Ron Carey and the Right to Vote

In 1991, I beat my local officers and was elected on a slate of working Teamsters to represent my members as a delegate to the Teamsters Convention.
That year was the first time working Teamsters got a chance to represent our members on the convention floor. That was a right that we won through TDU—and we made good use of it.
We nominated Ron Carey. And we put the issue of 25-and-Out pensions on the table. After we elected Ron Carey, he made huge improvements in our pension benefits.
Now Hoffa is letting many of the accomplishments that we made with Ron slip away. But Ron Carey showed us what we can do when we put the real principles of unionism to work. We can honor his legacy by putting those principles back in action.
James McLeod, UPS
Local 71, Florence, S.C.

Either They Don’t Know or Don’t Care

In the UPS Teamster magazine for winter 2009, Teamster parcel director Ken Hall wrote, “No one is going to ignore that UPS is still profitable and no one is going to allow the company to use the current economic slump as an excuse to undermine the contract we negotiated.”
The truth of the matter is that we have union brothers, earning a salary from the dues of our members, who sit on panels and outright undermine the current language in our contracts. 
Have you ever seen the movie Boyz n the Hood? At the end of the movie, one of the characters says “Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood.” 
Which is it for you Brother Hall?  As a rank and filer, I hope and pray it is not the latter. 
The division among the rank and file must end right now. We are in a mess and it doesn’t matter whom you supported in the last union election, it is time to come together and fight against the injustices that are going on “NOW”.  
A Rank-and-File Member