Teamsters, car haulers agree to 3-year contract

The weekend before last, workers in the U.S. and Canada covered by the National Master Automobile Transporters Agreement voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike should a contract agreement not be reached before Wednesday. The car-haul division had said repeatedly would not accept a further extension of the one-year pact beyond Tuesday. 

Over the past 48 hours, however, union officials had voiced increasing optimism that a contract would be reached in time. A key breakthrough came when the companies agreed to language setting strict limitations on subcontracting.

The tentative agreement covers workers at Kansas City, Missouri-based Jack Cooper Transport, Edwardsville, Illinois-based Cassens Transport and five smaller carriers. 

The proposed agreement will “improve wages and benefits and will serve as a national model to organize hundreds of new car haulers nationwide,” said Avral Thompson, the Teamsters’ car-haul division director and co-chair of the Teamsters National Automobile Transporters Industry Negotiating Committee.

Car haulers have long been considered among the most skilled of over-the-road truck drivers. They haul extremely high-value cargoes that are prone to damage and face delivery challenges that go well beyond the traditional dock bumping in which drivers engage. Spatial skills are required for organizing cars and trucks on the haulers and the training takes months, according to nonunion car hauler United Road in Plymouth, Michigan. 

In recent years, union carriers have been undercut on price by lower-cost, nonunion rivals. Truckers also face competition for longer-haul traffic from the nation’s railroads. In the U.S., the rail industry transports about three-quarters of all new cars and trucks, according to the Association of American Railroads. However, a truck is involved in every rail movement of motor vehicles.