Woo-hoo! Another Teamster organizing victory in MA, NY, CA and IN

Let's give a warm welcome to a thousand new brothers and sisters, UPS Freight clerks who signed authorization cards to become Teamsters!

Majorities of clerks at Stoneham, Mass., signed cards to join Teamsters Local 25; Farmingdale, N.Y. clerks have joined Local 707; Rialto and Fontana, Calif., clerks have become members of Local 63 and Indianapolis clerks have joined Local 135. Clerks are also being signed up at more than 80 other terminals.

The clerks are full-time and part-time workers who see to it that freight dispatch, billings and operations run smoothly at UPS Freight terminals. They work side-by-side with Teamster drivers and dockworkers, where as former Overnite workers they saw the union's strength.

Brian Buhle, international vice president and secretary-treasurer of Local 135, in Indiana said,

There are some very excited clerks in Indianapolis who have been interested in joining the union since 2006, when the UPS Freight organizing drive began here.

Said Kevin McCaffrey, president of Teamsters Local 707 in New York, 

The clerical workers in Long Island who signed cards and are now represented by the Teamsters are eager for more workers to sign cards, so we can get down to the business of negotiating a contract for them.

Welcome aboard!

Hats off to IN Teamsters

Teamsters at the March 10 rally in Indianapolis

With the return of 39 Democratic representatives to Indiana, the Legislature can now get back to work with reordered priorities. Instead of attacking workers, lawmakers can now focus on creating jobs. The Democrats' walkout, and the hard work of Indiana unions and their allies, resulted in  following victories:

•Right-to-work legislation is off the table, preserving collective bargaining rights;

•The permanent ban on public employee bargaining is off the table in the House;

•Enabling legislation for private takeover of public schools is off the table in the House;

•Private school vouchers will be limited to 7,500 students in the first year and 15,000 in the second year, rather than the largest voucher program in the nation the Republicans had proposed;

•Rather than an outright ban of Project Labor Agreements as Republicans wanted, PLAs still can be included with projects passed by public referendum; and

•The threshold for applying the common construction wage to projects would be $250,000 for 2012 and $350,000 for 2013, rather than the job-killing $1 million threshold the Republicans wanted.

Teamsters International Vice President Brian Buhle says the War on Workers is far from over:

We dodged a bullet in this session but the attacks against the middle class will continue and we must be mobilized more than ever to ensure a fair deal for the working class. We must beat them at the ballot box.

Buhle, who is also secretary-treasurer of Local 135 in Indianapolis, thanked the thousands of Indiana Teamsters who protested at the Statehouse for six weeks.

Without their help giving the Democrats some cover, this victory over a radical anti-union agenda by the far right wing would not have been possible. Members from all Teamster locals across Indiana kept up the pressure and the Teamsters Union led the way, day in and day out. Hats off to Indiana Teamsters.

Teamsters take the fight to IN, OH, OR, WA, NV



Indiana Statehouse


Thousands continued to protest for the eighth day in Madison but some of the action moved to Indianapolis today, where 7,000 workers showed up to protest a right-to-work (for LESS) bill that was voted out of committee.

Teamsters were there in force, their red-and-blue "Stop the War on Workers" signs extremely visible.

The IndyStar included an awesome photo gallery with several great photos of our members. One photo (can't use because it's copyrighted) shows our brother James Taylor, a truck driver with Local 135, sitting outside the committee room with the sign. Here are a couple more photos from Indiana:

In Washington state, Teamsters Local 117 sang the Wisconsin fight song at a noon rally in the capitol. They'd carpooled from Tukwila to Olympia. KIRO-TV reported 

Hundreds attended a rally in Olympia on Monday for the dual purposes of supporting state workers in Wisconsin and trying to save public services from the chopping block here in Washington.

Local 117 Secretary-Treasurer Tracey Thompson reminded her members:

It is important that the rights we possess in Washington State are not taken for granted. If the political landscape in our State were to alter slightly, the kinds of radical legislative changes now being imposed on working families in Wisconsin will almost certainly happen here.

Teamsters from Local 324 in Salem, Ore., brought "Collective Bargaining Is a Right" signs to a Capitol rally where hundreds of workers showed up.

Two thousand workers, including Teamsters from Local 631, came to a rally in Las Vegas today to show solidarity with Wisconsin workers. Teamsters joined another 300 in Carson City. (Photos to come.)

Many of our Ohio brothers and sisters will join a massive Wisconsin-like rally at Ohio’s statehouse in Columbus Tuesday to protest Senate Bill 5, which would abolish collective bargaining rights of state employees. According to the Dayton Business Journal

The mobilization is expected to be much larger than last Thursday’s turnout, where an estimated 4,000 people filled the statehouse atrium, rotunda and West Lawn to oppose the measure, according to a news release from the AFL-CIO. Among its other provisions, Senate Bill 5 requires workers to pay more toward health insurance premiums and switch to a merit-based pay system.

And finally, our favorite tweet of the day (about Wisconsin Koch whore Gov. Scott Walker:

@BrianKeljore   So Egyptians, the Packers, NFL Player's union, teamsters, firefighters, police, and Obama are against him and he still is being a child.