Teamsters, Car Haulers Reach Deal to Prevent Strike

The Teamsters union and 15 U.S. trucking companies that deliver new cars and trucks reached a tentative five-year agreement on a new contract over the weekend, preventing a disruption of vehicle deliveries.

Allied Holdings Inc. and 14 other hauling companies reached a deal covering about 9,500 drivers who deliver 80% of U.S.-sold vehicles. These companies haul vehicles directly from auto plants to dealers or from intermediate locations such as railroad yards and ports.

Under the deal, drivers would get improved health and pension provisions, while wages will be frozen for two years and then increase by 2% annually in the two years after that, Allied said in a press release. In the final year of the contract, wages will grow by 2.5%.

Union members are expected to vote on the accord within 60 days.

The Teamsters, which has lost more than 25% percent of its car-hauling members in the past six years, sought more job security, while Allied and rivals sought to lower costs in the face of non-union competition, Bloomberg News reported.

Decatur, Ga.-based Allied is ranked No. 23 on the 2002 Transport Topics 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian trucking companies.

The accord is actually parallel agreements with two different groups, the National Automobile Transporters Labor Division, which represents the 14 closely held companies, and with Allied, the single-largest employer of union car-hauling drivers, Bloomberg said.

This contract is the third one reached by the Teamsters in the past 12 months. United Parcel Service Inc. and the union signed a six-year agreement last August, and a five-year pact was reached with less-than-truckload companies in February.

(Click here for the full press release.)

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