Drivers from PTS getting back on the road
Cassens expanding into area after carhauler’s closing
Workers who lost their jobs when carhauler Performance Transportation Services closed its Niagara County terminal in June are starting to find new employment.
PTS, as the company was known, shut down June 13 amid severe financial problems and a strike by the Teamsters union.
The work that PTS handled for General Motors, Honda, Ford and Toyota through its Town of Lewiston terminal has been split among a mix of unionized and nonunionized companies. A total of 1,250 Teamster-represented workers were employed by PTS systemwide prior to the shutdown.
The demise of PTS opened the door for Cassens Transport, a unionized carhauler based in Illinois, to extend its reach into the Buffalo area.
So far, Cassens locally has hired 20 ex-PTS drivers, said Ken Nelligan, secretary-treasurer with Teamsters Local 449, which represents the former PTS employees. About 140 unionized drivers, mechanics and yard men, including about 20 workers who were out on Worker’s Compensation, were employed at the Witmer Road terminal when it closed.
Nelligan said he expects Cassens before long will need a total of about 50 drivers and six mechanics, as Cassens builds its local volume.
Cassens is temporarily operating from a West Seneca terminal run by another carhauler, Allied Automotive Group. Cassens plans to move into the Witmer Road terminal formerly used by PTS.
Allen Cassens, president of Cassens Transport, said he did not know exactly when Cassens would start using that site, saying he believed it first would need upgrades. He referred further questions about it to Cassens’ vice president of operations, Tim Walker, who did not return a call to comment Wednesday.
Cassens has picked up work that PTS did for Toyota locally, while Cassens and Allied each picked up a share of GM work handled by PTS.
In cases like the PTS shutdown, the Teamsters’ national contract calls for unionized carhaulers to hire workers displaced by the closing, in proportion to how much volume they add.
While Allied picked up additional work with GM as a result of PTS’s closing, its West Seneca site already had 18 people on layoff. Allied’s first obligation was to bring back its own laid-off workers to handle the increased workload.
Nelligan said he expects Cassens’ hiring needs will grow as the company gets established here. “They’ll go after more work,” he said. Plus, he added, Toyota this fall plans to open a RAV4 assembly plant in Ontario that will bolster the automaker’s volume of vehicles passing through the region.
The hiring of the ex-PTS workers by other carhaulers is good news for the Buffalo area economy, Nelligan said, since unionized drivers make $60,000 to $100,000 a year.
The Ford and Honda work that PTS had handled at the Witmer Road terminal was shifted to nonunion carhaulers, Nelligan said.
Some of the displaced PTS workers from the Lewiston site have moved on to jobs with other employers, Nelligan said. And he said he has helped some of the workers who were low on the seniority list with finding jobs at companies such as Yellow Freight.
“One way or another, I think we’re going to get all of these guys work,” he said.
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