Apr 23, 2014
In perhaps the greatest display of failed leadership and cowardice by Ken Hall and his cronies, the IBT has implemented the UPS National Master Contract and all remaining riders and supplements, including Louisville Air Supplement. As an unsigned fax from the Ken Hall states, the contracts will become effective as of April 25th, 2014 and Teamcare will become effective on June 1st 2014. The Air Supplement, which was recently voted down by 94% of the membership, will now be forced on Worldport Teamsters by Ken Hall/UPS.
Citing the need to move employees into Teamcare as the reason for the forced implementation of the contract, the IBT purposefully ignored and trivialized the many unresolved issues of the membership including, among many others, shuttle pay, full-time jobs, disability, and subcontracting. Through manipulation of the truth, blatant lies and the trivializing of these complex issues, Ken Hall Inc. has circumvented the rights of the membership and forced through a substandard contract with total disregard of the democratic process.
By selling out thousands of their fellow Teamsters, Ken Hall and his cronies are complicit in subjecting UPS workers to financial hardships, reduced benefits and inferior working conditions. It is sad commentary on the state of a once great and powerful IBT when its current leadership grovels for table scraps of its corporate master UPS. The membership fully expects the Company to attempt to destroy the rights of its employees—that’s just how UPS does business—but the IBT directly attacking good wages, benefits and workplace rights is not only shameful, it’s treasonous.
In his collaboration with UPS throughout the nearly year and a half of negotiations, Ken Hall has acted as a barrier to the membership winning the contract they deserve. He catastrophically failed in his duty to the membership by not only botching contract negotiations, but in his “strategic” failure to submit proper paperwork protecting the right to strike.
