The 2015 TDU Convention will be held the weekend of October 23 - 25 at the Cleveland Airport Sheraton.

Education is Power

January 3, 2014: Teamsters head into 2014 with a full plate of challenges. Hoffa and Hall have spent 2013 doing nothing for Teamsters at UPS, UPS Freight, ABF and YRCW. Our pensions are under attack. Many of our local leaders are discouraging or burned out.

TDU members are working to make real changes in the direction of our union, starting in our shops and locals and right up to changing the IBT leadership.

Contact TDU to find out what you can do in your local or workplace to build a stronger Teamsters union.

Local Education Conferences

“We’re planning on holding a TDU educational conference in 2014. We’ve done them the last couple years and they’ve been a great way to get members together to talk about the problems we face and how we can make changes.They’re like a mini TDU Convention with workshops taught by Teamsters and labor educators. Part-timers from UPS are stepping up and getting involved and so are Teamsters from lots of different locals.

“Where there’s information, there’s unity and where there’s unity there is power.”

Chris Williamson
Local 804, New York

Distributing Teamster Voice

“Teamster Voice is a great newspaper for learning about what’s going on in our union. We passed out hundreds of copies over the course of the last few months and plan to do more in the coming year. It was a good tool to have for the contract fight at UPS but it is also great for learning about things like grievance handling, FMLA and other jurisdictions. Get a bundle, large or small, and help us inform and mobilize Teamster members as we build a stronger union.”

“Kas” Schwerdtfeger
Local 344, Milwaukee

Running for Local Union Office

“Members are frustrated with the union. But they’re also hungry for change and we’re getting a great response so far.

“Our challenge is to organize that hunger into a force that can turn Local 237 around. We want to put the members first and restore confidence that Local 237 Teamsters can win.”

Jakwan Rivers
Local 237, New York

Raising Money to Support TDU

“TDU depends on financial support to keep our movement strong. In Chicago, our chapter plans to host a fundraiser in the spring of 2014. We invite our TDU members, friends from labor, and other movement activists. It’s a fun way to pass the hat and sustain TDU.”

Gina Alvarez
Local 743, Chicago

Defending Our Pensions

“Congress plans to make changes to our pensions in 2014. We’re getting organized to defend our retirement security.

“We’re planning a meeting for March to learn more about proposed changes and prepare for how Teamsters can respond. Our goal is to get active and retired Teamsters united to send a strong message that we won’t stand for any cuts to what we’ve earned.”

Minnesota TDU Chapter

Read about Teamsters who made a difference in 2013. Let's resolve to work together to make our union stronger in 2014.

You can help TDU members keep making a difference in 2013. Click here to join TDU and support our work.

UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters ‘Vote NO
Local 804 Members Make UPS Deliver

Whistleblowers Make Big Brown Pay

With the help of trucking attorney Paul Taylor, TDU member Tim Bishop won $100,000 in back pay and another $100,000 in emotional distress after UPS tried to fire him for recording his wait time at a meet-and-turn point as on-duty time.

It wasn’t the first time this year a member made UPS pay big time.

Click here to read more about the whistleblowers' victories against UPS.

UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters ‘Vote NO
Local 804 Members Make UPS Deliver

Challenging Discrimination

The first Teamster woman at her grocery warehouse, Arlena Dean filed a grievance to force her employer to create a locker room for women employees only to be told that she was forbidden to use it.

But she kept fighting and her persistence paid off.

Click here to read more about Arlena's story.

UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters ‘Vote NO
Local 804 Members Make UPS Deliver

UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters 'Vote No'

UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters said NO to bad contracts and YES to organizing for change.

UPS made $4.5 billion last year, and Hoffa and Hall settled short. UPS and UPS Freight Teamsters refused to follow the script. They organized a nationwide ‘Vote NO’ movement.

Click here to read more about the 2013 'Vote No' movement.

