Labor must fight bankruptcy court
Teamsters sacked in corporate blitz
By Milt Neidenberg
Retired Teamster
It was a pre-emptive attack. Not on the Iraqi people. Not
yet.
Those attacked were 15,500 workers at Consolidated
Freightways Corporation, this country's third-largest
less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier.
It was a dehumanizing act of vengeance. Imagine leaving
home, prepared for work, and arriving at the terminal to find
the gates locked. That's what happened on Sept. 2--Labor Day.
Without warning, the company shut down operations and filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
CF locked out thousands of drivers, freight handlers and
clerks. According to several Teamsters members who reported to
work to pick up deliveries, the union was unprepared and
uninformed.
Teamsters represent over 95 percent of the workforce at
Consolidated. About 80 percent of them lost their jobs. Many
had 20 and 30 years on the job.
One thousand retirees lost health benefits immediately.
The national LTL market is dominated by huge carriers such
as Roadway, Yellow, and union-busting Overnite Transportation.
LTL is a strategic sector of the transportation industry
covering nearly half of the entire truckload industry,
according to the American Trucking Association.
Headquartered in Vancouver, Wash., CF has been in business
for 73 years.
Only Teamsters can operate LTL equipment
LTL drivers and freight handlers live and work in a
stressful environment. Their workday can begin at any time,
usually at night.
CF hires city drivers who pick up shipments from 20 or more
customers and deliver them to a terminal. There, freight
handlers sort out loads going to the same destination.
City drivers and loaders are paid at an hourly rate. Then
line-haul drivers take the trailers to destination terminals,
where the loads are separated for on-time customer deliveries.
Speedup and efficiency are essentials in this cutthroat
competitive industry. The drivers are paid primarily on
mileage.
It's a grueling life, filled with danger and injuries.
Drivers are fortunate if they get home twice a week. CF runs
sleeper teams. "They might drive from California to Memphis,
taking turns and shifts, then lay over and bring a load back in
the succeeding days," says CF spokesperson Mike Brown.
They usually spend their time in a bunkhouse, waiting to
pick up another load, either to return to their home base or go
to another destination. Often they sleep in their tractors on
the side of the road.
They do most of their driving at night. Loads often include
hazardous materials. If a snowstorm or a serious accident
closes an interstate highway or some unexpected event delays
the deliveries, leaving a driver with undelivered drops in the
trailer, management may invoke punitive measures.
LTL drivers must be skilled and experienced as they maneuver
their trucks through cities and small towns. A driver can go
from an industrial park with docks to a neighborhood crowded
with cars and people. LTL carriers come in all sizes. Some
trailers are huge, covering national, regional and intrastate
traffic. For handling smaller shipments, there are dry van,
refrigerated or flatbed trucks.
Bankruptcy--tool of the bosses
The workers have earned the right to take over CF and run
this bankrupt company. They gave life and value to the
73-year-old corporation. Should these workers lose their jobs,
their wages and benefits due to CF's colossal mismanagement in
a highly competitive, cutthroat industry?
Should a small clique of bankers and other creditors rip off
the equity of the company, which they know will be approved by
a U.S. bankruptcy judge? This is a critical issue for the
entire labor movement as the economy spins out of control
toward more layoffs, plant closings and bankruptcies.
Chapter 11 bankruptcies continue to rise at an alarming
rate: Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Tyco, Adelphia. In the
steel industry alone, 30 companies have filed for bankruptcy in
recent years.
The intent of a corporate bankruptcy is to cut labor costs.
Thousands of workers are laid off, union contracts are torn up,
and retirees lose their pensions and health benefits.
Yet these corporations have no legal right to impose such
abuses.
They have been stripped of their power. They can't sign a
check, pay a bill or make a single financial deal unless the
bankruptcy court-appointed trustee approves the transaction.
They are "absentee owners," "a debtor in possession" under the
law. They are no longer in possession of the property.
It is only in collusion with the bankruptcy court that their
power is restored.
On the day CF locked out the Teamsters and declared
bankruptcy, a company spokesperson invited smaller companies to
pick up their shipments from many of its 290 terminals.
Management asked their top competitors--Roadway and Yellow
Corp.--to deliver freight to larger customers. The Teamsters
union, which has contracts with these companies, could order
its members to refuse to honor CF requests. It would have the
legal right to do so.
It's time to change the locks
Recently the AFL-CIO has supported the principle that
workers are entitled to be declared the primary creditor in a
bankruptcy and stand first in line, ahead of all other
investors. Most important, the workers could declare their
right to trusteeship and run the bankrupt company.
The AFL-CIO statement is a significant development, but it
needs to be backed up with an organized fight. So far, no
attention is being paid to the AFL-CIO position, even as
high-priced lawyers representing Wall Street creditors, bankers
and vendors wheel and deal to strip the equity from the fallen
company.
CF operates about 6,000 tractors, 27,000 trailers and about
290 extensive terminals. The property is sitting idle behind
locked gates while thousands of laid-off workers scramble to
survive. Survival rests with their right to claim these
tractors, trailers, and terminals.
The indisputable fact is that their long years of strenuous
and stressful labor, their skills and experience entitle them
to run the company. Add to this the value of back wages,
pensions and other accumulated benefits and it is crystal clear
that the Teamsters are the principal creditors and should be
declared the trustees of CF.
The Teamsters, over 10,000 strong, have been caught off
guard by being locked out and laid off. They need to quickly
regroup and defend the idle property behind the locked
gates--the trailers, the tractors and the terminals.
As they fight for their legal rights in bankruptcy court,
they need to put picket lines around these valuable pieces of
property and means of production, to prevent them from being
sold off or used to satisfy the wants of greedy bankers and
other lenders.
Changing the locks would send these parasites a strong
message that labor has property rights.
Reprinted from the Sept. 19, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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