Teamsters

Are the Teamsters the new Luddites?

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Oh, how workplace relationships have changed since the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s.

Or have they? Are the Teamsters the modern-day equivalent of the 18th century Luddites? These are very interesting questions for a Human Resources practitioner to ponder.

Granted, with the rise of unions in the 19th century, there is greater employment and safety laws in the 20th century, and greater government regulations to protect workers. Due to this, the quality of working life for the individual workers has improved greatly. But has the fundamental relationship between workers and employers really changed?

That thought brings us to current events that reinforce that the fundamental relationship between employers and employees in the 21st century is the same as the 18th century.

Here is a brief labour relations history lesson for those of you who don’t know who the Luddites were, and need a refresher about the Teamsters.

Let’s start with getting to know the Teamsters. Here is a brief background right from their website:

  • The Teamsters are America’s largest, most diverse union. In 1903, the Teamsters started as a merger of the two leading team driver associations. These drivers were the backbone of America’s robust economic growth, but they needed to organize to wrestle their fair share from greedy corporations. Today, the Union’s task is exactly the same.
  • The Teamsters have over 1.4 million union members.

Now, who are the Luddites?

The term Luddite now refers to an individual who is against the effects of technological change. To be more historically correct, the Luddites were against new technology that changed working methods that reduced jobs. In other words, they were against automation. To read a history of the Luddites, click here.

In reality, the Luddites were British craftsmen who smashed and burned the new technology of weaving machines that was taking away their highly skilled jobs. The Luddites wanted the government to ban the new weaving machines but they did not reach their objective. The government passed a law that anyone who damaged a machine would be put to death.

What are the Teamsters trying to accomplish two hundred years later? They are trying to prevent a loss of trucking jobs to drones and autonomous vehicles. Currently, the Teamsters are in collective bargaining negotiations with UPS and have placed demands on the table that UPS will not use drones or autonomous vehicle to deliver packages.  Click here to read greater details about the UPS/ Teamsters negotiations.

The Teamsters have not acted the same way as the Luddites. They have not attempted to sabotage, smash, or burn the new technology. They have been more successful than the Luddites in obtaining political action. The Teamsters have:

So, the fundamental relationship between employers and employees has not changed. Each party wants to protect their interests and increase their share of the economic pie.  Will the Teamsters be successful against the rise of new technology, unlike the Luddites?  Only time will tell, but past history is not on the Teamsters side.

Discussion Questions:

What are your thoughts – should government step in to prevent automation from taking away jobs?

Research the advancements on Artificial Intelligence (AI). What jobs are experts predicting will disappear in the next 20 years? How is HR and society as a whole going to respond to these changes?

Striking A Balance

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Ilin Sergey / Shutterstock

As we have learned in our industrial relations studies, taking strike action is a decision made by the members of a bargaining unit in order to send a very strong message to the employer. This message is usually clear about the lack of progress at, or acceptance of proposals from the negotiating table. Taking strike action is not something that unions do lightly. It is a strong tactic, used for leverage in order to influence the employer to do better at the table. The message is simple and clear, the employees will not work until the issues that are unresolved through the bargaining process are settled and a new contract is proposed between the parties.

The power of a strike lies in the lack of employee labour, which means that the employer’s levels of production would be impacted in a negative way. No work should mean no production and no output.

What happens, however, when the union goes on strike and the work continues? This scenario is playing out with the ground crew workers who work at Toronto Pearson International Airport. These workers are employees of Swissport. They are represented by the Teamster’s union (Local 419) and they went on strike in late July. The work, however, is continuing.

The duties that are usually done by ground crew workers are now being done by management or supervisory staff which has raised the risk of safety issues, specifically linked to the duties of load controllers.

Click here to read the article on load controllers.

As noted in the article, the few supervisors who have taken on the duties of specialized load controllers are working around the clock to ensure that customer flights are not impacted negatively. This arrangement, however, raises some significant risk concerns not only for the safety of airline crew and passengers, but also for the supervisors who have taken on multiple additional workloads. The leverage played out in this scenario does not seem to be enough to cause the employer to amend its position at the bargaining table. One wonders, however, how much of a risk the employer is willing to take before safe airline travel comes to an unfortunate stop?

Discussion Questions:

  1. The article describes supervisors taking over the duties of specialized workers during this strike. From a Human Resources perspective, what types of employment-related concerns does this raise?
  2. In your opinion, how much of a risk would you be willing to take in order to keep airplanes and the paying customer moving?
  3. What issues need to be settled in order for this dispute to be resolved?