Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
The Teamsters union's long and colorful history has included its share of moments that transcend labor-management relations and find their way into cultural lore. The race to elect the union's next general president could become one of those moments.
Consider the candidates, whose intersecting story lines seem straight out of central casting:
The incumbent, a 70-year-old Detroit native whose last name is virtually synonymous with organized labor. Drawing on the power and resources of the office, he is vying for his third full term at the union his late father built into an entity as powerful as it was controversial.
A 54-year-old single mother of two with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. A child of privilege who quit college at 21 for what became a 33-year Teamster career, she is running as a virtual one-woman band to become the first female president in the union's 108-year history.
A salty-tongued 59-year-old ex-Marine, a Wisconsin native with 39 years at the Teamsters. Currently an international vice president and a former ally of the incumbent before splitting off in 2010, he now mostly swears at him instead of by him.
About 1,800 delegates are meeting at the Teamsters annual convention in Las Vegas, where today they will nominate candidates to run in the general election. Barring an unexpected turn of events, James P. Hoffa; Alexandra (Sandy) Pope, and Fred Gegare will garner enough votes to qualify for the nomination. The ballots go out in October and will be counted in November. By then, the three nominees will likely be covered with welts from what is destined to be a bare-knuckled affair.
The Pope and Gegare teams have framed the election as a referendum on Hoffa's leadership, charging Hoffa runs the union from the top down and routinely ignores local concerns, and has jettisoned long-time associates in favor of high-priced consultants with little knowledge of labor.
"He doesn't want to listen to anyone who has experience," says Gegare, who in 1999 ran as a vice president on Hoffa's slate during his first successful presidential push. "You don't turn in your old friends for new ones."
Gegare, who among other positions is chairman of the board of trustees at the union's influential Central States pension fund, claims he brings experience and support that Pope lacks, as well as a change from the status quo represented by Hoffa. "When I look at my résumé, I don't see how anyone can beat me," he says.
Pope, who in 2006 was named number two on an opposition slate that was eventually defeated by Hoffa, hopes to gain traction this time by contrasting her years as a field representative and president for the past six years of Local 805 in New York with Hoffa's lack of in-the-trenches experience.
"I've been in the thick of it for quite a while, and I feel Hoffa has been above it all, always," she says. "He was never a shop steward or a local officer, and he has totally removed himself."
The Hoffa camp, which is blanketing the Internet with campaign ads (a website for hiking trails in Georgia shows a campaign ad with Hoffa's name adorning the side of a 53-foot trailer), argues its candidate brings unmatched qualifications from his background as a labor lawyer, the knowledge base gained from growing up in a prominent union family, and his 12 years' experience as Teamster president. They dismiss Pope's candidacy as a pipe dream fueled by little more than human interest. They claim that she has virtually no funds to conduct a serious campaign and that she is unqualified to run the Teamsters after mismanaging her local's finances to the point of near-insolvency.
Hoffa's supporters acknowledge Gegare's level of experience but say his vitriolic comments about Hoffa ring hollow given that he supported the general president on almost every issue before breaking away from him.
"Gegare never spoke out against anything," says Richard Leebove, a senior adviser to the Hoffa campaign. The campaign did not make Hoffa available for an interview.
The Hoffa campaign points to such successes as his role in keeping less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier YRC Worldwide Inc. afloat—and preserving 25,000 to 30,000 Teamster jobs—as the company teetered on the abyss through 2009. The campaign also touts the organizing of 10,000 to 12,000 members of UPS Freight, which was known as Overnite Transportation prior to UPS's 2005 acquisition of Overnite.
