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7 November, 2011
Union members of Teamsters (IBT) Local 495 approved a long-term agreement with the successor employer to BMW at an auto-parts distribution warehouse in Ontario, California. Local 495 members, who waged a summer-long campaign to retain their jobs after BMW said it would terminate the labour agreement and outsource the operation, ratified a new accord 46-2 on 28 October.
The ratification means that none of the 70 workers currently employed by BMW North America will be laid off and they will begin employment under a logistics company called the 2 AM Group on 1 January with full seniority and full union rights. The contract also contains nearly the same wage and benefit package as currently paid by BMW.
The 2 AM Group is a logistics provider for BMW at assembly plants in the US states of South Carolina and Alabama, and also operates services for the luxury automaker in Munich, Germany, and Puebla, Mexico.
Teamsters handbilling in Seattle
This is the first collective agreement for 2 AM Group in the US.
Although the agreement calls for a slight pay decrease from the base US$25-per-hour wage to US$23.50, the upcoming contract contains performance incentives that could lift overall pay.
Local 495 and its Washington, DC-based parent union, the IBT, ran a pressure campaign against BMW in Germany, the UK, and across the US aimed at job retention and continued union representation at BMW’s Southern California warehouse. That campaign won partial success on 9 August when the two sides agreed to extend a collective agreement expiring on 31 August for another six months. (Read ICEM report here.)
The new accord with 2 AM completes the victory and proves that active campaigning by a trade union when confronted with workplace restructuring can reverse a company’s intended plans.
IBT Director of Global Strategies Tim Beaty expressed the appreciation of the union on behalf of General President Jim Hoffa and Local 495 Secretary-Treasurer Bob Lennox to the trade unions in Europe and the US that helped bring the message to BMW over the summer.