SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Democratic state lawmakers want to eliminate New Mexico's annual $50 million cap on film incentive spending but the future of the proposal is unclear amid Republican opposition.

The bill which would eliminate a cap on incentives is moving through the New Mexico House and comes after state officials reported the film and television industry contributed more than a half-billion dollars to New Mexico's economy in 2016.  Click Here to read about the record year (2016) for film.

Rep. Antonio "Moe" Maestas, an Albuquerque Democrat and sponsor of the bill, said outside of Los Angeles and New York, the state of New Mexico is one of the top film producers in the country. "It's time to remove the cap and the disincentives that it places on economic development and film production here in New Mexico," Maestas said.

Rep. Bill McCamley, a Las Cruces Democrat, said there was a direct correlation between the money the state spent on incentives and the return it got.

Some critics of the cap fear it could lead productions to pass by New Mexico for other states.

But Rep. Rebecca Dow, a Truth or Consequences Republican, said she sees the tax credit as going to some of the wealthiest people in the world and seemed to be playing favoritism. "I'm trying to understand why a certain industry should be such a winner," she said.

Data from the New Mexico Film Office show film and television productions contributed $505 million to the state's economy in 2016. That included 61 major productions.

A spokeswoman for Martinez said the Republican governor has not reviewed the bill.

New Mexico lawmakers' attempt to remove the state's cap on film incentive comes amid increased competition around the country for film production as streaming services like Netflix and Amazon step up their own projects.

Last year, for example, Louisiana lawmakers voted to continue a $180 million limit on the amount that taxpayers will spend each year on the tax credits doled out to film and TV productions.

An open letter from Teamsters Local 492 to Representative Dow:

Dear Representative Dow,

Our Teamster Members work in the NM film industry as Drivers, Wranglers and Animal Handlers. They are not wealthy, but they make a good wage per hour and also receive medical and retirement benefits which is not always the case with a lot of jobs these days. The NM Film industry is a very large part of the growth seen recently in New Mexico’s economy and if legislators like yourself were to lift the cap, it would put much needed gasoline into the NM economic engine allowing it to accelerate. In 2016 New Mexico’s film industry injected more than a half a billion dollars into the NM economy, which means more jobs and prosperity for our State.

Please support the hard working men & women of the NM film industry by voting to lift the cap.

Thank you,

Teamsters Local 492

Sent to Rep. Dow via email on 1-26-18

Teamsters, ABF Address Non-Economic Issues As Negotiations Kick-Off

The Teamsters National Freight Industry Negotiating Committee (TNFINC) met with ABF this week to start negotiations for a new ABF National Master Freight Agreement (NMFA) that would take the place of the current agreement which is set to expire on March 31.

The meetings this week focused primarily on language issues but ABF continues to raise claims that its employee and operating costs are too high. TNFINC however, has made clear that the members are not interested in a concessionary contract.

The parties spent this week trying to resolve some of the less controversial issues.

“Rather than get bogged down right off the bat in what could easily result in a collision, we spent this week trying to resolve some of the less controversial issues and made progress in those areas,” said Ernie Soehl, Director of the Teamsters National Freight Division and Co-Chairman of TNFINC.

The parties have tentatively agreed on a number of national language articles, including with regard to: Scope of the Agreement; Recognition; Union Shop and Checkoff; Stewards; Protection of Rights; Loss or Damage; Bonds and Insurance; Uniforms; Passengers; Military Leave; Pay Period; Other Services; Posting; Union Activities; Owner Operators; Separation of Employment; Inspection

Privileges and Employer and Employee Identification; Emergency Reopening; Sympathetic Action; Jurisdictional Disputes; Garnishments; and Non- Discrimination. Most of these tentatively agreed upon articles simply remain unchanged from the current contract but according to Soehl, it made sense to initially “pick the low hanging fruit” and get non-controversial items out of the way.

“We remain committed to getting the best possible agreement for our members,” Soehl said.

The parties will reconvene on January 29 to resume negotiations.

Visit the Teamsters 492 ABF Negotiations Page for all the updates. Visit the new ABF Teamsters Facebook Page

Company Exceeded Permissible Amount of Freight That Can Be Diverted

The Teamsters Union has won a $1 million settlement on behalf of YRC Freight’s road drivers.

The collective bargaining agreement with YRC Freight limits the amount of over-the-road freight that can be put on trains or hauled by non-bargaining unit personnel. The Teamsters Union monitors those amounts. After reviewing the situation and convening a meeting of the committee that monitors compliance, it was determined that the company had in fact exceeded the permissible amounts.

“Our YRC members have an agreement that strongly protects bargaining unit work and work opportunities and the company acknowledged that it diverted more freight than what is allowed,” said Ernie Soehl, Director of the Teamsters National Freight Division. “We will always seek to hold employers accountable by making sure they abide by our contracts and agreements.”

