International Association Of Machinists And Aerospace Workers, IAM Union, Boysen Anderson Breach of Contract, Lack of Representation, Lost Wages, Mass Layoff, Upper Marlboro Maryland

Please see AutoTruck.WordPress.com for a more thorough report. Thanks.
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Although its over year later, what the IAM Union has done to Auto Truck members / employees is going to stay on our credit reports for the next 7 years.

I was a truck driver for 8 years with a company called Auto truck Transport. Auto Truck belongs to a monopoly called JHT Holdings which is responsible for 95% of the nations new truck delivery. In the beginning of 07, rumor had it that we were being bought out by another company called Unimark Transport.

None of us were told this by the Union or the Company, it all came from fellow drivers. When the Union heard that we knew about it, an "invisible" contract was provided to our "company" terminal manager to basically give us options.

Basically what we heard was .. we had the option of becoming owner operators and lease Auto Trucks junk equipment or that we would all lose our jobs!

As a shop steward, I had emailed and called Boysen Anderson (IAM's Automotive director) several times to tell us what was going on with our employment status, he basically emailed me back "once" to tell me that "Our" contract was the IAM's exclusive contract and we had no say in the matter.

On July 15th, we all lost our jobs. The sad part about this was, we lost our jobs to a company that has been working with Auto Truck Transport for the past 6 years. Our contract specifically states, that the company can not hire or outsource work to any 3rd party contractors if the union members could handle the work load on their own.

Not only was that a Breach of Contract ... after some research was done, it was found that Unimark Transport, a "non union" company has had the same physical address, same phone number and same insurance policy(s) as Auto truck has had for the past 6 years.

Other Breaches:

- Our terminal has had more "non union" owner operators then company drivers for the past 8 years and nothing was done about it under the IAM's representation.

- Auto Truck Transport utilizes software that gouges their employees earnings by as much as 20% .. or $3,500 + a year! When brought to the IAM's attention, it took 9 months for them to provide us representation.

When the (IAM) Automotive director finally made it to our workplace, I was given a half hour of their time to present the case and later was told it was Industry Standard and to go find another job. After the meeting, the union reps left to go eat with company representatives! End of Story ...

Please see AutoTruck.WordPress.com for a more thorough report. Thanks.

Ward
Jacksonville, Florida
U.S.A.