July 9, 2010: This year, Ralphs grocery opened a brand-new automated warehouse that uses new technology to select cases, prepare orders, and wrap pallets. Local 572 steward Frank Halstead got to tour the new facility. Here’s what he saw. Frank Halstead works at Ralphs warehouse in Compton, Calif. Teamster Voice interviewed him about his tour of the new automated facility in Paramount, and what’s at stake in grocery negotiations this year. Teamster Voice: What was...

July 1, 2010: Allied Automotive Group is paying the contract wage rate for the first time in three years, but will now come to carhaul Teamsters asking for a fresh concession package. The International Union insisted that Allied pay the full scale, as a condition to bargain over new monetary relief. However, Allied CEO Mark Gendregske, in a letter to Allied Teamsters, said he will seek an agreement to suspend making pension contributions on employees’...

July 1, 2010: James Hoffa came into office promising freight Teamsters he would “Restore the Power.” A decade later, what he has delivered is a power outage. The NMFA has been decimated. UPS Freight was put under a white-paper contract without Teamster benefits. Other trucking organizing has been thin to none. Freight Teamsters’ pensions are in danger. Hoffa has taken freight—the heart of our union—and driven it off the road. Remember when he told us, “The Hoffa...

July 1, 2010: Will YRC Teamsters start earning pension credits again when the concession agreement expires? When the concession agreement with YRC expires on December 31, will Teamsters start getting pension credits again? This question is critically important to thousands of Teamsters and to our union’s future in freight. The International Union is aiming to get some partial pension payments out of YRC. On the June 29 IBT conference call, James Hoffa said they hope...

Is management playing games with your grievances? Find out how you can turn the tables on them at the TDU Convention. Join stewards, officers, and labor experts for over a dozen workshops, including Writing and Investigating Grievances, Aggressive Grievance Handling, and Preparing for Arbitration. Register online here. “I’ve just been elected shop steward, and the TDU workshops have helped me learn how to investigate and pursue grievances and fight for the members. “I’m looking forward...

June 28, 2010: Disgruntled members of Philadelphia Teamsters Local 107 briefly picketed a union meeting Saturday morning to protest a plan that would shift highly lucrative work in the movie industry to a New York local. About a dozen protesters wore placards that declared "Don't sell out our jobs" and "Keep it local" as they stood in front of a union hall in Bridesburg where a trustee with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and representatives...

June 25, 2010: An election is just months away in every Teamster local, including yours, to choose delegates to go to the International Union Convention. In the vast majority of locals, the nominations will be in January or February 2011, and the ballots will go into the mail to members 30 days following the nominations. The elections will be overseen and certified by the independent Election Supervisor and his staff. The delegates at the Convention,...

June 23, 2010: The decisions from the June National Grievance Panel, June 7-100 are out. Hoffa and Hall continue to give up our full-time 22.3 jobs without a fight. The most common grievance on the docket for the June National Grievance Panel dealt with Article 22.3 and UPS’s elimination of full-time combo jobs we won in the 1997 strike. But once again the International Union did not hear a single Article 22.3 grievance at the...

Box 10303, Detroit, MI 48210 | (313) 842-2615 TDU’s sister organization, the Teamster Rank and File Education and Legal Defense Foundation (TRF), is a tax-exempt, not-for-profit charitable foundation, dedicated to providing Teamster members with the tools they need to fight for justice on the job and a stronger, more democratic Teamsters union. Since its formation in 1977, TRF has provided grassroots education and leadership development programs to help Teamster members win important advances, including better...

Updated June 16, 2010: Allied Automotive Group has agreed to pay the full contract wage, retroactive to May 29 when their three-year concession deal expired, and will now come to carhaul Teamsters asking for a fresh concession package. Teamsters’ paychecks this week (June 18) will be incorrect; Allied has agreed to issue retroactive checks to make up the difference. For the first time in three years, Teamsters should receive the contract wage rate, while Allied...