Lengthy Teamsters strike against 10 Roads Express may be ending soon

A strike by the Teamsters that has gone on for months against several facilities of U.S. Postal Service contract carrier 10 Roads Express may be nearing an end. 

John Sholtes, secretary treasurer of Teamsters Local 79 in Tampa, Florida, one of the regions where workers struck 10 Roads Express, said he believed talks with 10 Roads Express were “in the final throes of being settled.”

“As recently as Friday, there was a conference call to discuss the offer from the company to try and settle this,” Sholtes said in a phone interview with FreightWaves. 

He declined to provide any specifics about provisions in a possible final deal.

“The strike is still on and we’re hoping to get it settled,” he said. 

In February, when the Teamsters first announced the walkout, the union described the 10 Roads Express contract offer as “insulting and unrealistic.”
Efforts to obtain comment from 10 Roads Express were unsuccessful by publication time.

The Teamsters have said the strike involved more than 500 Teamsters drivers who walked off their jobs in 10 states.

10 Roads Express’ SAFER record currently lists 2,606 drivers for the company, which is down from about 4,400. That latter figure was the number in its SAFER profile in November 2023, when FreightWaves reported on an expansion of Teamsters representation within the ranks of 10 Roads Express drivers. At that time, the Teamsters were said to represent about 300 drivers at the company.

The Teamsters have said on repeated occasions that it has targeted the workers at 10 Roads Express for an organizing effort.

Nationwide deal not likely yet

Sholtes said the Teamsters have not yet been able to secure a nationwide master agreement with 10 Roads Express, which would cover all the unionized workers at the company. Such a nationwide master agreement governs several large companies where the Teamsters have organized all or part of the workforce, such as UPS.

“We are definitely making some gains, getting additional units organized that weren’t in the union before, and getting some standardized template language,” Sholtes said. “So a lot of the different local unions will have the same contract language, which is an improvement from what it was.”

The union announced the strike on its webpage Feb. 18, but there have been no updates on it since then.

A strike of the duration of the 10 Roads Express walkout is unusual for the Teamsters. In recent months, for example, the Teamsters have reported several strikes and settlements far shorter than the walkout at 10 Roads Express.

For example, one strike lasted just 12 days, against Keurig Dr Pepper (NASDAQ: KDP) in Ottumwa, Iowa. A pair of Teamsters strikes at Hertz (NASDAQ: HTZ) facilities in Florida and Texas lasted two weeks and five weeks, respectively. The union also reported a seven-week strike against Nestle Purina PetCare in Pennsylvania, though that walkout included plant workers, not just drivers.

The union generally releases a prepared statement when workers vote to authorize a strike. But more times than not, the next announcement about a possible walkout by the union reports a contract agreement that ends any strike threat.

Anti-union group reached out to workers

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which has long targeted Teamsters workers to decertify their union or not vote it in to begin with, did put out a statement at the start of the 10 Roads Express walkout, spelling out what it said were workers’ rights to leave the union.

In the statement, Foundation President Mark Mix addressed what Sholtes said publicly: A national master agreement is a goal. However, Mix suggested that goal was being kept secret from workers. 

“Teamsters officials are also unlikely to acknowledge the fact that they are demanding that 10 Roads Express management bargain with them on a national level and not in individual workplaces, which may very well be a lead-up to the Teamsters thrusting 10 Roads Express drivers into a huge national unit designed to lock workers into Teamsters ranks in perpetuity,” Mix said in the statement.

The Teamsters has had several recent organizing successes:

• More than 230 workers at two United Natural Foods (NYSE: UNFI) warehouses voted late last month to be represented by the Teamsters. That followed a successful unionization drive in Texas of UNFI drivers. The union says it has organized more than 3,000 UNFI drivers since 2022. That includes 77 drivers in Wisconsin who voted for Teamsters representation.
• The first new contract representing workers at Frito-Lay (NASDAQ: PEP) in 35 years was ratified for workers at Teamsters Local 186 in Ventura, California, last month.
• Workers at Fleet Transportation Corp. in Avon Lake, Ohio, voted to be represented by the Teamsters. It’s notable because the union said Fleet Transport Corp. is an auto hauler created specifically to pick up some of the demand created by the collapse of Jack Cooper earlier this year. The union said the company signed the National Master Automobile Transports Agreement. A similar Jack Cooper replacement company, Squirrelly LLC, also has seen its workers rejoin the Teamsters, the union said. Jack Cooper was the largest unionized auto hauler in the country.

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