Welcome to what I’m calling “The Long, Hot Summer of Unions!” There are important union contracts coming due for renegotiations that readers should be aware of. Unions representing car haulers, port workers and railroad crews are in the middle of talks with corporations for wages and benefits. So I did some research on the status of the talks and let’s have a look at what I found.
Car haulers’ contracts seem the most volatile
The deadline for the Car Hauler Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to complete renegotiation of the contract with Missouri-based Jack Cooper Transport, Illinois-based Cassens Transport and five other smaller carriers is at 11:59 p.m. June 1 (tomorrow night). The union “overwhelmingly approved” a vote to authorize a strike if suitable terms were not reached.
Last year, Teamsters members approved an extension of the current contract, which according to the press release “held the highest monetary increases in the current contract.” It also continued the health, welfare, and pension benefit plans.
I reached out to the Teamsters and was informed that they are working all day and most likely into the night to get a tentative agreement to continue work.
Port unions fight back against the rising tide of automation
Over the course of their last few contracts, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has been losing ground to automation in the ports. The West Coast ILWU, with its important role in the supply chain handling the vast majority of Asian imports, faces a June 30 deadline for their contract renegotiation. It is likely the most well-known contract since the mainstream media has been reporting on it regularly.
The increase in automation in the ports began back in 2002 when President George W. Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley law to get the ports back open. This contract saw the removal of the entry booth clerks and the handling of shipping data from a manual process to computers. Scott Mall, Managing Editor of FreightWaves Classics, and BTU’s Editor Extraordinaire, wrote a more detailed report on the 2002 strike, and its fallout, at this link.
In May 2008, there was an “illegal” day-long work stoppage as part of a West Coast anti-Gulf War protest. Some may remember the bookstands set up by then-Presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Then, in July 2008, there were three weeks of work stoppages in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Those then spread up the West Coast to the Pacific Northwest. In the end, unions lost more ground to automation, this time giving the port operators the “right to automate” and to begin port automation projects.
In 2015, the Obama administration intervened after port workers began “slowdowns,” causing gridlock at the ports. The cost of the slowdowns was estimated to be nearly $2 billion daily, severely impacting the economy. More terminals were going to automate, which meant fewer union jobs. And no union jobs meant no money going into the benefits fund for retirees and lobbying groups.
Railroad unions fight back against changing work schedules and smaller crews
Railroad unions have a harder time calling for a strike than the rest. The negotiations between unions and the Class I railroads began in 2020 with the change from a minimum of two-person crews (conductor and engineer) to just a single person operating a train. There’s a big difference between a solo truck driver operating a road train and a multiple miles-long freight train weighing an order of magnitude heavier.
The process of negotiating is governed by the Railway Labor Act, which defines when and how strikes can legally be held. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen are negotiating on behalf of the train crews. The union said that it has met 14 times already and that negotiations have stalled. The union wants to bring in the Biden administration and force a deal after a 30-day “cooling off” period.
If no terms comes from that front, the Congress could pass wage reform laws to get the deal through. Then finally, “when all else fails,” the labor union then can call for a vote to formally strike.
A long, hot summer of negotiations indeed
So yes, there’s a lot of talking and deal-making going on right now. With the Chinese COVID lockdown (“Soon™”) perhaps ending lockdowns, freight will be flowing again. Ports, railroads and trucks need to be at full capacity in order to weather the influx. Hopefully everything will get back to normal operating procedures without having to resort to slowdowns, walkouts, shutouts or strikes.
