Oak Harbor Freight Lines employs 1,300 workers in the Pacific Northwest region. On Monday, 600 of those employees walked off the job, striking against Oak Harbor for tactics used in contract negotiations.
Members claim that they were bullied and intimidated by Oak Harbor Freight. But Oak Harbor is not giving in to the potential loss of half its staff. A company spokesperson insists that the company’s contract disputes and ensuing strike will not interfere with customer deliveries. The company will use replacement workers and the remaining 700 employees to keep products moving and customers happy.
Here’s more, from Bizjournals.com:
- The walkout by Teamster Joint Council 28 came before the union presented a final contract to the company, according to a statement from Oak Harbor on its Web site.
- Aside from the 200 Oregon workers, the majority of the workers on strike come from Washington, with a limited number in Idaho, according to a Teamsters representative. Oak Harbor employs 1,300 workers, about 700 of which are not represented by a union, Hobby said.
- Al Hobart, president of the Teamsters Joint Council 28, said the union and the company have been in contract negotiations for 18 months. He said company representatives have started harassing some workers, and about five complaints have been filed in recent weeks with the National Labor Relations Board.
- He declined to describe the nature of the harassment, deferring to a yet-to-be scheduled hearing on the matter before the NLRB.
Read the full story here.