After reviewing the records, it was clear that a substantial amount of the diverted freight—carried mostly on rail—was the direct result of extraordinary service and terminal interruptions resulting from hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The committee determined that under the unique circumstances of the matter the company should not be penalized for these “Acts of God.”   Nevertheless, the committee determined that the company still exceeded the maximum road miles that could be hauled on rails and ordered it to pay $1,003,930.00.

YRC Freight will be contacting Teamster local unions to review the lists of drivers who are eligible for the payment.

XPO (Con-way) and The Teamsters – History   

Written by Teamsters492.org admin Trey White - As some of you may remember, non-union Con-way was created by CF-Consolidated Freightways in 1983. CF shutdown in 2002 while Con-way somehow continued to operate. Now known as XPO, who acquired Con-way in 2015, it has been a rough ride for the workers of this company as the non-union/anti-worker mantra seems to be embedded into the Company regardless of who owns it or what they name it. Recently published info about XPO’s horrible benefit package (really horrible when compared to union carriers ABF & YRC), shows the XPO workers are paying an average of $7556 per year, which does not include the additional out-of-pocket expenses if/when the worker uses the insurance. XPO’s best family insurance is a PPO plan called the “Classic Plan,” which includes very basic vision and dental coverage at extra cost and a possible additional “spouse surcharge”. XPO/Con-way also has no real retirement “plan” as their pension ceased being funded in 2007, XPO currently only has a mainly worker funded 401(k). 

For over 3 years now, the Teamsters Union has been actively responding to the calls that have come in from workers at XPO/Con-way across America. The Teamsters have had some organizing successes, but the anti-union Company has been actively fighting their own employee’s wishes to bargain as a collective voice.  You may have read about a dozen or so of these battles, but there is way more of a fight going on than you may be aware of.

Con-way/XPO will not agree to Card Check Neutrality, but instead has taken the low road by doing everything they can, including spending tons of money to hire “union busters” and tying up the election and bargaining process in court. It seems XPO/Con-way would prefer to waste its money on lawyers and union busters rather than spend that same money on improving the lives and working conditions of its own employees, who they could not operate profitably without. XPO does not want their employees to have a collective voice or allow them to choose a representative who has their best interests at the bargaining table. You decide for yourself, here are some examples of their behavior:

There have been dozens of locations that have had workers/Unions file various petitions and/or charges with NLRB involving XPO/Con-way because the workers are tired of the way the company is treating them when they show interest in becoming Teamsters. In fact, an administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled Con-way Freight violated the rights of workers who were trying to form their Union with the Teamsters and required the company to re-hire two workers it unlawfully fired during an organizing campaign with full back pay, among other remedies. Administrative Judge Eleanor Laws wrote in her decision, “By instructing employees not to wear Union insignia, threatening employees for supporting the Union, filing criminal charges against an employee, suspending employees, and terminating employees because they supported the Union, the Respondent has engaged in unfair labor practices…”

In September of 2015, XPO Logistics purchased Con-way Freight for $3 Billion. Over the last 3 years, the XPO/Con-way freight workers have been fighting for their right to collectively bargain. The brave workers have survived a huge Anti-Union battle being waged against them as they simply try to improve their workplace by having a collective voice. These workers voted for Teamster representation at terminals in Miami; North Haven, Conn.; and Philadelphia, Los Angeles; Laredo, Texas; Aurora, Illinois; and Trenton, NJ, but there is still not a single CBA in any of those 7 locations, even though multiple NLRB charges have been won by the Teamsters mandating XPO recognize the Teamsters as the bargaining agent and negotiate a contract. The Company has waged negotiating stall tactics including protesting the elections resulting in Teamster representation, but in September of 2016, The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected XPO Logistics’ bid to throw out a Union representation vote at Laredo, Texas, during 2014, and again in December 2016 and again by the Supreme Court in July of 2017 and has again ordered the company to negotiate in good faith with the Teamsters.

Unfortunately, the anti-Union company has also been able to intimidate enough workers at many locations that the Teamsters have had to withdrawal election petitions and in some cases have lost some elections, many by a very small margin.

Soon after Teamster organizing got under way at Con-way, in another effort to slow the organizing progress, Con-way announced it would increase truck driver pay 6% (spending about $60 million) starting Jan 4th, 2015, and make other improvements. “It seems more than mere coincidence that these two companies (Con-way and FedEx Freight) have announced significant pay increases just as hundreds of workers across the U.S. are approaching our local Unions seeking representation,” Tyson Johnson said. “The unfulfilled promises that have been made to drivers and dockworkers over the past decade are coming back to haunt management. Workers now realize the only way to achieve meaningful change in the workplace is to get it in writing in a binding contract.”

