April 2, 2014: Local 745 members held a TDU meeting in El Paso, Texas to talk about enforcing their contracts, the future of the union and rebuilding Teamster Power.

Teamsters in El Paso are members of Local 745 in Dallas which is 635 miles away!

That kind of distance takes the “local” right out of local union. So members decided to cook up some Teamster Unity of their own and organized a TDU meeting in El Paso.

The meeting was organized by Teamsters at UPS and UPS Freight. Different generations of Teamsters came together with the common goal of building a stronger union for the future.

Members shared strategies for dealing with contract violations, including seniority,
supervisors working, excessive overtime and production harassment.

How to stop concessions at UPS and UPS Freight was another hot topic.

“When we spoke up at the contract vote here in El Paso, they told us, ‘If you don’t like it, get out of the union,’” one UPS Freight Teamster said. “No way are we getting out of the Union. We’re getting even more involved.”

Rebuilding Teamster Power by informing and involving members. That’s what TDU is all about.