P.M. Executive Briefing - August 2
This Afternoon's Headlines:
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A Positive Contract
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Pacific Maritime Association should both support their three-year tentative contract, maintains a Journal of Commerce staff editorial, even though the contract is not an enormous change.The union has been assured job training that could expand its jurisdiction, but the adding of new jobs at the various ports will be gradual. The PMA has convinced ILWU officials to at least discuss how technology and automation can increase productivity.
Some well-paid workers are complaining that the contract mainly benefits members with lower pay, and employers may say that certain workers already make quite a bit of money — an average $100,000 for full-time longshoremen. Journal of Commerce (08/02/99) P. 7
Sex Harassment Case
Although David Jones has been awarded $1.75 million in his sexual-harassment lawsuit against Yellow Freight, he is unsure whether the award will hold up on appeal. Specifically, he is afraid of possible consequences for his negative testimony about a Teamsters member. Jones, a former dockworker who was harassed by other dockworkers, says he won the Minnesota case partly because many Teamsters backed him. States News Service (08/02/99)Grim Statistics Tell Story of a Dangerous Highway
A fatal accident involving a panel truck on U.S. 17 north of Gardens Corner, S.C., last week highlighted the area’s problem with heavy traffic on the highway.Sheldon Fire Chief Buddy Jones says drivers go too fast on the two-lane U.S. 17 after driving at high speed on the adjacent Interstate 95. He wonders why authorities have not yet been able to address the problem of accidents that happen when area residents try to turn off U.S. 17 onto local roads.
However, Jones supported the majority decision to reject a proposed routing of through traffic, including trucks, onto S.C. 64, "because people aren’t going to go 30 or 40 miles out of their way." Scott Murray of the South Carolina Trucking Association says U.S. 17 safety problems are real, but putting trucks on the state route 64 would have ended up costly for consumers.
Murray acknowledges that truck drivers sometimes do cause the accidents, but that everyone has to work for highway safety. He points out that "we put a four-page section in the S.C. drivers’ manual about heavy trucks sharing the road safely," including information about blind spots and the extra distance it takes trucks to come to a stop.
The association includes a 150-member safety management council, which collects information about commercial vehicles’ activity in the state and passes it along to trucking businesses.
Murray says the trucking industry is concerned about road rage. A bill sponsored by the association that would have raised certain speeding fines for commercial drivers failed in the state legislature last year but will be reintroduced next year. Beaufort Gazette Online (08/01/99); Gatlin, Marti
Tradewinds: AMI Leasing
AMI Leasing, an automotive-fleet managing firm and subsidiary of Ford Credit, has appointed Douglas Burdick to manage its Salt Lake City operation. Burdick owned a trucking company for seven years and spent another six as a manager. Salt Lake Tribune Online (07/31/99)Ryder Looking for St. Charles Site to Build Used-Truck Center
Ryder Systems is looking for land for a used-truck lot in St. Charles County, Mo., with the help of real-estate management firm Colliers Turley Martin Tucker. The real estate company has software and database systems for managing clients' real estate portfolios and offering data access worldwide in real time.Fourteen Colliers corporate-services employees work full time on the Ryder account, managed by Kevin Gallagher. The product manager says Colliers employees are experts on local real-estate markets.
Edward Jones, Earthgrains, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Kansas City, and Mid-State Automotive Distributors are among Colliers' other clients. Fleet Equipment (07/99) Vol. 25, No. 7, P. 30
Yellow Freight Launches Review
Yellow Freight Systems recently told NKH&W, its ad agency of 12 years, that it would continue to give the firm product work, but was considering taking its strategic and creative work elsewhere. Since then, however, the agency has decided to drop the Yellow account altogether.NKH&W President Peter Kovac thought it was unlikely that Yellow would choose to keep its strategic and creative work at NKH&W following the review of competing agencies. He added that employee morale would have suffered if the agency only continued to handle a fraction of Yellow's marketing needs.
NKH&W won several 1998 awards for its Yellow work, including one for the first TV commercial it ever produced. Yellow, whose marketing used to be confined to business-to-business media, has for the past two years been placing ads in such magazines as Business Week and Forbes.
In addition, it has dabbled in a stock-car team sponsorship. The consultancy Select Resources International is assisting Yellow in its agency review, which could be completed by the end of August. Business Marketing (07/99) Vol. 84, No. 7; P. 2; Callahan, Sean
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