August 12, 2014
By Neal Tepel
Washington, DC – The final remaining contract rider between the Teamsters Express Division National Union Negotiating Committee and domestic air freight company AEI has been approved. With the passage of the local rider, the national agreement is now fully ratified. The contract, which runs through Dec. 31, 2016, covers about 800 Teamsters across the U.S. employed by AEI, the domestic air freight forwarding arm of DHL Global Forwarding. The previous agreement had been extended to allow the ratification process to be completed.
"We're pleased that almost a year's worth of work on this new contract has come to fruition and has been now overwhelmingly ratified by our members at AEI," said William Hamilton, Express Division Director and Eastern Region International Vice President. "Faced with the largest reorganization in its history, AEI presented the union with some real bargaining challenges and the committee and Locals stepped up to meet them."
Operational changes contained in the new agreement will likely be implemented over the next several months as the company adopts its New Forwarding Environment (NFE) initiative. In addition to containing unprecedented job security language designed to protect members while the company undertakes its global reorganization, the new agreement calls for a 50 cent per hour wage increases each January along with $1 per hour benefit increases annually to keep the respective health, welfare and pension plans as strong as possible.
