After Katrina: the power of 1.4 million helping hands

In the final installment of our week-long coverage of Hurricane Katrina on the 10th anniversary of the disaster, today's post looks at Teamsters around the country who donated their time, resources and even their holidays to help those affected by the storm. From New England to the New Mexico, Teamsters from numerous locals donated and drove supplies by the truckload to Gulf Coast communities.

It didn’t take Teamsters long to respond to Hurricane Katrina. Within ten days after the worst natural disaster in United States’ history, Teamsters from across the country had come from all over with semi tractor-trailers -- filled to the brim with bottled water, emergency medical supplies, canned goods and school supplies to distribute to thousands of members living in hurricane- and flood-stricken areas.

A trio of UPS drivers from Local 597 in South Barre, Vermont ferried supplies more than 1,500 miles to sites in Jackson and Purvis, Mississippi. The drivers, Douglas Cleveland, Gary Dustin and Mark Gagnon, volunteered to go as part of “Operation Special Delivery,” an effort launched by Vermont Governor Jim Douglas.

According to Cleveland:

We hung signs on our trucks that read, "From Vermont to Mississippi." People cheered us on by honking and waving at us all the way down.

The trucks contained more than 145,000 pounds of supplies amassed through donations, including essential goods such as water and even dog food. Once in Jackson, the supplies were quickly unloaded, repackaged on pallets and sent out to distribution sites in the worst-hit areas of the region.

Cleveland explains:

There were a lot of trucks coming in, but the organization of the unloading process was something to see. We were joined by volunteers from all walks of life -- church members, school children and businessmen. It was wonderful to be able to help. We would all gladly do it again.

UPS driver Walter Mott from Local 492 in Albuquerque, New Mexico also helped in the relief efforts, driving a load of supplies to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to distribute to displaced hurricane victims from the New Orleans area:

I had concerns about what was going on in the Gulf, and I really wanted to help. I was born in Louisiana, and my family has a house in Galveston, Texas. I knew what they are going through.

In Boston, members from Local 25 collected and delivered supplies to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, donating a cargo trailer and community service trailer from the union's fleet to transport supplies to an area that received up to 100-mile-per-hour winds during the hurricane and had yet to be reached by the American Red Cross. The Local 25 tractor trailer, driven by volunteers Paul Newman and Rick Anderson, was loaded with mattresses, bedding, sheets, towels, and toiletries.

By December, trucks from Local 63 had made four cross-country trips to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf of Mexico. With the holiday’s approaching, a special trip was planned for Gulfport, Mississippi. Long after most service organizations and humanitarian efforts had left the Gulf, Team­sters from Local 63 pulled into Gulfport, driving a truck packed with bicycles, wrapped Christmas presents, and the jolly "Ho, Ho, Ho!" of Local 63's own Santa Claus (business agent Dallas Wimer):

So many of them came up to me, sat on my knee and told me that all they really wanted for Christmas was for their families to be safe. They wanted their old houses back, or their lost dogs. Most of all they wished the hurricanes hadn't happened.

Wimer noted that Local 891 members' impromptu North Pole decorations helped him in his leading role as Old Saint Nick.

Members of Local 891 helped unload the Teamster truck filled with presents from Local 63 families and exchange gifts, including more than 140 bicycles for the children of Local 891 members who had been affected by the storm. In the end, the children and their parents celebrated the Christmas they thought they wouldn't get.

Ten years later, Local 891 President Willie Smith still recalls the smiles on the faces of Local 891's children -- kids who thought their Christmas had been washed away with the floods, rain, and wind: 

The looks of joy on those kids' faces were enough to lift the spirits of all our members. It meant so much to know that we can count on our fellow Teamsters in times of need. They could have celebrated the holidays with their own Christmas party, but instead they selflessly gave it up for the Teamster families of Local 891.

It should be noted that countless more Teamster locals and members also answered the call to help by donating to charities, collecting needed items and driving to the affected areas to assist their brothers and sisters in need.

