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Teamsters at ABF Freight ratify new labor deal

Terms reached on rejected supplemental agreements

A new five-year labor agreement will raise hourly wages by a total of $6.50. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Less-than-truckload carrier ABF Freight announced late Friday its Teamster employees ratified a five-year collective bargaining agreement. The two parties previously came to terms on wages and other items two weeks ago.  

The new deal raises hourly wages by a total of $6.50 and benefits contributions by $4.46 per hour. Two additional paid sick days and one additional paid holiday were added. The company’s more than 8,600 Teamster employees “overwhelmingly” agreed to the deal, a news release said.

All but two of 27 supplemental agreements were approved. However, the union and ABF reached tentative agreements on the remaining two supplements, which will be voted on by members next week.

“It remains business as usual at ABF as the negotiating teams work through the final two remaining supplements,” ABF’s statement read. “ABF employees will continue to work under terms of the current contract during this process.”


The Teamsters are also negotiating labor contracts with UPS (NYSE: UPS), Yellow Corp. (NASDAQ: YELL) and TForce Freight (NYSE: TFII).

“This national agreement will serve as the model for the rest of the freight industry,” said Sean O’Brien, Teamsters general president, in a separate statement. “It will set the tone for national freight contracts moving forward.”

ABF Freight System is a subsidiary of transportation and logistics provider ArcBest (NASDAQ: ARCB).

More FreightWaves articles by Todd Maiden


5 Comments

  1. Tim

    There’s already a shortage of truck drivers. They work hard every day to make the world go around. They deserve every dollar they earn!

  2. Bill W.

    Yellow’s union employees are some of the worst in the industry. The only hard work they do is in finding ways to slack and sleep at company expense. Maybe if the had been as industrious as ABF employees, they wouldn’t be where they are

  3. ATrain23

    Great job ABF for recognizing and rewarding your union employees. Yellow blames their union employees for their problems when apparently it’s upper management bad decision to buy Roadway and USF companies which were very successful before the merger. I believe all three companies would still be strong, and would have made it through the recession. Most important they would have been profitable during Covid, and wouldn’t need a 700 million bailout from the government. TFI purchase of UPS was a steal. UPS basically gave it away. TFI made a smooth move for selling CFI for basically the same amount that they purchased UPS Freight. Good luck on the three remaining contracts. I don’t wanna see anyone lose their job. I’m a non-union LTL driver, but we all are brothers and sisters.

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Todd Maiden

Based in Richmond, VA, Todd is the finance editor at FreightWaves. Prior to joining FreightWaves, he covered the TLs, LTLs, railroads and brokers for RBC Capital Markets and BB&T Capital Markets. Todd began his career in banking and finance before moving over to transportation equity research where he provided stock recommendations for publicly traded transportation companies.