Teamsters Expand Organizing at XPO Logistics

September 22, 2016 
By Steven Wishnia and Neal Tepel

New Haven, C0 – The Teamsters union is expanding efforts to organize workers at one of the nation’s fastest-growing shipping-logistics companies. Local 179 filed a union-representation petition with the National Labor Relations Board Sept.

14 for 72 truck drivers at an XPO “less-than-truckload” terminal in Aurora, Illinois, and Local 443 filed one for 125 workers at an XPO warehouse in New Haven, Connecticut. “The workers at XPO Logistics in Connecticut play a key role in the company’s success, yet they are treated poorly and receive low wages,” said Steve Vairma, director of the Teamsters Warehouse Division. XPO has become the nation’s third-largest logistics firm over the past six years, with its acquisitions including Con-way, the second-largest less-than-truckload company after FedEx Freight, and Pacer Intermodal, a network of double-stack container rail cars, short-haul “drayage” operations, and port truckers the Teamsters say are wrongly classified as independent owner-operators. The union has won three representation elections since 2014 at truck terminals now owned by XPO, but have lost several at former Con-way sites. XPO sneered that the Teamsters were just trying to snag its employees to make up for their “significant declines in membership and credibility.” Read more