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Leafleting Campaign at Terminals Nationwide
After four organizing victories at FedEx Freight and three at Conway in the last year, the campaigns at the two freight companies have entered a new phase focused on building a national activist network at the companies along with local union and freight member training.
“The campaigns at FedEx Freight and Con-way are not sprints, they are marathons,” said Tyson Johnson, Director of the Teamsters National Freight Division. “We will continue to work with our local unions and members to move these campaigns forward.”
In recent months, staff members from the Teamsters Organizing Department have visited local unions across the country to train the local union staff and members about organizing techniques focused on the issues facing the workers at FedEx Freight and Conway.
The trainings have proven successful and will continue.
The multi-pronged campaign formula is based on connecting and activating workers within the companies along with ground organizing and the educational process with our own membership, and it is working.
National Leafleting
In addition, a first-ever nationwide day of leafleting took place at Conway Freight terminals on October 20, 2015. In September 2015, XPO Logistics said it would buy Con-way for $3 billion, including debt, making it the second largest provider of less-than-truckload services in North America.
However, workers are very concerned about how the acquisition will affect them. The outreach has created numerous new opportunities to talk to the Con-way workforce.
On November 10, a similar national leafleting day took place at FedEx Freight facilities. FedEx Freight workers are tired of the inferior, expensive health care benefits, terrible retirement security, lack of job security and the company spending millions of dollars to hire union busters to fight organizing campaigns, among other issues.
The Teamsters confronted FedEx CEO Fred Smith about the expensive health care coverage during a recent shareholders meeting, and Smith got agitated by the questioning.
“Our freight members have played a critical role in the organizing campaigns and we will be calling on you in the future to help with these campaigns,” Johnson said to Smith. “No one is more effective than our members at spreading the word about what Teamster power and the importance of having a contract means firsthand. The more we build density in freight, the better off all our members are.”