To continue reading more about the Con-way/XPO Logistics Teamster efforts and the history of XPO/Con-way’s blatant union busting/law breaking campaign, Click Here.

As most of you know, there was an election held today for your Local 492 Union Officers. There were a total of 515 ballots counted. Thank you to all of you that took the time to mail in your ballots. The results can be found below.

Secretary-Treasurer

Walter R. Maestas 393

Robert Kozlowski   114

President

Mike Butler           427

Vice President         

Richard Martinez   385

Mark Sanchez       110

Recording-Secretary

Trey White           432

Trustees

Joseph Carrillo      414

Andrew Palmer     409

Aaron Powell        397

Penny Hicks         115 

The Western Region Supplemental Agreement Negotiating Committee began negotiations with UPS. IBT Package Division Western Region Director and Negotiating Committee Chair Andy Marshall and the Western Region Negotiating Committee representing all 11 Western States, began the process of securing a quality contract for our Members.

The Western Region Supplemental Agreement has some of the strongest language in the nation. "The Company needs to adhere to the language that we currently have", states Andy Marshall. The Western Region Negotiating Committee has successfully demanded that a stenographer be present for the meetings to memorialize both the Union’s and the Company's understanding, interpretation and application of the current contractual language and any newly negotiated language. “The first order of business needs to be clarifying what our existing language means to both sides and how it will be applied, prior to exchanging proposals on any newly negotiated language" said Andy Marshall.

The pace of these meetings were slow, contentious and deliberate. However, prior to concluding the first negotiating session the parties did exchange their initial proposals. After reviewing the Company's initial proposals, the Western Region Negotiating Committee surmised the direction the Company has charted and it’s clear that the Company is hoping to remove many of the critically important protections currently contained in the Western Supplemental Agreement.

The Western Region Negotiating Committee will be scheduling additional negotiation dates in the beginning of 2018. They will continue to fight hard, and bargain in good faith to deliver a superior contract for our Members which not only protects our current language, benefits and wages, but delivers improvements as well.

EPI maps the campaign to suppress worker rights in the states

EPI released an interactive map that paints a disturbing picture of the rise of anti-worker preemption laws across the country. The map shows which states have blocked cities and counties from improving workers’ wages and working conditions. Workers in St. Louis, for example, got a boost when the city increased its minimum wage to $10—but the Missouri state legislature knocked it back down to $7.70 and 31,000 workers lost a raise. The map plots preemption activity in five key areas of labor and employment: minimum wage, paid leave, fair work schedules, prevailing wage, and project labor agreements.  View the Map

NM Commissioners Take on CBAs 

October 6, 2017 -By Trey White, Teamsters Local 492 Recording-Secretary 

Will you soon have the right to choose whether to pay your taxes or not? If you are not happy with the government services Sandoval County is providing (or even if you are happy with them), will you no longer have to pay your taxes, and will the County no longer be allowed to write laws or ordnances that force you to pay your taxes, even if you live in Sandoval County and reap the benefits of the paved roads, street lights, police and other services that cost the county? According to Sandoval County Commissioner David Heil, that’s the fundamental idea behind a proposal put forth by the Sandoval County Commissioners last night. “If you are happy with their service, why wouldn’t you continue to support them,” said Commissioner Heil at the meeting held on October 5, 2017 at the Sandoval County Admin Building. His statement may be morally correct, but most people would definitely stop paying anything they don’t have to pay, regardless of the level of service. This all sounds unbelievable, right? It’s crazy, but instead of taxes, the commissioners were actually talking about contractual service fees being paid to Unions.

There was a Sandoval County Commissioners meeting held last night (See Photos Here) and unfortunately, 4 of the 5 commissioners publicly expressed their desire to pass a RTW ordinance that will prevent future negotiated contracts between the employer and the employees, from agreeing to have the all employees of that negotiated contract, pay their fair share to negotiate/administer it. This is BIG GOVERNMENT at work again as they plan to pass a law that tells the employer how to run their business and interact with their employees collectively. If the government can tell the employer what they can and cannot negotiate in their contracts with the employee’s, what’s next? In the future, they might try to pass legislation where you can’t pay your workers more than $19 an hour because NM needs to be able to attract businesses to the state. You may scoff, but this is a disturbing trend in America that is only going to get worse if people don’t stand up and say NO!