Gegare and Pope argue that UPS Freight was not organized as part of the National Master Freight Agreement (NMFA), which covers unionized LTL carriers, and that its union members' wages started as much as $11 an hour below NMFA carriers like YRC and ABF Freight System Inc. Leebove declined comment on the specifics of any wage gap, but says he doesn't believe the UPS Freight wages were "significantly different" from its rivals'. Leebove adds that UPS Freight workers will receive wage increases in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
Fading relevance
The campaign will play out against the fading relevance of Teamster labor in the transportation industry. While overall Teamster membership has dropped from 2 million to 1.4 million, the freight division's rolls have plummeted from about 500,000 in the late 1970s to about 50,000 to 60,000 today. The division, once considered the union's core, has been weakened by hundreds of bankruptcies among unionized carriers and the growing reliance on non-union labor. About half of the division's members work at YRC, a company that remains financially fragile.
The candidates have all vowed to re-energize the freight division. However, they have so far pledged to do little more than step up organizing efforts at non-union carriers like FedEx Corp.'s ground parcel and LTL divisions, a strategy that has gone nowhere in the past. There is talk about organizing the thousands of owner-operator independent drivers operating around the country, especially at the nation's ports, where they have strong drayage operations. However, with no large employer to focus on, such organizing efforts would be fragmented and perhaps futile.
Pope says she would examine the expanding relationship between UPS and the U.S. Postal Service, under which UPS turns over shipments to the post office for deliveries to mostly remote destinations. The agreement, made possible by the requirement that USPS serve every U.S. address, allows UPS to reach more customers without the expense of dispatching its own drivers. However, Pope says the compact violates the Teamster contract and threatens traditional Teamster jobs in regions of the country already hard-hit by the recession.
Ace in the 'Hall'
Unlike Hoffa and Gegare, who are running with a slate of candidates, Pope is going it alone. She has no slate of officers, and relies on a staff that, as recently as May, consisted of two part-timers and staff time donated by Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), a dissident group that supports her candidacy. Pope says she has a large grass-roots volunteer network and holds conference calls at nights and on weekends with Teamster members nationwide. She says that she will rely on social networking tools to build critical mass.
In 1991, TDU backed the candidacy of the late Ron Carey, who was elected president in a stunning upset. While Pope and TDU hope lightning can strike twice, Leebove of the Hoffa camp says the comparisons between the two eras don't stand up to scrutiny.
For one, Carey ran against a splintered field after the incumbent at the time, William McCarthy, declined to seek another term. By contrast, Pope is facing a two-time incumbent in Hoffa, Leebove says.
In addition, Carey, as a long-time UPS employee, built on a groundswell of support among the company's rank and file, Leebove says. Pope doesn't have that embedded base, Leebove claims. Carey also had about 12,000 members in his local—Local 804 in New York—while Pope has slightly more than 1,000 members in hers, he adds.
"Ron Carey was by far a more significant player than Sandy Pope," Leebove says.
In a nod to the importance of nearly 250,000 unionized UPS workers, Hoffa has named as his running mate Ken Hall, who for years was director of the Teamsters' small parcel division and was one of the architects of a 1997 job action that shut down UPS for 15 days.
Leebove says Hall is "regarded as a hero" by workers at UPS and throughout the union for standing up to the Atlanta-based giant and still wields considerable influence. The choice of Hall is "a major game changer," he says.
Ken Paff, TDU's national organizer, agrees that Hall's connection with UPS Teamsters was a key factor in his selection as Hoffa's number two. However, Paff says the Hoffa campaign may be misreading the rank and file's likely reception of Hall, contending the most recent UPS contact, negotiated in 2007, was "not that popular" with members.
A full agenda
The winner of the November election takes the chair in January 2012 and almost immediately will need to gear up for events in 2013 that could chart the union's course for years to come: negotiating new contracts for workers at UPS's small-package operations, at UPS's LTL division, and at YRC. The three contracts combined will affect about 275,000 members, equal to nearly 20 percent of Teamster membership.
"UPS and the NMFA are the heart of the union, and it's what everybody will be watching," Pope says.
One person who will certainly be watching is Scott Davis, UPS's chairman and CEO, who will oversee the upcoming 2013 contract negotiations. In light of UPS's tradition of limiting its chairmen to negotiating only one Teamster contract during their tenure, this will be Davis's one shot.