As Teamsters, we are blessed and privileged to be part of a brotherhood that cares so deeply about its members.

Teamsters standing united: Mississippi rebuilds after storm

Bricks recovered from Teamster member Terry Bang's home,
destroyed in the hurricane, at IBT headquaters

With this week marking the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Teamster Nation continues its look back at the disaster and the aftermath, focusing on the unprecedented role played by Teamsters in the recovery. In today's story, we recount the experiences of two Teamsters who lost their homes to the storm. 

Often overshadowed by the flood in New Orleans, few remember that Hurricane Katrina veered east at the last minute and roared onshore at the Louisiana-Mississippi state line, making the Mississippi coastline ground zero.

When the waves and storm surge hit on August 29, the power of the water wiped out entire structures in the areas of Biloxi and Gulfport, demolishing buildings and homes for miles on end. Further inland, catastrophic flooding, spawn tornadoes and wind damage ravaged even more Mississippi residents.

For Local 891 member and former shop steward Terry Bang, the tenth anniversary of Katrina marks a decade since losing his home to one of those spawn tornados. As the majority of Bang’s home was blown away by a fierce funnel of wind accompanying Katrina, he, his wife, Michele, and their two college-age children huddled in the downstairs bathroom praying for their lives.

After the storm, Bang and his wife spent more than 18 months living in a 29 x 8-foot trailer parked in the driveway that FEMA provided.

Bang and his family

Bang is deeply grateful to all the help from Local 891 in the wake of the hurricane. He said members of the union found a way to contact him after the storm and bring supplies soon afterwards, which he claims made all the difference between moving forward and just surviving:

They were right there for us, making sure we had everything we needed. We have become an even tighter knit group since the storm. As a steward, it was also great to see new drivers being hired and trained to help with the workload. We all came together, as a union -- brother helping brother against the ills of life.

Mauffray with two crosses

For Bang’s coworker and fellow union member Bobby Mauffray -- along with his wife, Marla -- the storm took almost everything when their home was washed away by the 25-foot wall of storm surge. The only possessions the Mauffray’s have are the items they threw in the back of the truck on the way to Georgia -- that and 11 of the 12 pieces of their wedding china, plus two crystal crosses marking the birth of their children found in their lawn, sitting perfectly intact near where the door had been as if they were “waiting to be put away”:

All the way home I had a knot in my stomach. But once you see it the fear recedes. You start thinking about what you need to do first. You never know what to take when you rush out, what you might miss later. I’m not one to be attached to material things, but I was glad we thought to take some pictures with us. When I was going through the wreckage I found the tape of my four year-old daughter’s ultra sound. It was filled with muddy water. That really upset me.

Following the storm, Mauffray and Bang returned to work at UPS, driving routes that were unrecognizable due to the massive devastation. Both men say they were lucky to still have a job and grateful for the quick response from their fellow Teamster members.

As a show of his appreciation, Bang recovered bricks from his old home and signed “thank you” notes to those who helped, including Local 891 President W.C. Smith and Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa, which Hoffa still keeps in his office at IBT headquarters in Washington D.C.

Teamster snags a Miss. monster!

A night-long battle in the Mississippi River yielded record results for one Teamster. Local 891 member Dustin Bockman captured the heaviest alligator in Mississippi history when he pulled in a 727-pound gator.


Bockman's record-setting gator.

After five hours of searching the inky black river during the first weekend of hunting season, Dustin Bockman, his brother Ryan Bockman (also a Local 891 Teamster), and friend Cole Landers finally caught sight of the behemoth. The story is even more amazing when you realize Dustin was on his first-ever gator hunt:

My friends were just like, ‘Oh my god, it’s so huge.’ You couldn’t fold him in half to put him in the truck.

The team gave chase for more than two hours. Finally around 3 a.m., they managed to tether it to a fishing pole and then a snare. The fishing line broke.  Bockman’s team managed to get another line around the alligator. It also broke. After two hours and more snapped lines, Dustin Bockman finally ended the chase with a shot from a crossbow.