One of the Sandoval commissioners, James F. Holden-Rhodes, said last night that the Labor Movement might have been needed in the 1930’s and 40’s but eluded that now unions have too much power, and need to be taken down a notch, calling the Teamsters “goombahs” and blamed teachers for “the absolute disaster of our American schools today.” The crowd, which was about 99% working class New Mexicans, voiced their disgust with his insulting personal attacks and obvious blatant pronounced bias. When Commission Chairman Don Chapman threatened to clear the room, about a third left in protest of the Mr. Holden-Rhodes incendiary comments. I was at that meeting and he looked directly at me when he called Teamsters goombahs. I am a proud Teamster and I was very insulted. Melissa Malcom, who is the Movie Productions Agent for Teamsters Local 492 and also an Italian-American was there as well, and took personal offence to the Italian racial slur. I don’t have personal knowledge of what may have happened with the mafia and unions last century, but I can testify that is not this generations Teamsters!

Less than 7% of private sector jobs in America are Union, so why are these commissioners so concerned about such a small minority of workers? Because Unions raise the bar for all workers, including for non-union workers; and big businesses don’t want the bar raised, in fact they want to lower it more. NM already has low wages compared to other states, how low can we go?

Example; if there is a Union grocery store paying good wages and benefits, the non-union grocery store down the street must pay comparable wages or they won’t be able to retain their workforce. Employee turnover costs the employer lots of money and headaches. The non-union grocery store must weigh the cost of hiring/retraining new employees verses offering a competitive pay package to retain them.

Big Business groups like “Americans for prosperity” are betting that if they can get rid of the unions, the huge corporations that fund that group will benefit because the bar will be lowered and they will save money. You can’t blame them for wanting to save money, but unfortunately, the way they are going about saving money means the worker is subsidizing the company’s savings. It also means there will be more people that are working full time but will qualify for welfare. That is forcing BIG GOVERNMENT to subsidize the employer’s low wages with welfare payments to the company’s workers. There are plenty of non-union jobs but when someone applies at a Union company, it’s because of the superior wage & benefits. Unions need the service fees to continue to negotiate those superior packages, just like the Sandoval County needs everyone to pay their taxes or they cannot continue to pave the roads and pay for police.

Last night, all 5 Sandoval County commissioners stated the need to do something to bring jobs to the county and 4 of them are willing to lower the wages of workers to get those jobs here. This may or may not be their intention but it will definitely be the end result over time. It is simple market force economics. If people are willing to work for less to get a job, the free market will offer less. If they all stand up collectively, they will push the free market towards paying more.

Sandoval Commissioners also threw out a lot of fuzzy numbers, so I did the same when I was allowed to speak, by bringing up that there are plenty of counties in RTW states that have high unemployment like Yuma AZ at 18.6% which has a population close to Sandoval County. Comparing Sandoval to Phoenix, Houston, or Denver is absurd. The point being that RTW is not the answer to all of the counties problems, if it were, all counties similar in size to Sandoval in RTW states would be thriving. The real issue for companies is how much tax incentives the community is willing to bear and is there a suitable, trained, educated, workforce available to hire. Google the top reasons companies have publicly stated they relocated, they are; better pool of employees, tax breaks/incentives, the current location is declining, lower costs, better quality of life, and the need to upgrade facilities. Companies may privately say they prefer a RTW environment to politicians, but it is rarely the actual main focus.

Does NM want a company that says; ‘we need an environment where we can take advantage of low wages and no demand for a benefit package of any kind’. That is why companies move to Mexico and China. Maybe the government should just mirror all the laws and regulations of China. Maybe pass laws that allow companies to pay workers $2 for a 16 hour work day. I am sure that would bring billions of jobs here. Let’s have a race to the bottom, and see who can get there first!!!!! We can all work 80 hours a week and still qualify for welfare and food stamps, but at least we will all have jobs.

UPS and UPS Freight Negotiations-UPDATE

From the IBT UPS National Negotiating Committee, September 28, 2017

Earlier this week, the Teamsters UPS and UPS Freight National Negotiating Committees met in the Washington DC area to review contract proposals received from members.

With the record number of contract proposals submitted and reviewed this week it is clear that many issues are at stake in the upcoming negotiations.

Pension plan and health and welfare issues in many areas, part-time start rates, ongoing harassment, excessive hours throughout the year (9.5), increasing size and weight of the average shipment and subcontracting of feeder work were among the many issues covered in proposals reviewed by the UPS National Negotiating Committee.

On the UPS Freight side, subcontracting, blackout weeks, protecting health benefits and pensions, and excessive overtime were among the many issues raised in member proposals.

Both Committees are now tasked with developing comprehensive proposals to prepare for the start of negotiations.

On October 1, the Two-Person review meetings will be held in the Washington DC area which representatives from all UPS and UPS Freight Locals will review the results of the screenings held earlier this week.

In the meantime, supplemental negotiations are slated to begin next month. There will be a break in meetings during peak season as many of the Company’s labor representatives typically take part in peak season operations.

Next week, the Teamsters National UPS and UPS Freight Grievance Committees will meet October 2 in Seattle, Washington for the grievance panel hearings.