WASHINGTON, D.C. — A majority of the workers at Overnite Transportation’s Rockford, Illinois terminal have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking Teamster representation.
“A majority of the Rockford workers favor Teamster representation,” said James P. Hoffa, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. “The respectable and responsible action for Overnite Transportation to take now would be to recognize and honor the workers’ desire based on the will of the majority and grant them certification. We invite Leo Suggs, Overnite Transportation’s CEO, to do so.”
This filing is made more remarkable by the fact that it is the second petition for an election during a nationwide strike, now nearing its third anniversary, against the company for its gross and pervasive unfair labor practices.
Overnite Transportation’s unlawful conduct has made free and fair elections at the company virtually impossible. The last time workers were able to stand up to the company’s unlawful harassment and intimidation was in Laredo, TX, in 1999, where workers voted in favor of Teamster representation with 90 percent of the vote.
According to NLRB records, Overnite Transportation, the trucking subsidiary of Union Pacific Corporation, has been the nation’s No. 1 worst labor scofflaw for the number of Charges and Complaints per employee against the company.
“President Bush is calling on corporate criminals to mend their ways and obey the law,” said one Rockford worker. “Overnite needs to heed the President’s advice and stop violating the federally protected rights of its workers.”
Overnite Transportation’s record as the nation’s No. 1 labor scofflaw continues to grow despite the company’s protestations of innocence. In a decision issued in July 2002 by an Administrative Law Judge for the NLRB, Overnite Transportation was ordered to reinstate and pay lost wages plus interest to eight unlawfully fired Overnite workers at the company’s Memphis terminal. The workers were fired because they supported Teamster representation. Firing workers because they support union representation is a violation of the law.
That ruling came on the heels of a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision issued earlier in July 2002, ordering Overnite Transportation to recognize and immediately begin contract negotiations with the Teamsters at four additional Overnite terminals. Overnite Transportation had refused to negotiate with the Teamsters at those terminals despite the fact that the workers at each had voted for Teamster representation six and seven years earlier.
In yet another ruling in June 2002, the NLRB ordered Overnite to pay in excess of $176,000 to more unlawfully fired workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Those workers, too, were fired because they supported Teamster representation.
In February 2002, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision confirming that Overnite Transportation was guilty of massive labor law violations and, as a remedy to Overnite Transportation’s pervasive unfair labor practices, the NLRB will order new elections at terminals where the Teamsters had previous lost elections
In January 2002, the NLRB ruled that Overnite Transportation must “repudiate its unlawful conduct.”
In December 2001, the NLRB unanimously affirmed an Administrative Law Judge decision finding that Overnite Transportation engaged in soliciting and bribing employees to circulate petitions to decertify the Teamsters.
Those rulings add to Overnite Transportation’s pathetic record as the worst labor scofflaw in the United States. In its defense, Overnite Transportation has argued in recent NLRB and appeals court hearings that the company remedied unlawful conduct in 1997 with the departure of Overnite Transportation’s President and COO Jim Douglas and many other management-level personnel, who, the company contended, were the characters responsible for the massive unlawful conduct Overnite Transportation committed from 1994 to 1997.
These recent rulings demonstrate that Overnite Transportation has not remedied its continuing and pervasive unlawful conduct. The Teamsters represent approximately 2,500 Overnite Transportation workers at twenty-six (26) Overnite terminals across the country.