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Can UPS And The Teamsters Reach A Deal?

When the temperature hits three digits in the brown UPS truck Luis Rivera drives, he slows down his deliveries, which gets him in trouble, he says, with his boss. “They say, ​‘Why did you take so long?’ and I say, ​‘Dude, it’s hot. I know when I need to take a break,” explains Rivera, a veteran delivery driver and Teamsters member in Central California, where heat waves are common. Rivera ticks off the times that colleagues have gotten heatstroke and recalls the tragedy of a young UPS driver, 23-year-old Jose Cruz Rodriguez Jr., who died two years ago in Waco, Texas.

Teamsters Picket Fourth California Warehouse In Expanding Amazon Strike

San Bernardino, California - Striking Amazon delivery drivers and dispatchers from Palmdale, Calif., extended their picket line to an Amazon warehouse in San Bernardino, Calif. (ONT5) today, to demand the e-commerce giant stop its unfair labor practices. The growing strike will continue until Amazon reinstates the unlawfully terminated employees, recognizes the Teamsters, respects the contract negotiated by the workers, and bargains with the Teamsters Union to address low pay and dangerous working conditions. “I work for one of the richest companies in the world, but the pay is so low that I have to work two other jobs as well to provide for my kids,” said Jovana Figueroa, a striking Amazon driver.

Legalization Hasn’t Fixed All Cannabis Workers’ Problems; Can Unionizing?

Legalizing pot has opened the floodgates to a new multibillion dollar industry in multiple states. But where there are high profits, there’s often high exploitation. The experience of unionized cannabis delivery drivers and warehouse workers who belong to Grassdoor Workers provides an instructive example of exploitative practices found across industries, and how workers can organize to fight back. Despite the best efforts of management to keep employees isolated from one another, Grassdoor workers managed to organize in response to company wage theft and successfully joined their Teamsters local. Grassdoor Workers organizer “G” speaks with The Real News.

With Strike Looming, UPS Teamsters Win Air Conditioning, Other Gains

Tampa, Florida - Since national negotiations started in March, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has reached many tentative agreements in their national contract with United Parcel Service. These agreements that will benefit Teamsters include but are not limited to better cooling systems in package cars, strengthened grievance procedures, and the creation of more union jobs. The current Teamsters contract with UPS was a five-year agreement which expires on July 31. Unless the Teamsters bargaining team reaches a tentative agreement with UPS for a next contract and the rank and file votes “yes” by July 31, over 300,000 Teamsters are set to strike on August 1.

Supreme Court Weakened Legal Protections For Striking

In a shameful decision last week, eight members of the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the right to strike. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stood up for the workers. In her 27-page dissent in Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Jackson wrote, “The right to strike is fundamental to American labor law.” Indeed, it is the threat of a strike that gives workers leverage during contract negotiations with an employer. Jackson continued: Workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their masters. They are employees whose collective and peaceful decision to withhold their labor is protected by the [National Labor Relations Act] even if economic injury results.

DHL Violates Neutrality, Freight Workers Join Teamsters Anyway

At the DHL Express superhub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, 1,100 workers who load and unload freight on aircraft voted to join Teamsters Local 100 in April in one of the biggest private-sector union wins this year. Package giant DHL, a competitor of UPS and FedEx, is one of the world’s largest and most profitable logistics companies, and the Cincinnati-area hub is the company’s largest. The tug and ramp workers organized because of low pay, safety concerns, and poor treatment from management. “The company mantra that they sell to customers—‘connecting people, improving lives’—doesn’t exist for their own workers,” said ramp lead Garrett Schwing.

Teamsters At Huttig Took Final Strike Vote On Saturday

Warehouse workers at Huttig/Woodgrain are gearing up for a strike at the building materials distributor that could kick off as early as this Monday, April 17, 2023. The group of 36 Teamsters will be taking a Final Strike Vote and assembling picket signs this Saturday, April 15 after a negotiations update meeting at the Teamsters Union Hall in Tukwila. The Teamsters are protesting alleged violations of federal labor law during contentious contract negotiations, including charges of unlawful surveillance and intimidation during a visit to the Huttig facility by Auburn City Councilmember and former President of the Washington State Labor Council Larry Brown.

Grocery Teamsters Face Firing And Retaliation For Exercising Their Rights

Workers couldn’t wear a sticker or button, because what if it fell into the fruits and vegetables they packaged for the Anthony Marano Company, a major distributor of produce in Chicago and the greater Midwest for restaurants and grocery chains including Aldi’s, Sysco, and Pete’s Fresh Market? They couldn’t do a red T-shirt day; the temperatures are frigid in the warehouse, and workers must cover themselves in layers to keep warm. But they are allowed to wear hats over their hairnets. Luckily, there was a crafty person on the organizing team. When Latino Teamsters in Local 703 needed to take collective action to build unity and confidence after the company banned them from distributing union leaflets, they created baseball caps—emblazoned with an equestrian Teamster logo and the Chicago city colors (blue, white, and red).

