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Congratulations all around are due to the industry and labor officials who successfully crafted a four-year agreement last week to keep the nation’s autohaulers carrying vehicles between manufacturing plants and dealerships.

The agreement is an impressive start for James Hoffa, the new leader of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and his management team. The union negotiators managed to gain their primary objectives while being flexible, and realistic enough, to compromise with their company counterparts.

Management dropped demands for a two-tiered pay scale that would have had new workers receiving less than experienced ones, and gave up its drive to hire part-time workers — a win for the union. The union also won marked increases in its pension plan.

At the same time, company negotiators got additional flexibility in scheduling some workers — including having some employees work on weekends without paying premiums — and ended up agreeing to wage increases that are lower than the current national average for union contracts.

As was the case in last year’s National Master Freight Agreement talks, the union side was much less interested in maximizing wage increases than in pension and job security gains.

That a compromise was agreed to at a time when some observers expected Hoffa to spark at least a short strike to show his mettle bodes well for the future. It indicates this may turn out to be an era of extended labor peace in trucking. The National Master Freight Agreement, between the Teamsters and the nation’s largest less-than-truckload carriers, was negotiated last year when the union was in turmoil and the carriers were concerned that even the threat of a strike could divert freight to other carriers or transport modes.

This newest agreement — which must be ratified by the rank and file — paves the way for the autohaulers to move to regain market share they’ve lost to the railroads in recent years. Railroads now carry more than 70% of the nation’s automobile traffic, and auto-hauling represents one of the few areas outside of bulk commodities where railroads have taken substantial market share away from trucking.