Teamsters Union Research Articles

NAFTA, motor carriers and highway safety

The signing of the NAFTA agreement signaled the beginning of increased efforts to harmonize trade between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Unfortunately the harmonization of transportation links is lagging far behind proposed implementation dates. This narrative describes the highway safety, and concerns expressed by highway safety advocates and Teamsters union representatives, and documented by the GAO. The authors propose a market based alternative to restricting transborder traffic to the narrow commercial zone presently in place.

Collective Bargaining after Deregulation: Do the Teamsters Still Count?

Using data from the American Trucking Associations and a 1991 telephone survey of 223 major firms in the general freight segment of the trucking industry (SIC 4213), the author describes the restructuring of the trucking industry that occurred following economic deregulation that began in 1977 and examines how that restructuring affected industrial relations outcomes such as wages and union strength. He finds that both market concentration and competition increased after 1977. He also concludes that regulatory restructuring led the general freight industry to divide into two sectors, one handling full truckload shipments (shipments of 10,000 pounds or more) and one handling less-than-truckload shipments. The Teamsters Union lost bargaining power in the truckload sector, but it retained much of its bargaining power within the less-than-truckload sector.

The Incidence of Regulatory Rents in the Motor Carrier Industry

This article focuses on two questions in the debate over motor carrier regulation. First, did regulation create, eliminate, or have no effect on monopoly rents in the trucking industry? Second, ifthere were rents, what was their incidence: were they received by owners oftrucking firms, dissipated through higher costs, or captured by the Teamsters union? Data on share price responses to deregulation announcements reveal declines in expected profits of 8-19% of totalfirm value. This suggests that regulation created monopoly profits, and indicates that at least some of these rents accrued to owners of trucking firms. Firms' responses to regulatory change are modelled as functions of company's operating characteristics, and measures of unionization, operating efficiency, and service characteristics are shown to affect the impact of deregulation on share values.

Collective Bargaining in Trucking: Prelude to a National Contract

Examines the Teamsters union's drive toward a trucking agreement in the United States. Factors associated with the success of James Riddle Hoffa in the creation of a trucking agreement; Significance of central states negotiations; Background on employer and union proposals. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

Impact of Landrum-Griffin on the Small Employer

The Landrum-Griffin Act emerged from an emo tional climate of concern over the union practices revealed by the McClellan Committee. Although aimed primarily at the Teamsters Union, the act visits hardships upon small business men and small local unions, particularly through amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act contained in Title Seven. There is more to the Landrum-Griffin Act than the publicized "Bill of Rights" for union members. It can be argued that the act is a series of compromises lacking agreement on basic principles. This view is supported by the specific exemptions provided for the garment and the construction industries. These ex emptions granted to certain small businesses and not available to other small industries may well undermine the constitution ality of the Landrum-Griffin Act. In effect, the act, in its at tempt to curtail the disreputable practices of a few union lead ers, discourages the efforts at statesmanship of the union leaders who are more concerned with long-range benefits for the workers than with short-term victories. Large, nationally organized companies are not particularly affected by the new act, but smaller employers who are already unionized are placed at a disadvantage by the improved position of their nonunionized competitors who wish to resist unionization. The fact that time is required for the Landrum-Griffin Act to be interpreted and understood will be to the further detriment of the small employer.

The Spirit of Private Government

The affairs of the Teamsters Union have suddenly loomed with an importance seldom recognized in any private association of this highly associated country. No doubt a major source of the recent interest in the internal politics of this and other unions is the fascination exerted by intimations of colorful criminality. Senator McClellan's committee, indeed, has gone far to indulge the widespread taste for this variety of sensation. Some segments of public opinion have obviously been gratified to be given ammunition useful in a campaign to weaken the economic and political power of organized labor. Meanwhile, the prospect for a few elementary reforms has suddenly improved. The American labor movement has acted to cleanse itself of some of the stain which has drawn so much attention. Legislative proposals designed to insure integrity of union elections and financial management are actively agitated.Nevertheless, publicity and agitation have so far done little to illuminate the basic problem. The public hue and cry about gangsters quite possibly may have hindered rather than helped understanding of what is involved.