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien Vows To ‘Pulverize’ UPS

Chicago — Spelling out union strategy for an all-important contract with UPS, Sean O’Brien worked his way up to a fiery pitch. ​“We gotta strategize, we gotta organize, and then we gotta pulverize UPS,” he declared. The room erupted into cheers, applause and fists clenched upward. The presentation by the short, muscular, bald-headed, fourth-generation Teamster from Boston, a union member since his teenage years, felt like a shop steward’s typical nitty-gritty warm-up speech.  Listening near the back of the conference, Dan Campbell, 69, a retired Teamster from Wisconsin, felt lifted by what he heard. He liked O’Brien’s ​“hard-nosed” tone and especially liked his call ​“for everyone to get on board and row with all hands.” O’Brien is president of the one-million-plus Teamsters Union.

New Leadership, New Direction In Major Midwest Teamsters Local

Members overwhelmingly elected new leadership in the 14,000-member Teamsters Local 135, where Dustin Roach and the 135 Members First Slate won with 68 percent of the vote. The election is a triumph for grassroots action and rank-and-file power, after an intense grassroots member-to-member campaign. Local 135 is one of the biggest locals in the Teamsters, representing members across Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan as well as 2,000 flight attendants nationwide at Republic Airlines. Until recently, no one could have seen this change coming to a local that was tightly controlled by officers and dominated from the top down. But Local 135 members organized for change from the bottom up—and now they’re in the driver’s seat.

With Nationwide Rallies, UPS Teamsters Kick Off Their 2023 Contract Campaign

Last week, 25 years after UPS workers last went on strike in 1997, the UPS Teamsters kicked off their contract negotiation campaign with rallies around the country. Their current contract expires in July 2023 and negotiations for a new contract have begun. In New York City alone, rallies and actions took place across 14 UPS facilities. Workers are demanding an end to excessive overtime, an end to the two-tier system, higher pay for part-time warehouse workers, more full-time jobs, job security for feeders and package drivers, ending the surveillance and harassment from the bosses, and a heat exhaustion and injury prevention plan to combat against the extreme weather we have been experiencing. For UPS Teamsters, this contract struggle is an opportunity to roll back the defeats of the current contract, including the two-tier system, which was undemocratically imposed by the Hoffa leadership onto members, the majority of whom had voted no of the tentative agreement.

Teamsters Edge Closer To A National Work Stoppage At Costco

Washington - Costco Teamsters are one step closer to a nationwide work stoppage following another day of contentious negotiations for a new national contract. The Teamsters are bargaining with the company this week for the first time since members overwhelmingly rejected Costco’s “last, best and final” contract offer in June. “Our members at Costco will stand up for their rights and withhold their labor if necessary,” said Sean M. O’Brien, Teamsters General President. “As always, if our members decide to act, they will have the backing of the 1.2-million member International Brotherhood of Teamsters behind them.” In May, the Teamsters Costco National Negotiating Committee unanimously recommended a “no” vote against the company’s contract offer. On June 21, Costco Teamsters rejected the national contract offer by over 93 percent.

UPenn Teamsters Defeat Two-Tier

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Teamsters Local 115 members at the University of Pennsylvania are celebrating a contract victory that eliminates two-tier pay for housekeepers, over the resistance of their own union officials. “In my 31 years here, this is the best contract I’ve seen,” said member Theresa Wible. “We haven’t seen raises like this since the ’80s, and I’ve never seen our union hall this packed.” The 550 campus Teamsters are mostly housekeepers, and 250 of them had been stuck on a permanent bottom tier. The five-year contract, ratified June 29, puts every Teamster at Ivy League UPenn on a progression to top pay. This year the first tier is making $25.12 an hour and the second tier is at $20.90, but by the end of the contract every housekeeper will get $28.68.

This New Teamsters Union Boss Could Start The Biggest Strike In Decades

You might not know Sean O'Brien. But he is poised to shake up the US economy in a way no one else has in recent memory. O'Brien was sworn in Tuesday as the new general president of the 1.3-million member International Brotherhood of Teamsters, succeeding James Hoffa, son of the union's most infamous president. The younger Hoffa held the job 23 years, far longer than his father ran the union. O'Brien, a self-described "militant," is vowing to take a much harsher line with employers than his predecessor did. And that could lead to a strike at the nation's largest union employer when the Teamsters' UPS contract expires on July 31 2023. If that happens, it would be the nation's largest and most disruptive strike in several decades.

Sanitation Workers Win Raise After Going On Strike

Chula Vista, Calif. - “Who are we?” Teamsters! “What do we want?” Contract! “When do we want it?” Now! The sanitation workers of Teamsters Local 542 were still in good voice three weeks into their strike, which began Dec. 17, 2021, even as Republic Services started bringing in nonunion out-of-staters as garbage piled up. Republic had refused the Teamsters’ demands for so long that the city of Chula Vista declared a public health emergency because of the amount of uncollected refuse. Close to 300 workers, many of them Latino or Black, were on strike across three different San Diego County locations. “We want to go back to work,” said Chula Vista picketer Ladere Hampton, “so that we can clean up the city.”
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