Davis, for his part, seems happy with the way things are. "The relationship with the Teamsters is better than it's ever been before," he told an analyst group in June.
Supply chains are poised for accelerated adoption of mobile robots and drones as those technologies mature and companies focus on implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and automation across their logistics operations.
That’s according to data from Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Mobile Robots and Drones, released this week. The report shows that several mobile robotics technologies will mature over the next two to five years, and also identifies breakthrough and rising technologies set to have an impact further out.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle is a graphical depiction of a common pattern that arises with each new technology or innovation through five phases of maturity and adoption. Chief supply chain officers can use the research to find robotic solutions that meet their needs, according to Gartner.
Gartner, Inc.
The mobile robotic technologies set to mature over the next two to five years are: collaborative in-aisle picking robots, light-cargo delivery robots, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for transport, mobile robotic goods-to-person systems, and robotic cube storage systems.
“As organizations look to further improve logistic operations, support automation and augment humans in various jobs, supply chain leaders have turned to mobile robots to support their strategy,” Dwight Klappich, VP analyst and Gartner fellow with the Gartner Supply Chain practice, said in a statement announcing the findings. “Mobile robots are continuing to evolve, becoming more powerful and practical, thus paving the way for continued technology innovation.”
Technologies that are on the rise include autonomous data collection and inspection technologies, which are expected to deliver benefits over the next five to 10 years. These include solutions like indoor-flying drones, which utilize AI-enabled vision or RFID to help with time-consuming inventory management, inspection, and surveillance tasks. The technology can also alleviate safety concerns that arise in warehouses, such as workers counting inventory in hard-to-reach places.
“Automating labor-intensive tasks can provide notable benefits,” Klappich said. “With AI capabilities increasingly embedded in mobile robots and drones, the potential to function unaided and adapt to environments will make it possible to support a growing number of use cases.”
Humanoid robots—which resemble the human body in shape—are among the technologies in the breakthrough stage, meaning that they are expected to have a transformational effect on supply chains, but their mainstream adoption could take 10 years or more.
“For supply chains with high-volume and predictable processes, humanoid robots have the potential to enhance or supplement the supply chain workforce,” Klappich also said. “However, while the pace of innovation is encouraging, the industry is years away from general-purpose humanoid robots being used in more complex retail and industrial environments.”
An eight-year veteran of the Georgia company, Hakala will begin his new role on January 1, when the current CEO, Tero Peltomäki, will retire after a long and noteworthy career, continuing as a member of the board of directors, Cimcorp said.
According to Hakala, automation is an inevitable course in Cimcorp’s core sectors, and the company’s end-to-end capabilities will be crucial for clients’ success. In the past, both the tire and grocery retail industries have automated individual machines and parts of their operations. In recent years, automation has spread throughout the facilities, as companies want to be able to see their entire operation with one look, utilize analytics, optimize processes, and lead with data.
“Cimcorp has always grown by starting small in the new business segments. We’ve created one solution first, and as we’ve gained more knowledge of our clients’ challenges, we have been able to expand,” Hakala said in a release. “In every phase, we aim to bring our experience to the table and even challenge the client’s initial perspective. We are interested in what our client does and how it could be done better and more efficiently.”
Although many shoppers will
return to physical stores this holiday season, online shopping remains a driving force behind peak-season shipping challenges, especially when it comes to the last mile. Consumers still want fast, free shipping if they can get it—without any delays or disruptions to their holiday deliveries.
One disruptor that gets a lot of headlines this time of year is package theft—committed by so-called “porch pirates.” These are thieves who snatch parcels from front stairs, side porches, and driveways in neighborhoods across the country. The problem adds up to billions of dollars in stolen merchandise each year—not to mention headaches for shippers, parcel delivery companies, and, of course, consumers.
Given the scope of the problem, it’s no wonder online shoppers are worried about it—especially during holiday season. In its annual report on package theft trends, released in October, the
security-focused research and product review firm Security.org found that:
17% of Americans had a package stolen in the past three months, with the typical stolen parcel worth about $50. Some 44% said they’d had a package taken at some point in their life.
