August 11, 2008: The ballots cast on the tentative national carhaul agreement will be counted on Tuesday, August 12, and the count could continue the following day as well. Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) will make results available as soon as possible, on an on-going, local-by-local basis. Check www.tdu.org or contact the TDU office. The ballots will be picked up from the post office in the morning, and then the sorting and processing will...

August 11, 2008: Chicago Local 705 has posted a draft of their tentative agreement with UPS for members to review. This agreement is still in draft form and some corrections will be made. Click here to download and read the agreement. Click here to see the schedule of pay increases. Click here to read a letter of understanding on air drivers to be signed after the agreement is ratified.

August 6, 2008: The prospective sale of Anheuser-Busch Cos. to a Belgian company has for now mostly receded from the headlines, but behind the scenes the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, representing most of A-B's brewery workers, is readying for a tough fight ahead. Contract negotiations between Anheuser-Busch and its 8,000 Teamster-represented workers in St. Louis and at 11 other U.S. plants are slated to begin Aug. 18. Click here to read more at the St....

August 6, 2008: When the Star Tribune’s pressmen turned down management’s contract proposal last Thursday, they ignored a threat from their own leadership: without a “yes” vote, the company would “have a tough time” making a September debt payment, potentially another step closer to bankruptcy. The Strib missed a quarterly payment in June; at the time, publisher Chris Harte told Strib columnist Neal St. Anthony the paper was hanging on to the cash to help...

August 1, 2008: Teamster pressmen at the Minneapolis Star Tribune have killed a concessionary agreement by a vote of 77 to 27. The deal would have cut GCC Local 1-M members’ wages by 10 percent. Drivers from Local 638 and mailers from Local 120 voted to approve concessions at the newspaper. But the agreements were tied together, and the pressmen’s No vote has stopped all three. This is one victory in a big battle. Now...

August 1, 2008: Over the last year, the Hoffa administration has given employers the most concessionary deals in Teamster history. Now employers are lining up to see how far our union will let them go in violating these contracts. Once again, UPS is leading the charge. An investigation by Teamster for a Democratic Union has confirmed that UPS is cheating members out of the full-time jobs we won under the 1997 and 2002 contracts. The...

August 5, 2008: Over the past year, the International Union has signed four national contracts in the trucking industry, covering nearly 350,000 Teamsters—setting the pattern for many more. In each case, the Hoffa administration gave our largest Teamster employers record givebacks. The 2008 contracts are the most concessionary master agreements in the history of the Teamsters Union. We need to understand why this happened, and what we can do to stop future concessions and build...

August 7, 2008: Rank-and-file carhaulers will have their own observers at the contract vote count next week thanks to TDU members who won that right. When the vote was taken on the 2003 carhaul contract, some Michigan Teamsters knew the result couldn’t be right. These office and dispatch Teamsters had their own supplement, the Michigan Office Supplement, and knew it could not have passed. They started networking, in Detroit, Flint, Lansing and Pontiac—and they confirmed...

August 1, 2008: UPS Teamsters got a 35¢ raise on August 1, the smallest raise in many years. Another 35¢ raise will follow in six months, for a total of 70¢ over the next year. Last August 1, UPS Teamsters received a $1 raise. How much did gas and food cost then, compared to now? The contract also didn’t provide for a cost of living improvement this year, a serious problem when inflation has run...

August 1, 2008: Interviews with shop stewards and members in local unions across the county reveal that UPS is violating the contract when it comes to full-time job creation. Teamster members are standing up by filing grievances and demanding that UPS create the full-time jobs the company owes us. Our International Union needs to back up members and local unions with a nationwide full-time jobs audit and contract enforcement campaign. UPS is obligated by Article...