ABF Freight and the Teamsters union announced they expect to begin negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement Dec. 18.
The current agreement expires March 31, 2013, and covers the approximately 7,800 ABF Teamster employees nationwide.
The union began talks with UPS Inc., the largest employer ofTeamsters, Sept. 27.
ABF is a business unit of Arkansas Best Corp., which is ranked No. 13 on the Transport Topics 100 listing of U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
The Teamsters union has filed suit in an attempt to block the Department of Transportation from opening the U.S. border to what it termed “dangerous” Mexican trucks through DOT’s cross-border pilot program.
“Congress has repeatedly and overwhelmingly set tough safety conditions for any cross-border trucking program, and this one clearly doesn’t meet those conditions,” Teamsters General President James Hoffa said in a statement.
Although the program has cleared the first Mexican carrier to come into the United States, Transportes Olympic, some Mexican trucking companies are waiting for more certainty for opportunities under the program, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.
The Teamsters, along with the groups Public Citizen and the Sierra Club, challenged the program in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
It claimed that the pilot program set by DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration:
James Hoffa was re-elected to another five-year term as head of the Teamsters union, winning about 60% of the vote, the union said on its website.
Hoffa’s new term begins in March 2012. Hoffa — the son of legendary Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa — was first elected Teamster president in December 1998.
Two challengers, Fred Gegare and Sandy Pope, split the rest of the votes. Hoffa, 70, was previously elected to five-year terms in 2001 and 2006.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, with 1.4 million members, represents truck drivers and warehouse workers.
Hoffa claimed credit for the Teamsters’ agreement to wage and pension cuts that prevented a potential bankruptcy filing at less-than-truckload carrier YRC Worldwide.
