February 21, 2008: Wayne Shatkoff, president of Pittsburgh Local 249, was suspended from office on Feb. 8 for a year by the Local Executive Board, after the Board heard charges of blacklisting Teamsters in the movie industry. On February 13, a judge found the Shatkoff administration guilty of the same offense. An administrative law judge who heard charges filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered Local 249 to pay some $70,000 plus interest...

Report from the Freight Vote CountIt was an honor to represent working Teamsters as an observer at the freight contract vote count. Members can rest assured that the process was monitored and on the up and up. But many members have questions about who got ballots, and why? The explanation we got at the count was that all locals were responsible for creating the mailing list for the ballot. The IBT put it on the...

February 21, 2008: The 1.45-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters union today will endorse Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for president, a union spokesman confirmed. Teamsters President James P. Hoffa will meet with Obama about 5 p.m. E.S.T. in Austin, Texas, after the union's executive board meets to formally approve the endorsement, spokesman Bret Caldwell said. "The union has been paying attention to what has been going on nationally with the election. There have been a lot...

Members who have contacted the Parcel Division have been told that our union has made no agreement with UPS to allow the company to use Air Drivers to pick up ground packages from drop boxes. The Parcel Division has advised members to file grievances on all violations. Article 40 of the contract prohibits Air Drivers from handling ground packages except under a narrowly defined “exception basis.” This language exists to stop the company from exploiting...

February 18, 2008: UPS has launched a new contract-busting program to use air drivers to pick up ground packages at a substandard rate of pay. This is the first big test of the new UPS contract. Our International Union must answer the call and stop the company from undermining high-paid, full-time jobs at UPS. UPS announced on Feb. 15 that it now accepts ground packages in its drop boxes and that Air Drivers will pick...

February 15, 2008: The president of Pittsburgh Local 249 has been suspended from office for a year after the Local Executive Board heard charges of blacklisting Teamsters in the movie industry. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has charged Wayne Shatkoff with the same offense. The NLRB does not have the power to suspend union officers, but could order the union to pay the three affected members lost wages for movie jobs in late 2006....

February 15, 2008: Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd's train operating crews in Canada have ratified a new five-year contract, the union said on Wednesday. Read more at Reuters.com

February 13, 2008: The Department of Transportation is violating the law and endangering the public's safety in proceeding with a pilot program to allow Mexican trucks to deliver goods throughout the United States, a coalition of labor, environment, and civic groups argued Feb. 12 in oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Sierra Club v. Dep't of Transp., 9th Cir., No. 07-73415, oral argument 2/12/08). The three-judge panel of the...

February 10, 2008: Most of the 39,000 votes on the NMFA have been counted, and the national contract is passing by nearly a 2-1 margin. The joint company-union campaign of fear and despair convinced most freight Teamsters that they had to accept it. In many areas, the majority said No. These include some of our stronger locals, such as Detroit Local 299, Cleveland Local 407, Cincinnati Local 100, Milwaukee Local 200, Rockford Local 325, New...

The vote count for the national freight contract has completed, and preliminary vote results are available. Click here to view the preliminary vote count results.