50,000 Supporters Needed
May 20, 2015: The campaign to elect the next General President of the Teamsters Union is on. The first big test of the Teamsters United campaign is a summer petition drive to collect the required signatures to become officially accredited candidates. To get accreditation, 2.5 percent of the 1.3 million Teamsters across North America must sign the petition. Teamsters United has set a goal of 50,000 petition signatures by the end of August. Members are volunteering to get the job done. Accredited candidates get a computer...
NY Public Workers: Management to Represent Teamsters?
May 20, 2015: Hoffa’s newest International Trustee hires a boss to help run the Teamsters’ biggest local. Local 237 represents over 10,000 Teamsters at the New York City Housing Authority. So why would the local hire a NYCHA boss to a union post? Local 237 President Greg Floyd hired Kevin Norman, as the Special Assistant to the President, a top leadership position in the largest local in the Teamsters. Norman was previously in upper management at the New York City Housing Authority where he...
Carhaulers Kick Off National Network
(reprinted from www.TeamstersUnited.org) May 15, 2015: Over 300 carhaulers joined a Teamsters United campaign conference call on May 14 to talk about the national contract and the IBT election. General President candidate Tim Sylvester announced that John Thyer is joining the Teamsters United slate. Thyer, the principal officer of St Louis Local 604, has been a Teamster officer for two decades and a carhauler for nearly four decades. “He is everything that Hoffa isn’t,” Sylvester said. Members got to...
Central States Pension Fund: $17.9 Billion
May 15, 2015: The 2014 financial report on the Central States Pension Fund shows that the fund’s money manager – Northern Trust -- performed rather poorly last year, causing the fund to get a sub-par return of 6.86% on investments. The fund’s assets declined to $17.9 billion. Despite losses in 2014, the fund still has net growth over the past six years, since the end of 2008 when the fund had $17.3 billion in assets....
Senators Call on Treasury Dept to Slow the Rush to Pension Cuts
May 15, 2015: Seven Senators have written to Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew calling on him to vigorously enforce retiree and worker rights before any pensions are cut under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act passed last December. US Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) issued a statement and the letter today calling for guidelines to prevent a rush to pension cuts. The Central States Pension Fund is moving quickly to try to implement cuts, without careful...
Pension Fund says Hoffa’s Kroger Deal is Illegal
May 7, 2015: The Central States Pension Fund has decisively rejected a proposed deal between the Hoffa administration and the Kroger Co which would pull all Kroger Teamsters out of the fund, without even paying the required withdrawal penalty. In a letter to the IBT and Kroger, Central States Director Thomas Nyhan pointedly reminds them that federal law requires cash payment of withdrawal liability before an employer can pull out of a union pension fund....
Pension Advocates Call for Hearings on Pension Cuts
April 29, 2015: Today the Pension Rights Center presented a call for action to the US House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, calling for hearings on the devastating impact of pension cutbacks authorized by December 2014 changes in pension law. Teamsters for a Democratic Union and the pension protection movement support this call, and will work to advance legislation to correct the injustices of the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act (MPRA) passed in December. The...
Sign the Petition for Independent Audit of Pension Fund
April 29, 2015. Teamsters and retirees have launched a petition campaign calling on the Central States Trustees and IBT President James Hoffa to support an independent actuarial audit of the Central States Pension Fund to determine the extent and necessity of pending benefit cuts. Teamsters are demanding a “second opinion” with experts chosen by the pension protection committees across the region, prior to any rollout of the so-called “rescue plan” by the Fund. The “rescue...
UPS Profits Climb
April 28, 2015: UPS announced it hauled in over $1 billion in profits in the first quarter. The numbers show that harassment and outsourcing are paying big dividends for UPS execs, at a steep price for UPS Teamsters. Hoffa and Ken Hall bragged the new contract would improve problems with harassment and Surepost. But that talk isn’t backed up by the numbers. UPS’s revenue was lower than expected, but profits were higher. That means that...
Does Hoffa want to Destroy the Central States Pension Fund?
April 24, 2015: The Hoffa administration is making a deal to let Kroger pull 7,000 Teamsters out of the Central States Pension Plan, and move them into a Kroger pension plan. Is Hoffa out to destroy the pension fund his father set-up, or does he just sign any deal the employer wants? This disastrous move comes as the trustees of the Central States Plan are moving to cut the pensions of some 300,000 retirees and...