Winning New Rights in Your Local Through Changing Your Bylaws
October 18, 2006: "Our last contract was terrible. Can we get the right to elect our bargaining committee?" "Our local officers keep raising their salaries. Can we put limits on them?" "Our local elections are a joke. Can we get some protections that will make them more fair?" Yes, there is a way to gain new rights and protections like these. Over the years Teamsters in many locals have organized to change the bylaws of...
Too Little, Too Late from the IBT Leadership
Pension Legislation Loss August 9, 2006. Late in the evening of August 3, the U.S. Senate voted to approve a piece of pension legislation which contains much of the “Red Zone” cut-back language that rank and file Teamsters have fought hard to get removed from the bill. President Bush is expected to sign it. Thanks to rank and file action, a portion of the red zone was cut that would have let funds cut benefits...
UPS Management Wins On Pension Bill
UPS won critical new leverage in their campaign to take over our pension funds when the House and Senate passed the misnamed Pension Protection Act. The Act includes UPS’s baby, the “Red Zone” amendment, which legalizes cutting pension benefits that employees have already earned. The New York Times called UPS “another of the bill’s winners”. The Times reported that, “U.P.S. had been eager to increase its control over such troubled plans as the Teamsters’ Central...
Say No to a Substandard Contract at UPS Freight
Teamster members are not the only ones concerned that Hoffa would undercut the National Master Freight Agreement by negotiating a substandard deal at UPS Freight (Overnite). The CEO of Yellow-Roadway, the largest employer of Freight Teamsters, recently warned that any deal between the Teamsters and UPS Freight, covering one terminal of 125 workers in Indianapolis, will 'set precedent' for the National Master Freight Agreement. Yellow Roadway employs 50,000 Teamsters. Yellow-Roadway CEO William Zollars made this...
Employers’ Firm Owns Hoffa’s Website
August 8, 2006: The Hoffa campaign has retained the same firm used by union busting corporations to spread lies for his campaign via his websites. The Bivings Group, a PR firm whose clients are a who’s who of anti-unionism, is paid Teamster money by Hoffa’s campaign to lie about TDU, Tom Leedham and anyone else who is part of building a new direction for our union. By the end of May, Hoffa’s campaign had already...
Hoffa Ducks Out of Debate
August 8, 2006: James Hoffa officially ducked out of the August 25 debate between the two General President candidates, by notifying the Election Officer on August 7 that he would send his stand-in, Tom Keegel. The debate will go forward in Washington DC on August 25, with an impartial moderator, questioners, and an audience of Teamsters. Thousands of DVDs will be made available to Teamsters for watching at home, and it will be available for...
IRB Charges International Rep
July 28, 2006: On July 14 the Independent Review Board (IRB) charged John Kikes with a long period of purposeful association with Billy Hogan after Hogan was banned from the Teamsters in 2002. Kikes has been a Hoffa International Rep for six years and is the president of Oakland, Calif., Local 78. His boss is Local 78 Secretary-Treasurer Steve Mack, the brother of International Vice President Chuck Mack. Kikes testified under oath to the IRB...
Coming Soon: After Election Central States Cuts to H & W
July 17, 2006: The big health care cuts that the Hoffa administration just slapped on Michigan freight Teamsters will spread to freight, UPS and carhaul Teamsters throughout the Central and Southern Regions. The Central States trustees are staying quiet about the cuts until after the election for International officers. Then the “surprise attack” will come down. For the third year in a row, the contractual August 60 cents per hour increase in employer contributions in...
Red Zone Delegation Report Back
July 17, 2006: In May, a delegation of Teamster local officers and members, some of them pictured above, converged on Washington to meet with Congressional reps about dangers for Teamsters in pending pension legislation. In particular they were on Capitol Hill to deliver a message: the Red Zone Amendment, which would allow pension funds to cut benefits already earned, must go. “The Bible says ‘confront the devil and he will flee from you,’” North Carolina...