August 9, 2013: Today is pay day—Do you know how much retro pay you are owed? From now until management pays you your retroactive pay, you would be wise to keep track of your hours and pay owed. It will be $.70 for each straight-time hour worked or owed due to vacation or holiday (Labor Day is coming up), and $1.05 for each overtime hour. Click here to download a handy calculator (in Microsoft Excel)...

August 6, 2013: The ballots are out in the mail, but active Teamsters in the Central Region and some other supplemental areas are saying Vote No. A leaflet distributed by a number of Teamsters says that "a unified rejection of the supplements will better position us to recover our lost vacation week, and possibly all or some of our lost wages." Bret Subsits, a Chicago Local 710 driver, has this message for fellow ABF Teamsters:...

August 4, 2013: In the 1990s Teamsters stood up to UPS, and won. August 4 makes the anniversary of the start of the victorious UPS strike — a lesson in rank and file power. On August 4, 1997, UPS Teamsters hit the streets at UPS. The '97 strike at UPS won the labor movement's biggest victory in decades. UPS hasn't changed much since 1997, but our Teamsters Union has. In 1997, UPS was making big...

UPDATED August 1, 2013: The ballots in the second-round vote on the ABF contract go out on August 6, and will be counted on August 28. Teamsters covered by the seven rejected supplements continue to be kept in the dark about what the IBT has done to improve the offer. We do know that in the Central road and cartage supplements, they made the most minor change imaginable: allowing Teamsters to split the days in...

The 17th Biennial Coalition of Labor Union Women Convention is taking place November 13-16 in Reno, Nevada. From their website... The women's movement and the labor movement are facing some of the biggest challenges in our history, with battles on every front. This is our opportunity to engage those in the labor movement and our friends who are not part of the labor movement and to learn how we can Move the Working Women's Agenda...

"We collected five sheets of petition signatures calling on Hoffa and Hall to help us make major improvements in the Central Region. "We work far too hard to earn the profits for UPS to be asked to accept a non-stellar contract." Stu Malcolm, Steward, Local 164, Jackson, Mich. Read more -- "The Choice at UPS: Believe in Hoffa-Hall or Believe in Yourself"

UPDATED July 30, 2013: Ken Hall's letter on UPS contract negotiations shows both the power of the Vote No movement and the IBT's determination to try to force through healthcare cuts. Hall's statement claims, "Because health care is contained in the National Agreement, another vote against the Supplement will not impact health care." At the same time, Hall says that improvements are being made to enhance TeamCare health benefits—something that Hall and many local officials...

July 29, 2013: Ken Hall and other Teamster negotiators are now promising to improve health benefits in the new Central States (TeamCare) plan for UPS Teamsters. In a July 29 letter to UPS Teamsters, Ken Hall promises that TeamCare Trustees are working on improvements in the plan, "in areas that we know our members are most concerned with." After UPS Teamsters rejected 18 supplements, in part because of the healthcare, members were told that the...

July 24, 2013: The IBT called union officers to Chicago today for a meeting on the ABF contract, but there was no meat on the bones. Absolutely nothing has been negotiated with the company since the rejection the Central Cartage and Road supplements, and it appears that the IBT has little intention of making real changes. They were more interested in bashing ABF Teamsters for voting No. IBT negotiator Gordon Sweeton told officers that he...

July 23, 2013: Today, UPS announced after-tax profits of $1.07 billion for the second quarter. The money is there for a better contract. In the first six months of the year, UPS made $2.11 billion. UPS expect profits to grow in the second half of the year by as much as 13 percent. Wall Street is crying that UPS profits are slightly down from the same period last year. The dip in earnings will cost...