At 13 feet, 4 inches, their catch was almost the size of the team’s boat. After three hours straining to haul the animal aboard, they gave up and called in reinforcements. State wildlife authorities confirmed Bockman’s new record four hours after another record-breaking hopeful had hauled back a 723.5-pound catch.

Bockman plans to hand out most of the alligator meat to friends and cook the rest himself. After all, the hunting season has just begun.

Power project turns to union labor for help

(Cross-posted from We Party Patriots by Chaz Bolte. Follow him on Twitter at @chazbolte.)

In Mississippi, a dying project is being given new life as developers turn to union halls for help.

Mississippi Power’s new 582-Megawatt project in Kemper County faced serious logistical struggles when non-union contractors fell behind on the $4 billion utility build. In order to meet the original deadline of December 2013, Mississippi Power affiliate Southern Co. Services turned to union pipefitters, welders, ironworkers, electricians and millwrights. Burns & Roe, monitors of the project for the Mississippi Public Utilities, still doubts the project can be completed on time because of how deep a hole the non-union contractors dug:

Burns & Roe “is very concerned that the project cannot find the appropriate number of craft,” the consultant said in its most recent report. It said Mississippi Power and SCS initially underestimated by half the 10.6 million man-hours of skilled labor needed to build the project and that the pace of monthly progress through March had been only three-fifths what is needed to finish the job on time. 

Pipefitting—the “No. 1 concern,” the consultant said—is falling “further and further behind the project schedule.” SCS has added three new piping fabricators, asked the local union pipefitters to provide up to 300 welders and boosted craft pay, Burns & Roe said. 

SCS also has received a union commitment of 300 electricians, if needed, the consultant said.

The biggest hurdle facing the new workers is a lack of room to work:

The multiple schedule items that continue to be delayed … will cause a tremendous ‘stacking of trades’ effect.” Even though the site is “large and spread out, the area work spaces are limited, making it difficult to perform work tasks effectively.”

Currently, 600 union workers are on the job site with unions pledging to provide more men and women when needed. Anti-union advocates are wielding public relations mojo to deflect blame for the failure of the project:

I don’t think Southern turned to union labor to get the project back on track,” says C.J. “Buddy” Edens, president and CEO of the Mississippi chapter of the Associated Builders & Contractors (ABC). Edens says the project has suffered from poor planning, not poor performance by non-union contractors or workers.

Mr. Edens and his ABC-affiliated workers can call it what they want. They just won’t be able to use the house phone on the Kemper County power project job site anymore.

Today's Teamster News 01.06.12

Payrolls Tread Water Once Again in December 2012  Economic Populist   ...The United States is now down -3.961 million jobs from December 2007, five years ago. The ongoing employment crisis just hit the half decade anniversary...
Secret and Lies of the Bailout   Rolling Stone   ...The federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy – it created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme. And the worst may be yet to come...
Freedom of Speech vs. Wall Street’s Interests  All Things Democrat   ...even if you hate OWS (Occupy Wall Street( and you want to scream at them because you think they’re selfish, dirty hippies who just need to get a job, if you consider yourself an American, you should be appalled by Wall Street’s role in the violent crackdown...
CTJ: Poorest 60% of Americans Get Just 18% of the Tax Cuts in the Fiscal Cliff Deal  Tax Justice Network   ...the richest one percent of Americans will receive the same share of the tax cuts as the poorest 60 percent of Americans...
Labor Groups Pan Walmart Plan to Bring Oversight Approach Used in Bangladesh to the US  The Nation   "...it makes perfect sense that now that they’re facing public relations problems anew around treatment of workers in their domestic distribution system, that they would choose to apply the same public relations scam to that problem that they’ve applied internationally...”
New twist in stricken rig saga: Shell was moving it to avoid tax  The Independent   ...The oil giant will instead suffer a multi-million dollar loss on the exercise after the rig ran aground off the Alaskan coast...
US Army joins battle to save stricken Shell rig  The Telegraph   ...The US Army has been called in to help with the battle to salvage Royal Dutch Shell’s stricken Kulluk Arctic drilling rig, which has now been beached in environmentally delicate waters for nearly a week...
Health Insurers Raise Some Rates by Double Digits  New York Times   ...Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers...
Army Corps tamps down barge worries on Mississippi  Associated Press   ...Efforts taken to keep a crucial stretch of the drought-starved Mississippi River open to barge traffic should be sufficient to avert a shipping shutdown that the industry fears is imminent, Army Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard officials said...

