The wellbeing of up to 1.3 million union members is at stake.
After six days off the job, the strikers at Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx ratified a contract that doubled management’s wage offer and defeated a health care cost increase.
All workers should be unionized. Like what Bernie Sanders says, take care of the working man. We are the ones that make this country move. So just throw us a little crumb. You guys are still gonna be rich.
This time, unions intend to get something done.
Pre-election survey data collected by the IBT was never released, but anyone working at UPS, YRC, or other major Teamster employers would tell you that the membership was sharply divided on whether or not they supported Trump.
Federal officials have floated a number of proposals for dealing with the dilemma of underfunded multi-employer pension plans. Most have one thing in common: they punish the innocent victims. The contrast with the bailout of bankers is striking.
After years of givebacks and autocratic leadership under James Hoffa Jr, the power of the Teamsters has withered. Rank-and-file activists are mobilizing against contract concessions, taking over locals and building a coalition to transform the union.
At a time of historic working-class weakness, it’s tempting to watch the portrayal of Jimmy Hoffa in Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman and long for similar labor leadership today. But his corruption and autocratic leadership paved the way for decline.
The Irishman is the end of the mob film as statement, the end of the figure of the Mafia. This signifier no longer has the power it once had, as it fades into the ruling class itself.
Sampson and her colleagues ran a campaign to elect a new slate of officials to head the Teamsters local. The slate, which called itself Rebuild 695 and was comprised mostly of Madison Metro Transit employees, came 96 votes short.
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