April 2, 2014: Members of Los Angeles Local 396 are talking, networking and starting to raise money to put the rank and file power back in the drivers seat. Even former supporters of secretary treasurer Ron Herrera are climbing aboard the movement for change. Most of the 10,000 members of Local 396 work at UPS. Herrera showed his colors in the UPS contract; instead of working with members for a better contract, he sold every...

April 2, 2014: Local 745 members held a TDU meeting in El Paso, Texas to talk about enforcing their contracts, the future of the union and rebuilding Teamster Power. Teamsters in El Paso are members of Local 745 in Dallas which is 635 miles away! That kind of distance takes the “local” right out of local union. So members decided to cook up some Teamster Unity of their own and organized a TDU meeting in...

April 2, 2014: Hoffa and his number two Ken Hall raked in more than $300,000 a piece in total compensation last year according to the IBT LM-2 financial report reviewed by TDU. Hoffa gave himself a Cost of Living increase of $4,000. Most Teamsters don’t see anything resembling that. Hoffa’s “housing allowance” ballooned to $67,358, bringing his total compensation to $381,409.  Ken Hall also gets that outsized perk.  They work in the Marble Palace; do...

April 2, 2014: Legislation is expected to be introduced soon that would allow the Teamster Central States Plan and other “deeply troubled” pension plans to slash pensions. This makes the fight-back to stop this legislation and push for more positive alternatives all the more urgent. As TDU has reported over the past year, the National Coordinating Committee for Multi-Employer Plans (NCCMP) has been lobbying both the House and Senate for a bill that would revoke...

April 2, 2014: Teamsters are getting active to defend pensions and oppose legislation which would allow retiree benefits to be slashed. “We’ve formed a committee in the Cleveland area, and we’re going to make our voices heard,” said Alex Adams (speaking in the picture), retired past President of Local 407. “It starts with contacting Teamsters and retirees, who are worried about the future, and letting them know that something can be done if we get...

April 18, 2014: Thinking like an arbitrator will help you win your contract language grievances—even if you don’t go to arbitration. When a member, steward, or union rep prepares a contract language grievance, a useful skill is learning to “think like an arbitrator.” Almost all local Teamster contracts, and some national ones, have arbitration as the final step in the grievance procedure. So just as an attorney has to think like a judge, you need...

April 8, 2014: Three Teamsters who helped blaze the trail for Teamster reform have passed away. They had vision, courage and determination and put solidarity ahead of self-advancement. They, and Teamsters like them, built Teamsters for a Democratic Union. It’s up to us to carry on their legacy of organizing Teamster-to-Teamster to build a powerful, democratic union. Steve Kindred 1944 - 2013Founding TDU Member and Hell-raiser Steve was a founder of TDU in 1976 and...

March 31, 2014: Unlike many Teamsters, James Hoffa got a nice raise last year. His salary went up by $4,000 to $300,788. But there’s more: His “housing allowance” ballooned to $67,358, so his total compensation went up to $381,409. Ken Hall gets that outsized perk also; Halls’s total compensation was $301,519. Their appointees and International vice presidents got similar “cost of living” raises, according to the union’s LM-2 2013 financial report just filed with the...

March 28, 2014: Bus service is at a standstill, but solidarity is on the rise as a Teamster strike shutting down Vermont’s largest public transit system continues. More than 50 people spoke out at an Emergency Meeting of the City Council in Burlington, Vt. to discuss the strike at the Chittenden County Transit Authority which began on March 17.  The Council passed a resolution calling for a settlement that gets “drivers back to work with...

March 27, 2014: UPS has threatened 250 Local 804 members with termination. But politicians and the public are calling on the company to make a U-turn. On Feb. 26, UPS fired a union activist in violation of the grievance procedure. Two hundred fifty Local 804 members walked off the job in protest. UPS issued notices of termination notices to all of them. The company’s actions have drawn the ire of political leaders and the public....