July 22, 2010: Tom Keegel, IBT Secretary Treasurer, has issued a letter in which he criticizes the direction of the IBT under James Hoffa, and announces that he will not run for reelection. As a result of Keegel’s defection, Hoffa has taken down his campaign website, and has substituted Ken Hall to be his running-mate for the 2011 International Union election. Read Keegel’s letter to the General Executive Board. (Keegel also sent an official letter...

July 14, 2010: General Secretary Treasurer Tom Keegel will not run for re-election next year, according to reports from members of the General Executive Board and officials close to Keegel. Keegel, the number two officer in the IBT, had previously agreed to run with James Hoffa as the Hoffa-Keegel Slate in the 2011 election. But Keegel also has had disagreements with Hoffa, and at times seemed close to breaking away from him. The Hoffa administration...

July 13, 2010: The first stage in the paperwork shuffle toward a new set of hours-of-service regulations kicked off in late June when FMCSA sent a draft of a notice of proposed rulemaking to the Office of the Secretary of Transportation for approval. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration submitted a draft of the proposed HOS regs to the OST on June 23 – one day before the agency’s original target date. Click here to...

July 12, 2010: Why is our union holding a conference call for UPSers when they’ll still be on the truck? The Package Division is holding a telephone Conference Call on Wednesday, July 14 to update UPS Teamsters on “important information,” but they’ve scheduled the update at a time that makes it impossible for many package car drivers to participate. Why? The conference call is supposed to update all stewards and assistant stewards about “many developments...

July 6, 2010: For more than a year, FedEx and its bitter shipping rival, United Parcel Service, have been engaged in one of the fiercest lobbying battles in recent memory, with millions of dollars spent on advertising, Web sites, grass-roots organizing and other tactics more commonly seen in political campaigns. The reason for all the excitement? An obscure, 230-word provision that would require FedEx Express to comply with the same labor laws as UPS, making...

July 1, 2010: Teamster members are paying a high price for the pension concessions negotiated by the Hoffa administration. UPS was making record profits of more than $6 billion a year when Hoffa let Brown pull out of Central States and gave UPS Freight a free pass on paying Teamster benefits. A Teamster Voice report on the Teamster Pension Divide reveals how these givebacks are saving the company billions, but Teamster members are paying the...

Join Teamster members who are keeping TDU going strong. Dear Brothers and Sisters, It’s not an easy time to be a Teamster. The corporate sharks smell blood in the water. And under Hoffa, our union is a ship without a captain––drifting whichever way the wind blows. Now more than ever, our union needs a new vision and a new direction. We can protect our standards, defend our contracts, and preserve our benefits––but only if we...

July 1, 2010: Henry Perry, International trustee and president of Memphis Local 667, has been removed from the Hoffa slate for the International Union election. Perry, who has now refused to endorse Hoffa for reelection, told the Election Supervisor that on May 10, he was approached by International Vice President Tyson Johnson, who told him Hoffa was removing him from the slate. Perry says the reason given was that he lost the 2006 delegate race...

July 9, 2010: Teamsters who work the movies, commercials, TV and other productions in the Philly area, that includes Atlantic City work, are getting rolled by the IBT and their own local leadership led by International Vice President Bill Hamilton. An investigation by the Independent Review Board found that movie jobs in Philadelphia Local 107 were doled out to friends and relatives of Hamilton and other union officials. Now rank-and-file Teamsters, not Hamilton, are paying...

July 1, 2010: Hoffa let UPS pull out of the Central States and gave UPS Freight a free pass on paying Teamster benefits. Now Teamster members are paying the price. THE PENSION DIVIDE See how your pension stacks up on the Benefits Comparison Chart Teamster members are paying a high cost for the pension concessions negotiated by the Hoffa administration. Hoffa’s decision to let UPS pull out from Central States saved the company billions. It...