At last weekend’s Teamsters for a Democratic Union convention, nearly 400 rank-and-file Teamsters convened to discuss taking power in their union and organizing Amazon.
At the convention, members of the durable reform movement Teamsters for a Democratic Union and their allies achieved constitutional amendments they’ve been seeking for decades.
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.
Teamsters for a Democratic Union lists “10 reasons to vote no” on the proposed contract on its web site. It says UPS’s offer contains “major concessions,” including two-tier “22.4 Hybrid Drivers” who will deliver ground freight for a lower pay rate.
As their membership and resources have continued to dwindle, unions are trying to figure out how best to respond to the current moment. With a Trump inauguration fast approaching and the Republicans taking control of the Supreme Court, the United States Congress, a majority of governorships, and over two-thirds of state legislatures, this choice has become even more urgent than it already was.
The upcoming Teamsters election is a chance to unseat James P. Hoffa and reverse the union's managed decline.
Proposed cuts would have slashed members' pension checks by 50% or more.
Federal prosecutors Indicate they would scale back government control over the union. But a rank-and-file group called the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a frequent critic of current union President James P. Hoffa, is fighting the effort.
On April 16 members of Local 89 in Louisville voted no on their supplement for the second time, this time by 94 percent. Members were angry that they spend up to an hour a day—unpaid—on a shuttle that takes them to and from the parking lot to their work stations; the site is that big. They were also demanding that more part-time jobs be converted to full-time ones. Now the five-year contract is ratified—by fiat of the Teamsters international.
THE U.S. working class lost one of its staunchest and most inspiring fighters on February 9. At the too-young age of 67, Peter Camarata succumbed to renal cancer at home in Chicago after a two-year battle. His absence from the front lines of labor and social justice movements will be felt by those who followed his lead and shared in his struggles.
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