(The International Brotherhood of Teamsters issued the following news release on May 24.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last night, USF Corporation announced that it was shutting down USF Red Star operations effective immediately. This callous action on the part of a $2.3 billion corporation is a devastating blow to the 1,400 Teamsters at that company who are now out of work.
It is irrational and reckless for a company to close its entire Eastern operations because 15 office workers tried to organize a union. The company could have recognized them within minutes of the recognition demand and continued its normal operations without major disruption. Clearly, USF is using this as a smokescreen to shut down Red Star as a part of its ongoing anti-union campaign. No corporation makes such a momentous decision in such haste — the decision to close Red Star had been made well before Friday’s actions.
On Friday, May 21, a majority of the 15 clerical workers at USF Red Star’s Philadelphia terminal demanded recognition for their union with Teamster Local 107 pursuant to the terms of the National Master Freight Agreement (NMFA). On numerous other occasions, USF Corporation has honored this process and recognized the union. Surprisingly, in this case recognition wasn’t granted, so the clerical workers struck. Teamster members at Red Star honored the clerical workers’ pickets, effectively shutting down the company’s operations shortly after 7 a.m.
In an extreme over-reaction to the situation, Red Star management started padlocking their terminals around noon on Friday, locking-down the entire system by Saturday. The Teamsters approached Red Star management Saturday, offering to resolve the situation and send people back to work. In addition, when the company filed for an election petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Friday afternoon, we offered to cooperate for a quick election. The company’s response was to continue the lockout.
USF Corporation, at the highest levels, is making bad business decisions. Bad management—not the Union—is the problem at USF Red Star. This is proven by the fact that USF Holland is the top USF Corporation operator and is fully unionized.
Earlier this year, USF Corporation began talking about seamless interlining to better serve their customers and is expected to make an announcement next month regarding changes in their operating structure. We believe that the action taken yesterday was a cynical, opportunistic move taken to enable the company to blame their workers and the Teamsters Union for management’s failures at Red Star.
This is blatant union busting. USF has shown by this action that it is willing to go to any lengths to defeat the efforts of its workers to have a voice on the job. The Teamsters will fight for our members at USF Red Star. We will not be intimidated by this kind of anti-worker, anti-union behavior by a major corporation in our core industry. We will continue to fight for freight workers everywhere.