January 23, 2013: Know your rights and stay informed with resources from TDU. Running for Local Union Office $20. This comprehensive guide covers building your team, campaign do's and don'ts, phone and email lists, flyers, mailers, websites, Facebook, fundraising, negative attacks, observing the vote count, and much more. Click here.   The Complete Union Steward's Guide $27.95. The indispensable survival manual for labor's frontline troops.Click here.   Grievances $8. The mechanics of the grievance procedure...

January 18, 2013: The annual TDU Convention will be the weekend of November 1-3, inChicago. The biggest Teamster educational and reform event of the year will once againbe hosted by the Chicago Chapter.Save the date now so you can join Teamsters from across the country who are organizingto win stronger contracts, enforcing our rights on the job and taking back our union.The Steering Committee of Teamsters for a Democratic Union made the decision to return...

January 16, 2013: Interstate Distributor Company agreed to pay $4.85 million and signed a consent order to settle a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of several employees. According to the EEOC's suit, if an employee needed more than 12 weeks of leave, Interstate automatically terminated them rather than determining if it would be reasonable to provide additional leave as an accommodation. This is an important point. Twelve weeks per...

January 16, 2013: Nearly 10,000 union school bus drivers and matrons are on strike across New York City to fight for critical safeguards that ensure children's safety and the rights of union workers. Mayor Bloomberg forced the strike by putting out bids that do not include safeguards, called the Employer Protection Provisions, that guarantee that school bus drivers and matrons are hired based on their seniority in the industry. The provisions ensure that the most experienced drivers...

January 16, 2013: UPS management always cracks down on discipline after peak. Drivers, protect yourselves when filling out your Motor Vehicle Driver Certification Form (MVDC). UPS is having drivers fill out the annual Motor Vehicle Driver Certification Form (MVDC).  January is also the time when management starts to increase write-ups and discipline.  A Center Manager who is looking for any excuse to exploit a mistake on an MVDC to discipline and even terminate a driver...

January 16, 2013: Once again a claim has been made regarding the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body in Michigan, some 38 years after his July 1975 murder. This time, it is from the one-time under-boss of the Detroit mafia, Tony Zerilli, so the FBI may be looking into it. Zerilli is claiming the body is on land owned by Jack Tocco, Zerilli’s cousin and enemy. And Zerilli is promising a forthcoming book (of course). If...

January 11, 2013: In the early 1900s workers in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts faced terrible working conditions toiling away 60 hours a week for very little pay. They were lodged in substandard and unaffordable housing and faced extreme poverty. These workers were largely immigrants, most of them women, even some children. For years the conditions continuously worsened. The workers decided they had enough and started to organize their neighborhoods block-by-block, and with the...

January 7, 2013: New York City is the latest battleground in corporate politicians’ war against workers. This latest assault is led by Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of NYC who got rich providing media services to Wall Street. NYC has faced budget problems ever since Bloomberg’s Wall Street buddies drove the economy over the cliff in 2008. Now Bloomberg, who has long resisted higher taxes on Wall Street, wants to balance the budget shortfall on...

January 7, 2013: UPS contract negotiations resume this week, Jan. 7-10 in Washington, D.C. General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall, our union's chief negotiator with UPS, has issued a memorandum to local unions that he is "outraged" at UPS's letter threatening to increase retiree healthcare costs for Teamsters in the company plan. Hall says the National Negotiating Committee is meeting and formulating a response. Click here for a report on UPS's threat to raise retiree healthcare costs...

January 4, 2013: UPS management is flexing its muscles in bargaining. In late December they sent a notice threatening thousands of Teamster retirees in the company healthcare plan with drastic payment hikes. UPS Teamsters need a pension increase, not a retiree healthcare hike. Teamster retirees in the company health plan pay $50/month for individual or family coverage. But UPS is threatening to raise premiums to $247.50/month for individuals, $495 for spouse or dependent coverage, or...