September 11, 2009: Baltimore pension trustees have made drastic cuts to early retirement benefits for freight and carhaul Teamsters. Now many are facing more years on the job than they ever expected. On Aug. 4., the Local 557 Pension Fund announced drastic cuts for Teamsters taking early retirement after Sept. 4. (The Teamsters are members of Local 355, but they kept their own pension fund after their locals merged.) Before the cuts, members with 30...

September 9, 2009: New Penn Teamsters voted by a 890-329 margin to approve YRCW’s concessions, after management and the International union threatened that they would lose their jobs if they once again said no. It was not surprising that most Teamsters reluctantly voted yes, after the threats that were handed down to the nearly 2000 Teamsters. The concession deal was still rejected in Boston Local 25 and Philadelphia Local 107. The votes were tallied today,...

September 4, 2009: Last year the salaries of the highest-paid Teamster officials went up by $1,041,276. That's according to the annual $150,000 Club Report produced by the Teamster Rank and File Education and Legal Defense Foundation (TRF). Forty-four officials got a raise of over $10,000 last year. Over 110 Teamster officers made over $150,000 in salaries last year, the highest number ever. The TRF report will be issued next week. TRF has published the report...

September 1, 2009: The Hoffa administration continues to threaten the employees who work at the Teamster headquarters, who are bargaining to try to avoid concessions. Their latest threat came on August 25, when Hoffa’s Administrative Assistant Ed Keyser instructed all department heads to prepare a report on how they will work behind picket lines in the event of a strike. Click here to see that memorandum. This follows previous threats, including a July 31 series...

September 1, 2009: It’s a sad day when Teamsters in a core industry desert our union for another., That is what happened today when nearly 300 Teamster carhaulers employed by Gen Auto in Ontario voted to join the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW). The 145-47 vote came from carhaulers at three locations, most of them at the Oshawa General Motors plants. Even worse, 700 Teamsters employed at Allied in Ontario are now petitioning for a similar...

September 1, 2009: The Hoffa administration has taken control of bargaining the Northwest Reddaway trucking contract from the local unions in Washington and Oregon, in a move to help YRC impose concessions. The locals in Seattle and along the I-5 corridor in Oregon learned of the takeover by getting a copy of a letter Hoffa sent to Bob Paffenroth, offering him the position of Chairman of a subcommittee of the Teamsters National Freight industry Negotiating...

September 1, 2009: ANAHEIM They routinely sort through trash bags of rotting food, used syringes and even road kill to find what can be recycled. But that's not the part of the job trash sorters – or so-called recyclers – at Republic Services Inc. in Anaheim are complaining about. They say it's the long hours without proper breaks, working without proper protective gear and without any sun shade or protection from the elements. Click here...

September 1, 2009: You take your kid to the dentist and go to pay the $20 co-pay. “Oh, no,” says the receptionist. “You have to pay the whole bill—you don't have insurance.” That’s how a member of Teamsters Local 743 in Chicago found out that his employer, SK Hand Tools, had unilaterally and without notice canceled health insurance for the workforce. The 70 SK Teamsters struck August 25 over this unfair labor practice, and the...

August 28, 2009: Three former officials of one of the largest Teamsters locals in the country were sentenced to prison Thursday for rigging union elections in Chicago in 2004. A federal jury convicted them in April of fraud-related charges for diverting hundreds of secret ballots to family members and friends to prevent Teamsters Local 743 members from voting. Click here to read more at the Chicago Tribune.

August 27, 2009: Arkansas Best Corp.'s ABF Freight System is negotiating with the Teamsters union to obtain cost cuts as a competitive response to a new round of wage and pension expense reductions at less-than-truckload carrier YRC Worldwide. Click here to read more.