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Teamsters out at Southern California trucking company; other votes mixed

Union won’t fight petition to NLRB asking for decertification vote

The Teamsters were decertified at a SoCal trucking company. (Photo: Shutterstock)

The Teamsters have been pushed out from their representation of employees at Dependable Highway Express, an LTL and truckload carrier based in Southern California that’s been in business since 1950.

Rank-and-file workers at Dependable never had an opportunity to vote on rejecting the representation. Instead, employee John Cwiek filed a union decertification petition last month with the National Labor Relations Board asking for a vote that would end the Teamsters’ representation. The number of workers in the union, Teamsters Local 63, was not immediately available.

But before the NLRB could rule on the decertification request, the Teamsters filed a Disclaimer of Interest with the agency, effectively giving up any opportunity to fight the effort and ending the representation.

Like many who have led decertification efforts aimed at the Teamsters and other unions, Cwiek had the backing of the National Right to Work Foundation, which has supported other decertification efforts that have sometimes resulted in Teamsters decertification. 


The decertification vote at Dependable Express is just one of several union representation votes in the past six weeks that in some cases resulted in workers choosing to be represented by a union and in others rejecting representation. The Teamsters won one of those elections and lost another, according to NLRB reports of unionization elections:

  • A small group of drivers at LTL carrier Hot Line Freight Systems’ facility in Milwaukee voted 5-0 on March 21 to be represented by the Teamsters.

Other logistics-focused union representation elections have been mostly losses for organized labor. Per the NLRB, here are some recent election results:

  • An Ohio company, Exel Inc., which does business as DHL Supply Chain, saw a group of workers overwhelmingly reject representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 75. There were 183 eligible workers for the March 28 vote; 113 voted against the union.
  • A group of drivers working out of the BNSF terminal in Thayer, Missouri, unanimously voted against representation on March 27. The employer is RailCrew Express LLC. The union seeking to represent them was the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

What’s notable about the votes is how many representation elections deal with such a small number of workers. While the Exel vote had 183 eligible voters, the Teamsters win at Hot Line Freight Systems in Milwaukee had five.

A spokeswoman for the Teamsters declined comment on the Dependable Highway vote.


Although the size of the workforce represented by the Teamsters at Dependable was not immediately available, a statement released by the National Right to Work Foundation said the petition to the NLRB organized by Cwiek had signatures from about two-thirds of the employees. Signatures totaling 30% of the workforce are needed for the NLRB to declare a decertification vote.

The statement by the foundation recapped conflict between the union and Cwiek. “Teamsters union officials stirred tension in the workplace by threatening Cwiek, who in January sent letters to his coworkers containing publicly-available Department of Labor data on Teamsters bosses’ salaries,” the foundation said. “In retaliation for Cwiek sending the letters, a union official appeared at Cwiek’s workplace the next day, made accusations against him, and threatened that Cwiek wouldn’t be working at Dependable Highway Express by the next contract period.”

That letter that had the pay levels of some Teamsters officials said the current three-year contract at Dependable was set to expire May 31.

More articles by John Kingston

Teamsters, Anheuser Busch reach new 5-year contract

A first for Werner: Small group of workers votes to unionize

Teamsters celebrate NLRB decision on STG Logistics, see path to greater unionization


16 Comments

  1. Jones

    Too bad YELLOW rank and file members didn’t step up and save their jobs. In the end, it must be good for both parties to prosper.

  2. Freight Zippy

    The Teamsters could not organize a 1 car funeral.
    At one point virtually ever LTL and most FTL carriers were teamster jobs.
    Today 2 remain.
    From more than 450,000 LTL Teamsters in more than 1,000 carriers to 15,000 at 2?????
    No one need unions any more…
    Much like steam locomotives, ice boxes or coal stoves unions are relics of the past

  3. Dano Dicius

    DHE has recently agreed to partner with Knight Swift LTL subsidiaries AAA Cooper and Midwest Motor Express. Perhaps the Teamsters needed to go away before KNX made any attempt to acquire DHE.

  4. John Francis POTTS

    Why did your management publication not mention the number of NLRB elections each year wherein employees petition to be represented by a union because management does not address thwir concerns rather than focus on a small number of desertification petitions?

  5. Mike

    I witnessed how Teamsters methods ruined Consolidated Frieghtways . There was absolutely no attempt at any dialog to save the Company and thousands of Jobs . The consequence pushed many families into ruin also . Unions must be responsible to the rank and file first and foremost in and any all issues . That responsibility means Truthful and Open dialog that leads to Prosperity for Both the Employees and the Company. Maybe a kind of Constitution for American Unions can be created that shows a path way for success. It’s very hard to see and go through , for anyone that has a family. I was a inbound Dock Supervisor back then and was able to call in all my markers finding as many jobs as I could , but it still was not enough. We were a Profit run Terminal that was closed because the Union did not put its members first .

  6. Bob Moler

    Teamsters, Anheuser Busch, UPS seem.to be able to work together for Good Benefits and Wages. This must be just a little Podunk company who has a Whine and No profit. They’ll go Belly up. Their employees will be Social recipients.
    Service Employees International Union is the Biggest in California
    Thanks to UWUA-604, ICWU-37 I have 2 pensions. My dad retired from the Teamsters with a Good pension.
    United U Bargain, divided U Beg.
    Good Luck👍✝️✝️🇺🇸

Comments are closed.

John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.