Protecting Our Pensions

Local 804 Members Make UPS Deliver

In April, retired and active Teamsters packed the Kansas City union hall and overflowed into the parking lot, concerned about the TDU report that a coalition of pension fund execs, union representatives and major corporations were teaming up to lobby Congress to make it legal to cut retirees’ pension checks.

Click here to read more about protecting our pensions.

804 Members Make UPS Deliver

Local 804 Members Make UPS Deliver

While other UPS Teamsters were fighting concessions, Local 804 members won a $400 pension increase, 150 new full-time jobs and grievance procedure reform.

Click here to read more about Local 804.

Reform Wins in Rhode Island

251 United Action, a growing rank-and-file reform movement in Rhode Island, took back their 5,500-member local when they won union office this fall.

Click here to read more about Local 251.

Local 804 Members Make UPS Deliver

Give your favorite Teamster brother or sister or family member the gift of Teamster reform. Check out the latest gear, literature and other goodies in the TDU Store.

Click here to visit the TDU store.

December 6, 2013: We mourn the passing of Nelson Mandela, a champion of equality and human dignity and South Africa’s first black president, in an election where black South African's were allowed to vote.

Click here to read more on Mandela’s life and legacy.

Rhode Island Hospital worker Nick Williams was so angry that his new supervisor was his union business agent’s brother that he came home from work and Googled “Teamsters 251 sucks.” And that was the turning point that led to rank-and-file Teamsters taking over the local that covers all of Rhode Island.

Williams had found the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) website run by two 251 rank-and-filers. On October 31 all 10 candidates on their slate, United Action, were elected, with about 53 percent of the vote. They won despite an entrenched leadership group that had been in office since 1993—and despite threats by a Teamsters International vice president who said on YouTube, “They need to be punished.”

The 5,200 members of Local 251 work at dozens of employers, but more than 2,000 of them are the non-nursing staff at Rhode Island Hospital. At the local’s second-largest employer, UPS, two drivers had toiled for years, opposing bad contracts, organizing members to turn down excessive overtime, and running, unsuccessfully, a partial slate in 2007.

But the two drivers, Matt Taibi and Matt Maini, hadn't cracked the hospital. Until Williams joined their team.

Williams describes the state of the union at the hospital as “in bed with management.” Business agents would, with the collusion of managers, create well-paid jobs for their friends—sometimes even “no-show” jobs whose duties did not include reporting for work.

When the contract was near expiration, and its last and largest raise was due, BA’s would simply sign away the raise with a Memorandum of Agreement that members weren’t allowed to see, in violation of the Teamsters constitution.

Maini said the hospital had fired more than 400 workers in two years—and the union always advised members who were up for termination to resign. “Everyone knew someone who got screwed by the BA,” Williams said.

“The hospital had essentially been taken for granted by the local for 20 years,” said Taibi, who will be the union’s new top officer, secretary-treasurer, come January 1.

HE’S BACK

The person who’d originally brought the union to the hospital, back in 1993, was Paul Santos, who worked in the shipping department. Santos had been a steward but resigned, disillusioned. Most people at the hospital saw him as the person they trusted most on union questions.

Sandra Cabral, who works with medical records, says she “never cared for the union because I felt I was paying monthly for favoritism.” In January this year she was approached by a co-worker about TDU. She was interested off the bat, but “when she told me Paul was involved, I said I’m going to check this out.”

After Santos joined the dissidents, TDU grew from 10 members in the local to 100. Santos will be Local 251 president.

Early this year, the TDUers collected signatures for three bylaw changes. They wanted elected stewards, rather than appointed; elected rank-and-file members on negotiating committees; and any increase in officers’ salaries to be voted on by the membership.

Secretary-Treasurer Joe Bairos enjoyed combined salaries of $187,999 last year, from the local, the New England Joint Council, and the international union, as well as a car and an expense account.

The February union meeting saw 600 or 700 people come to debate the bylaws—up from a usual attendance of 40. More than 800 came to the March meeting, and had to vote in shifts, chanting about solidarity and democracy in the parking lot.

