On August of 99, I became a truck driver with Auto Truck Transport. A year and half later, I was among a hundred or so employees that were laid off. We didn’t get any notification from the union or company, we heard it from the taxi cab driver that drove us from San Antonio airport to the terminal.
Five and a half years later, it happened again!
In 2001, I transferred to Jacksonville, Fl and became a lowboy driver in a different division within the same company. Several years later, we get a new manager. Let me add I was the shop steward. Ya know the guy who made the company pay its drivers and the guy who the UNION was SUPPOSE to protect in case of retaliation?
What a damn fool I was!
Today, I am sitting here living in a truck, because my house was foreclosed on last month and my credit rating has dropped 300 points.
Were taught to keep 3 months worth of money in savings … and I did.
Problem was, while the new guys with less then 2 years with the company were assigned new trucks by our “new” terminal manager, the rest of us remained with the old trucks that broke down on a weekly basis.
And of course, my savings went down the drain, when my truck was broke down for three consecutive months in the beginning of 2007.
After years of dealing with the same SH*T with the IAM Union about getting paid for Breakdown pay. The same ole … “It will be in your next check” … was always the answer. And when the next check arrived …. NOTHING!
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Three months behind … and in July, we lost our jobs. We lost our jobs to a company that has been working with Auto Truck for the past 6 years … Same corporate address, same Insurance policy, same everything but a different name. (for the past 6 years)
The same Union that WE were giving OUR DUES TO went behind OUR backs and negotiated a new contract with the same company that left us all without a job.
In our contract it specifically stated that the company was NOT allowed to subcontract ANY work to another company that the drivers were capable of handling the workload themselves. For 6 years, Unimark Transport, a NON UNION company, had been working along with Auto Truck all along.
What did the NLRB do about this [Breach of Contract]. Not a damn thing!
What did Morgan and Morgan do about this? Not a damn thing! (For the people profit!)
What did Archibald Thomas do about this? Not a damn thing!
* Of course, they all offered for me to spend $1000’s, that I didn’t have, in a retainer due to these lawyers not wanting to go against big union lawyers.
It’s called phishing. Lawyers don’t give a damn about your claim, whether it’s legitimate or not, they just want to phish for the most profitable ones! Just go do something stupid like spilling coffee on yourself and win big money, act like your gay and sue a Christian for not providing services to you … but for the average working person … Just suck it up and find yourself a different job cause your not going to get shit out of it!
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So, after wasting all my time with the NLRB, the lawyers and the papertrails, I then go to the IAM National Pension Fund. I show them my foreclosure notice. I show them the documentation. I showed them everything I could, in order to withdrawal money from my pension under Financial Hardship to save my home and my credit rating.
They simply wrote back and said they may talk about it at the next trustee meeting. Almost a year later and no reply.
The IAM has other objectives …. and it sure the hell has nothing
to do with their members or their financial well being.
