Hoffa Names FedEx, UPS Freight As Organizing Targets
By Mark Gruenberg, PAI Staff Writer
WASHINGTON (PAI)--Completion of the Teamsters’ drive at UPS Freight--the former 
Overnite Express--and targeting FedEx, the nation’s largest package delivery 
firm, are the Teamsters’ immediate organizing targets, union President James 
Hoffa, Vice President and Freight Division Director Ken Hall and other Teamsters 
leaders say.
In a wide-ranging press conference with transportation reporters on Feb. 8, 
Hoffa and his colleagues touched on everything from organizing targets to new 
contracts to presidential politics--though without making an endorsement. But 
Hoffa did express a preference for a Democrat in the White House.
And he wasn’t shy about linking the organizing successes at the Teamsters and 
several other unions--all, including IBT, members of Change to Win--with the 
311,000-person increase in the number of unionists in the U.S. last year. Hoffa 
pointed out that when the Teamsters, who he says now have 1.5 million members, and other unions formed CTW, their explicit aim was to concentrate on 
organizing.
And the Teamsters won’t stop, he promised.
“We organized 23,000 new members last year, and 7,000 since Jan. 1 this year,” 
he declared. “Mostly they were at UPS Freight,” the former Overnite 
Transportation.
Their latest win there came Feb. 14, when Local 600 in St. Louis got a 
card-check majority there, bringing the overall total to 5,300.
That organizing drive is aided by the card-check neutrality agreement IBT 
negotiated with UPS, which bought Overnite last year. The UPS-Teamsters 
contract, covering 240,000 workers, is the largest private-sector contract in 
the U.S.
To achieve the aim of organizing all the Overnite workers, IBT negotiated, 
signed and ratified a model contract for the firm’s terminal in Indianapolis, 
last November. It uses that pact to show other UPS Freight workers benefits of 
unionization. 
FedEx is a different story, Hall says. There, the union is waging the battle on 
two fronts: Organizing and politics. In organizing, they’re using the main UPS pact to show FedEx workers 
that you can be unionized and still be working for a thriving, profitable firm. 
A decade ago, Hall noted, UPS employed 185,000 people.
Politically, Hoffa is lobbying lawmakers to repeal a decade-old provision FedEx 
snuck into federal law. It says FedEx must be treated like an airline, falling 
under National Mediation Board rules--which make it tougher to win a 
representation election. 
Under NMB rules, the union wins only if it gets the votes of an absolute 
majority of the entire bargaining unit, not just a majority of those voting.
The union is trying yet a different tack with its third big organizing push, 
among 100,000 port drivers from New York to Los Angeles, Hoffa said.
The non-union trucking firms that employ those drivers now classify them as 
“independent contractors,” forcing them to buy and maintain their own trucks, 
insure them, and pay gas for them--while holding drivers at the mercy of the 
firms, waiting for hours alongside docks for cargoes to be unloaded.
The resulting low pay, frustration, congestion and pollution--from the idling 
trucks--led the Teamsters to enlist community and environmental group support. 
IBT showed the community groups that on economic grounds the port drivers would 
be better off as employees rather than as independent contractors, Hoffa said. 
And the environment would benefit because the union could negotiate better hours 
and terms of service--cutting the idling and the pollution. On other issues, 
Hoffa:
* Discussed his campaign to oust GOP Bush regime Transportation Secretary Mary 
Peters for defying federal law and continuing her program to allow selected 
Mexican trucks to roll over all U.S. roads. The omnibus money bill, funding most 
of the government, bans DOT from spending any funds on the Mexican trucks “pilot 
program.” Hoffa says they’re a safety hazard.
 “American drivers have a Commercial Drivers License (CDL), they can be drug 
tested, and they must have a physical, and their driving conditions are regulated. There’s none of that with Mexican trucks.” The union 
and U.S. PIRG also challenged the Mexican trucks pilot program at a Feb. 12 
federal court hearing in San Francisco.
“In Mexico, they don’t have a database of drivers and no drug testing--because 
they are no drug testing facilities. Isn’t that crazy? Isn’t that remarkable? 
And when we asked DOT about it, they replied, ’Oh, we’ll find someplace in Texas 
to do the tests.’”
* Said election of a Democratic president would help pass the Employee Free 
Choice Act, which would help level the playing field between workers and bosses 
in organizing and bargaining. But Hoffa hedged on which Democrat to back. The 
Teamsters have traditionally made their endorsements very late.
“Both Hillary (Clinton) and (Barack) Obama signed a pledge to us to get EFCA 
one, along with other legislation…It’ll only get better” for IBT and other 
unions “when we have a Democrat” in the White House. “But I’m not going to tell 
you who we’re voting for, though.”