Today's Teamster News 08.27.12

Light blogging for the next few days. TeamsterNation is taking a break.

Laid-Off US Workers Are Taking Huge Pay Cuts At Their New Jobs  Associated Press   ...Only 56 percent of Americans laid off from January 2009 through December 2011 had found jobs by the start of this year, the Labor Department said Friday. More than half of them took jobs with lower pay. One-third took pay cuts of 20 percent or more...
Mitt Romney Reaped Huge Tax Benefits Based On 'Active' Role At Bain Capital  Huffington Post   ...Even if Romney could persuade the IRS his involvement was legitimately active, that still leaves him in a rhetorical jam: For tax purposes, he claims an active status; for political purposes, he claims to have zero to do with the investments...
Human rights in Honduras: State Department looks the other way (opinion)  Los Angeles Times   ... In March, the AFL-CIO filed a complaint under the Central American Free Trade Agreement documenting widespread abuses of labor rights in Honduras since the 2009 coup, including firings of those who signed union petitions and assassinations of trade unionists active in the resistance...
One in Four Mississippi Residents Struggle to Afford Food  Gallup   ...Residents in Alabama and Delaware are also among the most likely to struggle to afford food...
California Legislature sets ambitious agenda in last week of session  Los Angeles Times   ...Entering the final week of their legislative session, state lawmakers still must grapple with controversial proposals to overhaul California's overburdened public pension system, revamp its costly workers' compensation scheme and change the way corporate taxes are assessed...
Michigan court's collective bargaining rights decision will be sweeping  Lansing State Journal   ...union advocates believe collective bargaining has helped bring about safer hospital conditions, more effective police patrols and better learning environments for students...

Rioters kill corrections officer at private prison in MS

To anyone who doubted that private prisons are dangerous, we bring you today's news about the Mississippi prison riot that left a corrections officer dead.

According to the Associated Press,

A guard was killed and, at one point, hostages were taken during a riot at a Mississippi prison that holds illegal immigrants, authorities said. 

The Sunday riot at the privately run Adams County Correctional Center in southwest Mississippi began around 2:40 p.m. CDT and involved dozens of inmates before it was brought under control that night. 

Adams County Sheriff Chuck Mayfield told the Natchez Democrat that 15 employees were freed at one time during the uprising by opening a fence and protecting the route with guns. The sheriff said in a statement early Monday that there were at least two dozen hostages being held at one time. 

Adams County Coroner James Lee confirmed that a guard died, but said he could not provide any other details until the correctional officer's family was notified. In addition to the guard who was killed, five other correctional officers and three inmates were injured.

The prison is run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America. The other big bad private-prison actor is GEO Group in Boca Raton, Fla.

Private prisons don't save money. That's because the companies that run them need to make a profit, unlike the government. Private prisons have a long track record of understaffing, union-busting and letting prisoners escape.

The Teamsters fought off a plan to privatize prisons in Florida. Today, Teamsters International Vice President Ken Wood said the Mississippi riot is a reminder of what  happens when public safety is turned over to a for-profit company. Wood is also acting president of Teamster Local 2011, which represents Florida Department of Corrections officers.

Murder, hostage-taking, and injured prison employees is not the type of a correctional system that should be allowed to take hold in Florida. Regrettably, CCA has been in charge when similar violence erupted in Idaho and Vermont. The citizens of Florida should continue to let their elected officials know that prison privatization should not be an option in our state.

Crazy people Lawmkers in Michigan are now trying to pass a bill to close a government prison and send 1,200 inmates to a private prison. That is not a good idea.