UPS Teamster Magazine, Summer 2011 - International Brotherhood ...

the protection and security of a contract.Now I stand before you as a proudmember from Local 63 and UPS Freightdriver,” said Steven Minjarez, a memberof Local 63 in Covina, Calif.“Five years ago I talked about theimportance of winning back delaytime and layover pay. Thanks to theTeamsters Union, I now have that. Iin what they wanted to see negotiated,what they wanted to see improved, andwhat they wanted to see protected,”Buhle said. “We must have been successfulbecause the membership voted107-1 to accept the contract, setting inplace the stage for the first nationalmaster UPS Freight agreement.”“We asked the negotiating committeeMembers, Leaders Discuss Organizing and Bargaining for UPS Freightwant to thank each and every one ofyou for standing with me and my12,600 co-workers as we organized andwon our contract,” Minjarez said.UPS Freight Contract“When UPS Freight bought Overnite, itbrought new hope to the Overniteemployees. Five years ago at this veryconvention, General President Hoffa,Vice Presidents Ken Hall and TysonJohnson announced a card-check agreementfor UPS Freight. My local unionhit the ground running and organizedUPS Freight in record time,” saidInternational Vice President Brian Buhle.“We sat down with our bargainingcommittee to begin negotiations. Webrought rank-and-file members to thetable, because they knew the issues thatwere most important to the UPSFreight workers. They were very clearto work on certain issues and leave otherthings alone, such as our pension. Forexample we had a problem with not gettingpaid for delayed time, so we had thataddressed in our contract. Now we’re gettingpaid for delayed time. We alsoweren’t getting either an eight-hour guaranteeor overtime after eight hours. Nowwe get the guarantee and the overtime.The company can’t take it away from us,it’s in our contract,” said Dave Williams, aUPS Freight steward and member ofLocal 135 in Indianapolis.“This is truly our contract. We wouldn’thave it done without all of you. Youstuck with us and proved that when yousay something, you’re going to do it andyou do it,” Williams said.OrganizingWhen it was announced at the 27thInternational Convention in 2006 that theTeamsters Union was putting together aplan to organize the UPS Freight employees,everyone knew it would be difficult.“We put together a plan and we stuckwith that plan,” Hall said. “We rolled out awell-thought-out plan first inIndianapolis in Local 135. And from therewe branched out all over the country. Thecampaign proceeded in a very coordinatedand disciplined manner, and our localswent out and organized their locationswithin their jurisdiction. And our locals,along with those UPS Freight employees,did such an amazing job that within 90days we had organized 90 percent of UPSFreight employees,” Hall said.Unlike before these workers had a contract,when the company could give themwhatever raise they chose or not givethem a raise if they chose, they now havewage increases that’s locked into aTeamster contract.“Despite the fact that we’ve been in oneof the worst recessions since the GreatDepression and despite the fact of thewell-known turndown in the LTL industry,we’ve actually increased our membershipat UPS Freight year over year for thepast three years. That’s quite an accomplishmentin this economy,” Hall said.“We’ve come a long ways in five years, butI have to tell you, we’re not finished yet.”www.teamster.org | SUMMER 2011 | upsTEAMSTER | 9