Dec. 31 – ANR Advance Transportation, Milwaukee, may be in trouble after a Teamsters strike crippled the LTL carrier. Despite the fact that picketing stopped on Dec. 18, less than two weeks after it started, ANR has not yet resumed operations, leading to speculation that it will fold for good.

Nearly 1,400 Teamster drivers and dock workers went on strike Dec. 8 after months of negotiations broke down in November. The strike totally shut down the company.
As early as the second day of the strike, ANR spokesmen said erosion of the company’s customer base could be irreversible if the strike continued indefinitely. Major LTL carriers found out during the 1994 Teamsters strike that once customers divert business to non-union trucking companies, it’s hard to get that business back.
By Dec. 16, ANR started notifying its employees that they would be laid off in 60 days through Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notices. Late in the day on Dec. 18, the Teamsters ordered a halt to the picketing, but the company has not yet resumed operations.
An article on the front page of the Dec. 23 Journal of Commerce said ANR Advance had “shut its doors rather than yield to the Teamsters.” ANR Vice President of Labor Melvin Nensel responded with denials in a letter to JOC reporter Gregory Johnson.
“Certainly the Teamster strike has cripples us and may make resumption of operations a tremendous task, but you are grossly inaccurate in saying ANR Advance ‘has shut its doors,’” Nensel wrote.