December 6, 2006: The IBT election is over, and James Hoffa won the power to oversee the union’s bargaining with UPS. A centerpiece of Hoffa’s election strategy was to win big at UPS, our union’s largest employer. He didn’t. Despite outspending Leedham 10-1 and with 90 percent of local officials campaigning for him, Hoffa had to settle for no better than half of the UPS vote. Tom Leedham won the majority of the UPS vote...

December 5, 2006: An academic study by three economists entitled “Corporate Political Contributions and Stock Returns” and reported in the New York Times indicates that in recent years UPS has donated PAC money to more Congressional candidates than any other corporation. UPS’s corporate PAC gave to 629 Congressional and Senate candidates from October 1999 to October 2004. The study found that corporate buying of Congressional influence has a positive effect on stock price. It shows...

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...