Teamsters Win Victory on Seniority at UPS Freight National Panel

The Teamsters Union won a major victory on seniority this week at the UPS Freight national grievance panel, and is taking important steps to address contract violations on subcontracting, announced Ken Hall, Package Division Director and International Vice President.

“We took on the seniority violations and we won,” Hall said. “The contract wasn’t being followed. It wasn’t what we negotiated. We had the facts behind us. Justice was served for our members.”

UPS Freight violated the contract in the Central Region and other areas of the country by refusing to let workers bid into other classifications within the local cartage operation, regardless of seniority. The UPS Freight national grievance panel was held this week.

Also, subcontracting contract violations are a major issue at UPS Freight, and a lead case from Local 745 has been chosen to proceed to arbitration.

“Our committee has done an outstanding job of documenting and grieving subcontracting violations, and it is absolutely not their fault that UPS has continued to violate the contract,” Hall said. “Thanks to the diligence and hard work of Local 745 in putting together the facts, a neutral arbitrator will make a decision if we can’t come to an agreement with the company to handle this violation of the contract.”

The contract violations by UPS Freight reinforce the need to take on good cases with well-developed facts and supporting documentation to win successful grievances and arbitrations that enforce contractual language and end company abuse, Hall said.

“You have to get the facts right,” Hall said. “You can’t just walk in to an arbitrator and complain that something isn’t right, because you are not going to win. You have to build strong cases, and that’s what we are doing.”

Hall pointed out that because this is the first contract with UPS Freight, there will be issues that arise.

“Although this is a first contract, as with all longstanding contracts, there will always be disagreement,” Hall said. “We must address these issues with well-developed facts.”