Allied Carhaul Members Win Major Grievance
In a big victory for Teamster carhaulers, union leaders have successfully challenged Allied Systems’ bonuses it paid to supervisors, resulting in a $300 payment to each Allied member.
The union’s grievance victory was announced March 2, 2009. As a result of the Teamsters’ victory, the company has ended its bonuses to supervisors.
“This is a big victory for our 3,300 members at Allied,” said Fred Zuckerman, Director of the Teamsters Carhaul Division. “Our carhaul members made sacrifices and they expected management to do the same. So, when the company violated the agreement we filed a grievance. With the continued support of our members, we held the company accountable.”
In 2007, Allied Systems Holdings, Inc., its affiliated companies and the Teamsters entered into a wage concession agreement as part of Allied’s bankruptcy reorganization. In that agreement, which is also incorporated into the Allied-Teamsters collective bargaining agreement, Allied agreed that, except in very limited circumstances, its supervisory and non-bargaining unit employees would not receive wage increases while the Teamster concessions are in effect. This commitment is generally referred to as the “equal sacrifice” commitment.
On September 4, 2008, the Teamsters filed a grievance against Allied for violations relating to the equal sacrifice commitment. The Teamsters claimed that Allied had breached the agreement by paying performance bonuses to some of its supervisory employees. Allied admitted that it paid such performance bonuses, but asserted that the payments did not violate the agreement because they were not “wage increases.” Allied instead characterized the payments as a component of a so-called “variable wage” program that had been in effect since 2005.
The Teamsters did not agree with Allied’s justification and pursued the grievance through the contractual grievance/arbitration provisions. The Teamsters and Allied were not able to resolve the grievance at the local level hearing, so the matter was referred to the National Automobile Transporters Joint Arbitration Committee (National Committee).
After conducting a hearing on this dispute, the National Committee issued a decision on March 2, 2009 holding that Allied’s payment of “variable wages” to supervisory personnel violated the agreement’s “equal sacrifice” provisions. The National Committee has ordered Allied to pay $300 to each employee on the seniority lists
of any Allied or TSI terminal that was actively operating as of the date of the grievance (September 4, 2008).
The remedy imposed by the National Committee requires Allied to pay, in the aggregate, more than two times the amount that it paid in so called “variable wage”/performance bonuses to supervisory personnel. Also, as a result of the decision, Allied has terminated the “variable wage” program altogether. Accordingly, upon satisfaction of its payment obligations under the National Committee decision, the performance bonus grievance will be finally resolved and, with the termination of the company’s underlying bonus program, this matter should not arise again.