Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 7, 1994                   TAG: 9404070326
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8 BUSINESS   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S A STRIKE FOR JOBS, ROANOKE TRUCKERS SAY

The contract dispute between the nation's largest labor union and 22 trucking companies hinges on the increased use of lower-wage part-time workers and greater use of rail service.

The union argues that both concessions would mean fewer high-wage jobs for truckers.

"We never asked for more money; we never asked for anything, really," said Bobby Goode, who was picketing Preston Trucking Co. on Plantation Road. "It's not that we're striking for something we want; we want to keep what we already have."

The 22 trucking companies are formed into a consortium called Trucking Management Inc. They are among the better-known names in the industry, including Roadway Express, Yellow Freight System and Consolidated Freight. They are the companies involved in less-than-full-truckload shipments, which means a truck might deliver smaller loads to numerous businesses.

Randy Lloyd, a spokesman for Arkansas-based ABF Freight System, said the 22 companies need certain concessions from the union in order to match a recent contract between United Parcel Service and the Teamsters.

The UPS contract will allow UPS to compete directly with other less-than-load carriers, Lloyd said. The deal between the Teamsters and UPS is a better contract for UPS than the one the Teamsters have proposed for the other carriers, he said. UPS has more workers than the 22 companies in Trucking Management Inc. combined.

With part-time workers at issue, the Teamsters and the freight carriers are at a standoff over an issue that permeates many companies in the 1990s. Part-time truckers make about half the $16 hourly rate of an average Teamsters union member.

Jerald Robinson, professor of employment relations at Virginia Tech's business school, pointed out that hiring of part-time workers also involves other issues, including health care: Most of the time, the part-time workers don't get hired full-time, and the companies save even more money by not providing health benefits to them.

Some picketing Teamsters said Wednesday they felt as if they were caught between the trucking companies and the union.

"I think they're both kind of stonewalling," Goode said. "Ron Carey earlier had kind of made the brag that we're going to have a lucrative contract, and the companies said, 'We'll show you.'''

Trucking Management had represented 23 companies, but the union and Carolina Freight reached a side agreement. Carolina said it would agree to any contract between TMI and the union as long as it could keep running its trucks during the strike.

David Shutters, a picketing trucker at Consolidated Freight on Plantation Road, didn't like the deal with Carolina.

"I think if you're a Teamster and you're under the [contract] you ought to be out here on the street with us," Shutters said. "It's not right for everybody else to struggle and them to benefit."