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Port and freight drivers joined union leaders from the U.S. and Europe Wednesday calling on XPO Logistics to address serious labor issues. They came to the XPO shareholders meeting in Greenwich Connecticut to enter the meting ad request a meeting with XPO CEO Bradley Jacobs.
The Teamsters say, “XPO port and rail drivers are fighting company wage theft in excess of $200 million because of persistent misclassification as independent contractors.”
The Teamsters’ Fred Potter says, “They label ‘em as independent contractors but there’s nothing independent about ‘em. XPO has lost every case. And every investigation by any governmental agency, any court case, they have lost every one of ‘em and found that the workers are mis-classified. There have been a number of strikes in Los Angeles and San Diego because the workers are standing up for their rights and the company’s violated the National Labor Relations Act. So we ask the company to address these issues and address the concerns of the employees to recognize their right to join or form a union.”
Miami XPO driver Juan Cepero says XPO is also using sub-contractors to take work from full-time XPO workers.
“The company or management keeps doin’ the same thing over and over. They keep hiring sub-contractors and basically taking our food away.”
Thierry Mayer is a French XPO driver and member of the CGT union. “Unfortunately it appears that financial interests trump human interests in this company. It’s apparent that human concerns are not the priority of the company and our goal is to reverse that tendency within the company. The human values must come before the value of capital.”
The drivers and union leaders say a new family has been created globally among unions at XPO to convince the company to honor labor rights.
LIUNA Wins $55 Million in Back Overtime Pay For Indiana Health Service Workers
Workers cheated out of overtime compensation at the Indian Health Service will soon be applying for the money they are owed.
The Laborer’s International Union of North America (LIUNA) says a $55 million IHS Justice Fund is the culmination of seven years of litigation and negotiations by the union on behalf of IHS workers cheated out of overtime pay between 2006 and 2015.
Meetings are being held later this month to begin getting the money to the workers. IHS violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by not paying the workers what they were owed.
LIUNA represents about 11,000 Indian Health Service workers.