22.3 full time eliminations starting in Ohio

[boblynn95]

To all 22.3 full time teamsters!!!!! UPS is out to get rid of these jobs asap! It is spreading like cancer to all parts of The USA. From what I hear a class action lawsuit is the only way we will get the answer. Our union is not doing nothing about it! Just ask around! Don't go down without a fight!!!! Pressure your local to address this at the national level!! Its not only my job, its our jobs that are on the line!!!!!!!

[jwbs]

Yes, I really think it is going to boil down to a class action lawsuit. Like so many have said, our locals aren't doing anything besides give excuses and avoid the situation. And I was already told by my local business agent that the IBT would get pissed if he starting pressing their buttons about this matter. So even if our locals address this issue, the IBT will just stonewall and shut them up by disregarding the concern. But it's still no excuse for them to do nothing.

Contract language has been violated during the last 2 contracts regarding these jobs being created and a report being maintained. According to the language in the last contract, there should have been 20,000 Article 22.3 jobs created by July 31, 2008.

There is no proof by the Union or UPS that they accomplished this, so I don't know why we can't file a class action right now. It's black and white. The contract was violated. And now we are losing these jobs at a faster rate? What can we do besides complain and sign petitions? We need to find some good lawyers. UPS and the Union can pay them when we win our lawsuit.

But it looks like it's going to have to take more Article 22.3 jobs being lost before UPSers finally get fed up and start to group together and finally organize a class action lawsuit. If we are serious about this, we need to work together to make our locals and the IBT do something. But the question is how? Grievances and petitions are merely complaints in the eyes of local Unions and the IBT. There are no repercussions if they don't do what we request.

Right now some UPSers are organizing and planning for the next election year for our local union. We have to make sure we vote out all the business agents that aren't working for us. It's a sure fire way to send a message that if they are going to allow us to lose our jobs, we will make sure they lose theirs by voting them out.

The key is to inform all employees, part-timers especially, that our Union is allowing full-time jobs to be eliminated instead of created, and that we have the power to vote deadbeat business agents out of office. We can't touch the IBT, but we can at least get rid of local business agents this way and show IBT what we can do.