March 25, 2011: Hoffa turned his back on grocery Teamsters fighting the nonunion competition and 1,300 members in New Jersey have lost their jobs. Now hundreds more jobs are on the chopping block in Maryland/D.C. The time to fight is now. For more than a decade, the Hoffa administration has turned a blind eye to the growing nonunion threat in the warehouse distribution industry. Now Teamster members are paying the price. As we go to...

Michigan Teamsters Protest Anti-Union Legislation If we do not protest when they come for our neighbors’ union, no one will be left to protest when they come for our union. About 30 Local 299 members and retirees went to the state capital, Lansing, to protest the anti-union legislation on the agenda, joining up with about 1,500 other union members. We need more. Our union rights are under attack. Michigan and across the nation, no member...

March 25, 2011: Sandy Pope took on C&S and saved Teamster jobs by winning a groundbreaking neutrality agreement. Hoffa let that agreement expire—and Teamsters are paying the price. C&S has always been a threat to Teamster jobs. The difference is our union leadership used to fight this threat. When C&S first took over A&P’s distribution work in New Jersey in the 1990s, the International Union sent in Sandy Pope to deal with the threat. At...

March 25, 2011: Central States is totally eliminating early retirement for YRC Teamsters and dropping them into the rock bottom plan. Hoffa told YRC Teamsters to take givebacks. He never told them they would lose their already-earned pension credits. On March 22 the Central States Pension Fund made it official: they slashed the pensions of YRCW Teamsters. YRC Teamsters still working or who retired after Sept. 24, 2010, will be put on the Central States...

March 25, 2011: The warehouse where C&S is moving Teamster work from across the East is not just a nonunion warehouse. It’s an automated warehouse. In this multi-million dollar facility, work normally performed by a thousand Teamsters can be done by around 150 employees. Automated technology is used to select cases, prepare orders, and wrap pallets. This technology is a scary job-killer. But C&S has an Achilles heel. C&S is a third-party provider. Grocery chains...

March 30, 2011: Judge Kenneth Conboy held a third hearing on March 24 to consider the appropriate punishment for a scheme in which James Hoffa and three International vice presidents were caught using union funds to try to buy-off political rivals. The hearing was the result of appeals filed by TDU co-chair Frank Halstead and by Fred Gegare that the Election Supervisor’s remedy was inadequate given the seriousness of the violations. Hoffa Offered Extra Salaries,...

March 25, 2011: Teamster members are building local campaign committees to spread the word and unite Teamsters to vote for new leadership and a new direction for our union. Sandy Pope has been on the road winning Teamsters over. “Some of the members who came to our event were coming in with an open mind,” said Bob Slezak, who helped pull together a meet-the-candidate event in Eastern Mass. “But they left Sandy supporters.”

Since the founding of Teamsters for a Democratic Union in 1976, TDU fought to win the Right to Vote for delegates to Teamster Conventions. In 1991, we secured that right. Prior to that time, local officials were automatically the delegates. But for the first time in 1991, delegates were elected. And it made an immediate difference. At the 1991 Teamster Convention in Orlando, Florida, there were a number of reform delegates, and TDU had armed...

March 25, 2011: Sandy Pope received a standing ovation from more than 200 Teamsters at a Candidates’ Forum hosted by Wisconsin Local 344 on March 20. Hoffa ducked the debate and asked to send running mate Ken Hall as his stand-in. At the last minute, Hall also backed out, saying he had urgent business in his local union.  “Hoffa’s record is so bad even his stand-ins need stand-ins,” said Sandy Pope. “Hoffa has never backed...

March 25, 2011: While members wait for action, the company is still driving load after load through the subcontracting loophole. Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale March 9-11, the Teamsters National UPS Freight Grievance Panel addressed 31 grievances. Three pertained to Article 44 subcontracting and were denied. All other Article 44 grievances remained on “committee hold.”Two grievances addressing sleeper bid issues were deadlocked. Over all, the grievant and union won six grievances, the company won ten, seven...