“I’m hoping that they’ll put these guys back to work there in Kingsport and we’ll pursue with the union and negotiate a contract,” Armstrong said, “but that’s up to the government.”