TEAMSTERS 174 | We returned to the bargaining table with Allied and faced a big challenge. We had language in the expiring contract which rolled unused maintenance of benefits (MOB) money forward into the successor agreement. The problem was we had a fundamental disagreement over how the money was calculated. We used a straight dollar formula, calculating the unused MOB money per month for each year of the expiring contract and coming up with a dollars and cents per hour figure available per member. The Company calculated what they had actually saved each year and put that money in a pot. The two different methods put us somewhere between 1 and 2 million dollars apart.
We met for half a day on the 24th, and again on the day the contract expired. We started that morning at 8 a.m. and reached a tentative agreement somewhere between 2 and 2:30 a.m. the following day. It was a long and tense day, and there were times when each side was ready to walk away from the table. With the assistance of a federal mediator, who kept us talking instead of walking, we were able to reach an agreement. It was ratified overwhelmingly on Saturday, April 12.