Because the incumbents mobilized, too, the bylaw changes won a majority but not the required two-thirds.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

The next phase of the United Action campaign, with Williams as manager, brought 300 to 500 members each to a meatball dinner, a comedy night fundraiser, a picnic.

Williams says that when they’d go to neglected companies to campaign, the members would be hostile, thinking they were from the union. “But when they heard what we had to say, out of 130 in that barn, we got 100 for our email list,” he said.

The insurgents had the advantage of help from a TDU staffer on campaign strategy and logistics and from a TDU attorney who more than once backed the incumbents down from illegal actions.

After they take office the new officers will cut their salaries to free up $250,000 a year for member education and training, Taibi said. They will reintroduce the bylaw changes and plan an aggressive contract campaign at Rhode Island Hospital next year.

Cabral, soon to be recording secretary, is in charge of setting up a women’s committee. She says she wants to see hospital housekeepers—mostly women—receive equal pay with the men in environmental services.

At UPS, where 10- to 12-hour days are the norm for drivers, Matt Maini, the new BA, will organize members to enforce their contractual right to work only 9.5.

Maini has two back surgeries and a hip replacement to show for his long days and 21 years at UPS.

“If you’d asked me 15 years ago, I'd say this would never happen,” he said. “But we decided we were going to dedicate our lives to making this a real union for the members.”

November 20, 2013: Members of 251 United Action celebrate victory in their local union election at the 2013 TDU Convention

At the Convention local union officers, stewards and members met for trainings on leadership development, running for local union office, contract bargaining and enforcement, jurisdictional meetings, and more.

Ron Beard, a UPS Feeder Driver from Local 767 in Forest Hills, Texas and newly elected to TDU's Steering Committee, attended the Convention for the first time.

"I've been following TDU for a very long time, and have always believed in its cause. After going to the vote count for UPS and meeting TDUers in Chicago, I know what it's all about. Now I am a member myself and I signed up for a $20 monthly donation to support. I'm going to get some of the members in my local to sign up too."

TDU is a grassroots rank-and-file organization and depends wholly on the support of dedicated members.

This year we raised $53,000 at our Convention fundraiser thanks to your generous donations and dedication.

Members unable to attend are also stepping up to support TDU.

"I wasn't able to attend the convention but I know how important TDU is in these tough times," said Paul Host of Milwaukee Local 200. "I made my annual donation of $250 and know it will be well spent. Give what you can and know it goes to a great organization."

Help keep the TDU movement going. Teamsters can donate to TDU by clicking here.

Non-Teamster supporters can donate to our sister organization Teamsters Rank and File Education and Legal Defense Fund by clicking here. 

In 2005, the Journal of Transportation Law, Logistics and Policy published an authoritative essay by law professor Michael J. Goldberg, entitled Teamster Reformers: Their Union, Their Jobs, Their Movement.

September 19, 2013: On this weekend in 1976, a small group of courageous Teamsters met in Kent, Ohio, to form Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). They had little going for them except guts, principles, and a vision of a union driven by rank and file power.

At the time of TDU's founding, the IBT General Executive Board and many local unions were dominated by organized crime. Contracts could be imposed even if the majority voted against them. Members who spoke up could be met with violent intimidation. Teamster General President (and FBI informant) Jackie Presser organized the Brotherhood of Loyal Americans and Strong Teamsters (BLAST) goon squad to attack TDU meetings and the founding Convention. Presser announced at the 1986 Teamster Convention that "Today you've just witnessed the funeral of TDU." The following year, he was indicted for racketeering while TDU grew.

TDU has since become the longest-lived, most successful rank and file movement in U.S. labor history. Many labor historians have noted TDU’s role in winning rights, cutting mob influence in the Teamsters, and giving rank and file Teamsters a voice.

That struggle continues today, because there is a lot more history to make.

Click here to join TDU and help us to keep making Teamster history.

Read a four-part history of TDU and the Teamsters Union.

Read the contract voting rights TDU members have won for all Teamsters.