Package thieves poached more than $8 billion in merchandise over the past year.
18% of adults said they’d had a package stolen that contained a gift for someone else.
Ahead of the holiday season, 88% of adults said they were worried about theft of online purchases, with more than a quarter saying they were “extremely” or “very” concerned.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are some low-tech steps consumers can take to help guard against porch piracy along with some high-tech logistics-focused innovations in the pipeline that can protect deliveries in the last mile. First, some common-sense advice on avoiding package theft from the Security.org research:
Install a doorbell camera, which is a relatively low-cost deterrent.
Bring packages inside promptly or arrange to have them delivered to a secure location if no one will be at home.
Consider using click-and-collect options when possible.
If the retailer allows you to specify delivery-time windows, consider doing so to avoid having packages sit outside for extended periods.
These steps may sound basic, but they are by no means a given: Fewer than half of Americans consider the timing of deliveries, less than a third have a doorbell camera, and nearly one-fifth take no precautions to prevent package theft, according to the research.
Tech vendors are stepping up to help. One example is
Arrive AI, which develops smart mailboxes for last-mile delivery and pickup. The company says its Mailbox-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform will revolutionize the last mile by building a network of parcel-storage boxes that can be accessed by people, drones, or robots. In a nutshell: Packages are placed into a weatherproof box via drone, robot, driverless carrier, or traditional delivery method—and no one other than the rightful owner can access it.
Although the platform is still in development, the company already offers solutions for business clients looking to secure high-value deliveries and sensitive shipments. The health-care industry is one example: Arrive AI offers secure drone delivery of medical supplies, prescriptions, lab samples, and the like to hospitals and other health-care facilities. The platform provides real-time tracking, chain-of-custody controls, and theft-prevention features. Arrive is conducting short-term deployments between logistics companies and health-care partners now, according to a company spokesperson.
The MaaS solution has a pretty high cool factor. And the common-sense best practices just seem like solid advice. Maybe combining both is the key to a more secure last mile—during peak shipping season and throughout the year as well.
The Boston-based enterprise software vendor Board has acquired the California company Prevedere, a provider of predictive planning technology, saying the move will integrate internal performance metrics with external economic intelligence.
According to Board, the combined technologies will integrate millions of external data points—ranging from macroeconomic indicators to AI-driven predictive models—to help companies build predictive models for critical planning needs, cutting costs by reducing inventory excess and optimizing logistics in response to global trade dynamics.
That is particularly valuable in today’s rapidly changing markets, where companies face evolving customer preferences and economic shifts, the company said. “Our customers spend significant time analyzing internal data but often lack visibility into how external factors might impact their planning,” Jeff Casale, CEO of Board, said in a release. “By integrating Prevedere, we eliminate those blind spots, equipping executives with a complete view of their operating environment. This empowers them to respond dynamically to market changes and make informed decisions that drive competitive advantage.”
Material handling automation provider Vecna Robotics today named Karl Iagnemma as its new CEO and announced $14.5 million in additional funding from existing investors, the Waltham, Massachusetts firm said.
The fresh funding is earmarked to accelerate technology and product enhancements to address the automation needs of operators in automotive, general manufacturing, and high-volume warehousing.
Iagnemma comes to the company after roles as an MIT researcher and inventor, and with leadership titles including co-founder and CEO of autonomous vehicle technology company nuTonomy. The tier 1 supplier Aptiv acquired Aptiv in 2017 for $450 million, and named Iagnemma as founding CEO of Motional, its $4 billion robotaxi joint venture with automaker Hyundai Motor Group.
“Automation in logistics today is similar to the current state of robotaxis, in that there is a massive market opportunity but little market penetration,” Iagnemma said in a release. “I join Vecna Robotics at an inflection point in the material handling market, where operators are poised to adopt automation at scale. Vecna is uniquely positioned to shape the market with state-of-the-art technology and products that are easy to purchase, deploy, and operate reliably across many different workflows.”