Teamsters Mounting Campaign to Organize Drivers at XPO Logistics
September 21 2016 - 11:44AM
Dow Jones News
By Robbie Whelan
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is mounting a
campaign to organize truckers driving for XPO Logistics Inc.,
opening a new front in the union's push to revive its influence in
the trucking industry.
Last week, the Teamsters announced that drivers for XPO
Logistics Inc. in Aurora, Ill. and workers at XPO's warehouse in
North Haven, Conn. had filed petitions with the National Labor
Relations Board to seek union representation. The drives follow
similar, recent moves by the Teamsters to organize XPO employees in
Laredo, Tex. and Vernon, Calif.
The Teamsters have made some inroads organizing truck drivers
across the country, including an aggressive campaign to unionize
drivers for FedEx Corp.'s freight division. In March, a federal
judge ordered FedEx to bargain with the Teamsters at two locals, in
Philadelphia and Charlotte, after FedEx sought to overturn rulings
by the NLRB. Teamsters locals have also backed efforts to unionize
drivers at ports in California.
Unionized drivers dominated trucking for much of the 20th
century, but membership fell off sharply starting in the 1980s,
when deregulation made it easier for new, nonunion fleets to enter
the market.
The Teamsters' efforts have focused on the less-than-truckload
segment of the industry, in which drivers haul freight from
multiple shippers in each load. They tend to drive shorter
distances, making them easier to organize than drivers working
cross-country routes. FedEx is the largest "LTL" carrier in the
U.S.
Most of the XPO employees the Teamsters are trying to organize
formerly worked for Con-way Inc., the second-largest LTL carrier,
which XPO bought for $3 billion in September 2015. YRC Inc., the
third-largest LTL carrier, has a unionized workforce.
"The Teamsters have been mildly successful...on a localized
level," said Jason Seidl, an analyst with Cowen & Co. "You
can't organize a driver if they're not around. Truckload drivers
are never in one place, whereas LTL drivers are typically home
every night. So the unions organize by going from terminal to
terminal."
Tyson Johnson, director of the Teamsters freight division, said
that first Con-way, and later XPO, had failed to deliver on
promised wage increases and made cuts to driver benefits over the
last two years. Union officials say organizing hundreds of XPO
workers will make it harder for the company to lay off employee
drivers and replace them with owner-operators who work as
contractors. The union also has organizing efforts planned for the
coming weeks in Baltimore, Cartersville, Ga. and Miami.
"The race is on," Mr. Johnson said. "We intend to organize XPO
and Con-way bumper to bumper."
In a written statement, an XPO spokeswoman said the company had
respected promises made to former Con-way employees.
"XPO has no plans to lay off LTL line-haul drivers and replace
them with owner-operators," the company said.
Unionized drivers typically receive better benefits and more
favorable rules about how much they are required to drive, Mr.
Seidl said. Driver compensation is the biggest cost at most
trucking companies after fuel, and those extra benefits can eat
into already slim margins, analysts say. Mr. Seidl said he expects
XPO to spend more this quarter than in previous periods defending
against the Teamsters' efforts.
Write to Robbie Whelan at robbie.whelan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 21, 2016 11:29 ET (15:29 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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