Please read my post on General Board

[petedabroker]

I believe you will find out what this organization is all about by reading that post on the General Board. Understand, and understand this totally. We are not, never were and never will be, in favor of the establishment of a separate trucking company working at the pier. Quite the contrary, we are only in favor of you keeping your job with your current firm, if you so wish. We are now, always were, and always will be in favor of all pier related trucking firms to join into this union.

Remember one thing, you cannot exist without your firms, they cannot exist without their drivers, a union cannot exist without both, not one, but both participating. It will never be a us against them type of thing. This will be the only union anyone works with, that will have everyone's best interest at the top of our list, related to both drivers and trucking firms. There will be a master contract, and maybe even local portal contracts related to pay. That reason is fairly simple. A driver who works in New York, needing to pay tolls that are crazy, groceries that cost double than a driver that works in Hampton Roads. So the local contract in Hampton Roads might list driver pay as $58/hr, whereas that same driver might make $68/hr in New York. Its fair, makes sense, and should be very acceptable considering the cost to do business in New York is far greater than that same cost in Norfolk. The master contract however will be exactly the same for all portal drivers, regardless of their domicile. That contract is a procedural type, where as the local contract is salary confirmation, work conditions type of event.
Strike is a very nasty word, unions hate it as much as industry. We will never promote such activity. We do feel however, that without the ability to strike, provides no incentive to the industry to validate contracts. We look for reasonable solutions provided by reasonable negotiations, all working toward the promotion of a stable and able work force. All determined to service the shipping community without interruption of services.
Please read the post on the General Board to grasp some sort of understand , just how this all shall work.

[largecar]

Your right pete, there are plenty trucking companies out here now doing this work. We need a system in place to allow us to negotiate a complete contract covering all trucking services with the current companies. This will give us a level playing field to operate and make money. Everyone will then have a set of rules to abide by where they are lax when it concerns paying us for any work we do. We have to focus to make that happen not worry about fixing their productivity problems. That will correct itself when the system they have created starts costing them money not us any longer.

[petedabroker]

As Ed McMahon would say, Correcto Mun do, Johnny. We know fixing our own system will force their system to correct itself. Plus , they pay to have it done and we no longer suffer from their ill effects. Largecar, many even in this group believe the accounts we are seeking are the Steamship Lines. That could not be farther from the truth. We do not want them to retain any door to door controls. Once it all goes back to the shippers and exporters and their Foreign Freight Forwarders and CHB, it will all change. Right now they hold the hammer , they don't own. That cargo is the hammer and they only control it because not so bright FFF &CHB found it easier to give them the whole business to quote instead of just the ocean freight. I saw it start to happen years ago, when I was in FFF. I was screaming even then. Remember we are dealing with a group that had exemptions from Anti-Trust and could not even agree to keep their conferences together. No joke , what they had was the ability to join a conference. All the members of that group had all the same rates, in a filed tariff with the FMC. They could make the prices whatever they wanted. They were not happy and wanted each others customers. They could not stand that one line got more business than they got. So they took what was known as independent actions. Went to a shipper and gave them a rate cheaper than conference rates. Before you know it all were doing the same. Then they lost the ability and the anti-trust was pulled. No, we don't want to see any of the truckers customers being Steamship lines, we want them all to break away from that group totally. Yes, some have their own trucks, and been screwing those drivers for years. They will flock to this new union. No drivers, no containers moving, no container moving, shippers move those containers to trucking firms direct via their FFF or CHB. The vast majority of containers move via trucking firms that are independent from the lines. They contract with those truckers usually under flat fees. Well guess what, they will be paying union rates and needing to add onto those charges to the shippers/importers. How long will it take for the shippers and importers to find out that they can now buy trucking cheaper from the carriers. After all most lines handle transportation arrangements as literally a broker of trucking. The worst part is they have no license to do such and no bonds to protect the shippers and importers. I been saying for years most steamship lines, operate illegally, when it comes to domestic trucking. I know they have some protections because of that through bill of lading thing, but it is still not legal.