Local 250 Drives Up Earnings for Part-Time Workers

January 24, 2018

UE Local 250 members ratified a new five-year agreement with their employer, The Hertz Corporation, on Monday, January 15, 2018. Local 250 members drive Hertz rental cars between the company distribution center at Boston’s Logan airport and dozens of satellite locations throughout New England.

Local 250’s approximately one-hundred member bargaining unit is comprised of Hertz transporters who work as part-time, casual employees. The Logan transporters are paid on a piece-work system that provides them a fixed amount for each of the more than fifty locations they service. The local’s agreement with Hertz provides great flexibility in scheduling that allows transporters to set their own hours and work as little as once every two weeks to maintain employment.

Hertz has faced significant competition in recent years due to the advent of ridesourcing services like Lyft and Uber. Observing the company in a period of financial uncertainty, Local 250 made the strategic decision last year to allow its previous collective bargaining agreement to renew for an additional year without demanding negotiations. The local believed that Hertz would rebound in 2017 and that the company would be in a better position to provide more substantial wage increases this year. As it happened, 2017 saw Hertz rentals surge by roughly 15% over the previous year as the company opened more than fifty new rental counters at Pep Boys locations and began leasing vehicles to Lyft drivers at discounted rates.

In its 2012 contract, Local 250 successfully eliminated a two-tier rate system which had half of the bargaining unit earning 20% less than their more senior coworkers. In exchange, the local had accepted modest adjustments to trip rates which totaled only 3% over five years. This made meaningful increases to trip rates the local’s top priority in 2018.

Local 250’s bargaining committee used a dual approach to reach their earnings goals, proposing large up-front increases for the most underpriced drives and flat percentage increases for all other trips. In the end, they were able to secure immediate increases of 13% to 26% for drives to nine airports throughout the region, with adjustments to all other trips of 2.5% in the first year and 2% for all remaining years. These increases will raise average earnings to over $20 per hour over the course of the agreement.

Other gains the local made during bargaining include a strengthened grievance procedure with firm timelines for management responses and the elimination of the last remaining two-tier rules which allowed the company to schedule hours in some circumstances for employees hired after 2007.

The bargaining committee consisted of Chief Steward Skip Murray, Vice President Walter Carbone, Steward and Grievance Coordinator Rich Wetherbee, and Dean Zero. They were assisted by Field Organizer Zachary Knipe.

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