Teamster Leaders Laud Driving Training Decision

The Teamsters National Training Director is applauding a federal court decision ordering the federal government to rewrite its rule setting the standards for driving training programs.
“It is long past the time for our country to seriously consider education and training for CMV (commercial motor vehicle) operators,” said Mark Johnson, the Teamsters National Training Director. “With a nationwide driver shortage, alarming driver turnover in the nonunion sector and retirements in the union sector, quality training of new drivers becomes critical to public safety and driver supply.”
In 2004, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued a rule requiring CMV operators to be trained in only four specific areas—hours of service, health and wellness, medical qualifications and whistleblower protections. None of these have anything to do with the skills necessary to safely operate a CMV.
A coalition of highway and auto safety organizations sued the agency arguing the federal government should have including CMV driver education and training as part of its requirements using curriculum based on its many years of research and the standards set by the industry.
On December 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that FMCSA “abandons the recommendations of the Model Curriculum.” The court did not overturn the current rule, but did send it back to FMCSA for “further rulemaking,” indicating that it must include over-the-road training as part of any new regulation.
The “Model Curriculum,” developed by the Department of Transportation in 1985, addressed CMV driver education and training topics directly related to driving skills, with a heavy emphasis on skills and techniques necessary to safely operate a heavy truck.
Shortly after the Model Curriculum was published, groups representing the motor carrier, truck-driver training, and insurance industries, including the Teamsters Union, formed the Professional Truck-Driver Training Institute (PTDI). The Institute develops standards for training truck drivers, and it certifies private training organizations that meet or exceed its recommendations. None of these criteria was contained in FMCSA’s current rule.
The court also said the FMCSA “completely ignores the study’s emphasis on practical, on-the-road training” in the rule. This comment refers to the government’s 1995 study entitled “Assessing the Adequacy of Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Training.” The study found that the heavy truck, motorcoach, and school bus sectors were not providing adequate driver training. It also confirmed in the study a general agreement that the Model Curriculum represents an adequate content and approach for training truck drivers and used the Model Curriculum as the starting point in defining “adequate training” for heavy truck drivers.

Miami DHL Gateway Teamsters Approve First Contract

Teamsters at the Miami International Airport (MIA) DHL gateway facility overwhelmingly approved a four-year contract yesterday, gaining wage increases, a pension plan and job security language.
By ratifying the contract, the 130 workers at MIA became the third DHL gateway location to be protected by a Teamster agreement this year. Miami gateway workers are joining 300 DHL Teamsters at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and 150 gateway workers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
"We are ecstatic that we have completed these negotiations after 17 months," said Alex Saumell, an 18-year worker at the DHL Miami Gateway facility. "All the credit goes to Mike Scott, Don Marr and all the workers here at the gateway who stood strong through this entire process."
The agreement secures excellent wage increases, lowers the cost of health insurance for the workers, includes job security language and guarantees a minimum of 40-hours per week for fulltime employees. The contract also includes strong language that provides the members with an outstanding grievance procedure and seniority requirements.
"These workers were so excited about becoming Teamsters," Michael Scott, President, Teamsters Local 769 in Miami, Florida. "This is an exceptional first contract that will provide improvements across the board for these workers."

Yellow Roadway unit selects new president

YRC Regional Transportation, a subsidiary of Yellow Roadway Corp., today said T.J. O’Connor has been selected as president and chief executive officer of USF Bestway.
The move was effective Dec. 1.
O’Connor has served in a variety of executive positions at Roadway Express for the last 23 years. Most recently, he has been vice president of the company’s Western Division.
YRC Regional Transportation is comprised of the USF companies and New Penn Motor Express.

Bush urges companies to pay pension obligations

President Bush called on American businesses on Monday to live up to their pension promises, saying too many companies are not putting away enough money to protect the retirement benefits of their workers. Full story here.......http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-05-bushpensions_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

Yellow Roadway sees 2005 profit at $5.18 to $5.23 a share

Yellow Roadway Corp. affirmed Monday its 2005 earnings outlook of $5.18 to $5.23 a share and its fourth-quarter profit expectations of $1.30 to $1.35 a share. "We continue to see a good economy across the board," Yellow Chief Executive Bill Zollars said in a statement. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call forecast earnings, on average, of $5.23 a share in 2005 and $1.36 a share in the fourth quarter. The shares fell 66 cents Friday to $46.45.

BusinessWeek: The Ground War At FedEx

Drivers are Suing to Protest Their Status as Contractors— and Gaining Traction

Back in 1996, when Roy Mason landed work as a delivery driver with Roadway Package System Inc., he liked the idea of being an independent contractor, instead of an employee. Although he drove exclusively for RPS out of its Arcadia (Calif.) terminal, Mason felt the company gave him wide latitude to manage his routes.
Two years later, FedEx Corp. acquired RPS, and Mason says that's when things changed. He says a new management team set out strict rules dictating everything from how he dresses to how he holds his truck keys as he approaches a customer's door. And the company imposes fines on drivers who don't meet its strict standards. A few weeks ago, Mason says, managers shadowed him on his route, then slapped him with a citation for leaving his truck door open as he sprinted to drop off a package on a customer's front porch. "They are absolutely controlling everything I do," says Mason, 49. Full story here.......http://www.teamster.org/05news/hn_051123_4.htm

Zollars sells $5.6M in Yellow stock

Yellow Roadway Corp.CEO Bill Zollars last week sold 117,860 shares of company stock for more than $5.6 million, a federal filing shows.

Zollars exercised options to acquire the shares on Nov. 22 at a price of $17.21 a share, or a total of more than $2 million, the Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed. He then sold the stock throughout the day at a price of about $48 a share, according to the filing, which was filed late Friday.
The transactions left Zollars with a profit of more than $3.6 million.
In a Nov. 21 news release, Yellow Roadway Corp. announced that Zollars had adopted a plan to sell the stock in accordance with an SEC trading plan.
"Zollars' plan is a component of his overall tax and financial planning strategy that is designed to provide enhanced diversification and liquidity," the news release said.
Zollars retains 154,465 stock options, according to the news release, meaning he exercised about 43 percent of his available stock options with last week's transactions. He also continues to own 134,234 shares of Yellow Roadway stock, the federal filing indicated.