December 5, 2006: While Hoffa can boast of a 65 percent winning margin overall in the IBT election, he would be well advised to look at the big groups of Teamsters who voted for a change of direction—starting with the with 175,000 Teamsters in the Central States Pension Plan (CSPF). These voters sent a strong message that we need new pension and benefit policies. Most Central States participants belong to mixed locals along with the...

December 5, 2006: Jim Santangelo, the same one who holds his conferences at Waikiki Beach, signs his letters as the “CEO” of Local 848. This terrible idea, local Teamster leaders calling themselves the “CEO” of the local, started with him in Los Angeles and seems to be spreading in the West. Should our local unions be imitating the worst in corporations? We don’t think so.

December 5, 2006: On Nov. 15 some 150 Teamsters at Land-o-Sun Dairies in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia won the right to stay in their preferred local union, stopping International Vice President Fred Gegare from a power grab against Local 549. The IBT Election Supervisor and the Appeals Master ruled decisively that Gegare transferred these Teamsters, without even consulting them, to five other locals in retaliation against their local president for his participation in the...

December 5, 2006: Tom Leedham’s campaign for Teamster General President did more than win 35 percent of the vote. It strengthened our union for the future. Since the 1997 UPS strike, employers have been on the offensive against our union. We have lost 150,000 members. Overnite defeated our organizing drive, paving the way for UPS to purchase it and operate it nonunion. And hundreds of thousands of Teamsters have suffered the first big pension and...

Decmeber 5, 2006: One year ago, we launched this campaign to rebuild Teamster Power. I want to thank Teamster members for the tremendous support you’ve shown and for the sacrifices you’ve made to strengthen our union. From the beginning, I said “I am the candidate, but this is your campaign.” And you rose to the occasion every step of the way. You collected 55,000 petition signatures in just over a month to officially accredit our...

December 2, 2006: Kroger Teamsters in Louisville are fighting for their jobs and their future in the wake of the grocery giant’s decision to turn over ownership and operations of its Kentucky Distribution Center to third party logistics companies. December 6, 2006: Just one year into a six-year contract with Local 89, Kroger announced it would sell the warehouse to Zenith Logistics and the transportation operations to Transervice Logistics. Zenith immediately threatened Teamsters with drastic...

2006 $100,000 Club

Editor at HRinfodesk.com - Canadian Payroll and Employment Law News By Yosie Saint-Cyr, LL.B., November 4, 2006. A federal private members' Bill that will ban organizations from bringing in replacement workers (scabs) during a labour dispute (Bill C-257) was introduced on May 4, 2006 in the House of Commons, and received second reading on October 25, 2006. The Bill was sent to the Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities Committee...

November 4, 2006. With a week to go in the voting for Teamster president, it is not too early to say history is being made in the Teamsters Union. If the Teamster rank-and-file can win this election for the Tom Leedham Slate, we will not only pull off the labor upset of the decade, we will open a new day for the Teamsters Union, and for the whole labor movement. That’s the power of the...

UPS Bargaining Opens November 4, 2006. Will the present International Union leadership fight for a good contract at UPS? One bad sign is that they are already keeping contract information secret from the members. At the October contract proposal meeting they wouldn’t even let local officers leave with copies of the union’s proposals, which they promptly handed to management. Fortunately, TDU has obtained copies of the both the union and employer non-monetary bargaining proposals. You...