Leaders from Local 89 in Louisville, Kentucky are trying to stop a Canadian company from assisting Ford in eliminating 450 Teamster jobs at a carhaul rail-loading and vehicle-handling company in the city.

Since 1956, Teamsters have been loading Ford vehicles since Ford’s Louisville Assembly plant opened that year. Teamsters have also loaded Ford vehicles since its Kentucky Truck plant opened in 1969.

The Teamsters are now employed by RCS Transportation, which currently has the contract to haul Ford vehicles. Workers earn $20 to $22 per hour and receive excellent benefits under the Teamster contract.

Ford plans to terminate the services of RCS on June 1. Starting June 1, Ford is switching to a Canadian company called Autoport, where workers doing the same tasks in Michigan earn only $10 to $12 per hour with inferior benefits. When Autoport obtained the similar work in Michigan, it replaced the longstanding fairly paid Teamster workforce with a new workforce represented by the Machinist Union, paying the employees a fraction of what the Teamsters were earning. Unless it is stopped, Autoport plans to do the same in Kentucky.

Local 89 President Fred Zuckerman, who is director of the Teamsters Carhaul Division, has written a letter to Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, asking the governor to halt the loss of Teamster jobs.

“I ask for your help in deterring Ford from allowing Autoport to steal away the employment opportunities and financial stability of the hundreds of Teamster families associated with Ford Motor Company and [Kentucky],” Zuckerman wrote.

Local 89 has also filed an unfair labor charge against Autoport asserting that the company “refused to hire or consider for hire the employees of RCS Transportation …because said employees are good standing members of Teamsters Local 89 … to unlawfully avoid its obligations as a successor employer to RCS Transportation.”

The second part of the charge said Autoport “… gave unlawful assistance to [the Machinists Union] … at a time when [the Machinists] did not represent an uncoerced majority of employees and when the Employer was not engaged in normal business operations.”

“We will fight for the interests of our members who have been doing this work for decades,” Zuckerman said. “The state recently approved incentives for Ford and this move completely flies in the face of economic development because you’re replacing good jobs with bad jobs. Ford is destroying jobs, and the Machinists are helping them.”

Local 89 is also rallying other unions to stand behind the Teamsters, including the United Auto Workers.