Originally published at: 17 years later, Teamsters locals will get pension payments - FreightWaves
A strike against a West Coast LTL carrier in 2008 began a long legal battle that may be coming to an end.
The decisions that went into this nearly decades-long fiasco were made by the upper echelons of Oak Harbor Freight Lines ownership/ management. This kind of thing is disturbing to any conscientious employee who has to wonder if their faith & trust aren’t misplaced. A privately-owned, family-run company, Oak Harbor hasn’t yet addressed the ramifications of the NLRB judgement with the workforce. There are still grandfathered employees with the company that are covered by this obligation to the trust - in addition to the retirees.
Since the rank and file workers didn’t bring this on themselves, they would have every right to wonder if the $23.7 million - in addition to all the legal fees that went into disputing this case - will be made up through pay and benefits cuts, workforce reductions, terminal closures, breaking up the company, or the outright sale of Oak Harbor to another carrier.
If this sounds overly critical, it might be worth considering what direction Oak Harbor would go were an employee to cost the company almost $24 million.
the union walked out on us with no vote years ago.