The convention began on Friday, November 2. There were a number of workshops covering topics like how to win grievances and TDU’s plan for organizing in 2019. The dinner program featured speakers Jean Auguste of Rhode Island Local 251 and Fred Zuckerman, president of Louisville Local 89. Jean Auguste spoke on First Student bus drivers organizing, striking, and winning their first pension. Fred Zuckerman spoke on the state of the IBT, the UPS contract and the ‘Vote No’ movement.

“I have never seen anything as cowardly as the way the IBT handled the UPS contract. What the hell is wrong with these guys? We need to rid the union of this cancer! We need leaders with courage!” said Fred Zuckerman. “I am one pissed off Teamster, and I am going to do something about it. These bums need to go.”

The convention began Saturday with a general session that included speakers from Teamsters locals from around the country as well as guest speaker Nicole McCormick, president of Mercer County Education Association. She was a leader of the West Virginia teachers’ strike and discussed the events leading up to and the strategy of the strike.

The rest of the day included workshops as well as women’s, Black and Latino caucus meetings. The day ended with a banquet and program with guest speaker Barbara Madeloni, former president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. She talked about her experience reforming her union.

The last day of the convention included a Chicago labor history tour, UPS Teamsters meetings and more workshops. The closing session featured Mae Williams of Rhode Island Local 251 who talked about her experience organizing the hospital she works at. The new International Steering Committee (ISC) was introduced and TDU officers were elected. The ISC sets TDU’s policy and supervises the staff of TDU in between conventions.

Emily Butt, a UPS worker from Local 222 in Lansing, Michigan, attended TDU for the first time, said, “I got to meet a bunch of labor activists who are motivated and committed to building a strong working class and it gives me hope for the future!”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #Teamsters #TeamstersForADemocraticUnion

Sylvester and Teamsters United Slate VP candidate Fred Zuckerman, have been the main opponents of Hoffa’s concessionary contract with its largest employer, United Parcel Service (UPS). While UPS made $3.92 billion in profits last year, the Hoffa Team negotiated a national master contract with major givebacks. Despite strong opposition from rank and file workers across the country, “Hoffa rammed it down our throats in repeated votes,” said Local 344 UPS Feeder Driver Andrew May. Some local supplemental agreements still have not been ratified by the Teamster members, but Hoffa signed that sellout agreement anyway. “After the contract was forced onto the last three remaining locals, I knew it was time for change,” May said. “That is why I am supporting Tim Sylvester and the Teamsters United Slate. Hoffa and the current leaders are not fighting for what Teamsters want.”

In New York, Tim Sylvester negotiated the Local 804 supplemental agreement. He led his members in a struggle that resulted in the best UPS contract in the country. This included a $400 pension increase, more full-time jobs and grievance procedure reform. In Louisville, Fred Zuckerman mobilized Local 89 members to vote against contract givebacks at UPS, UPS Freight and elsewhere in the freight industry.

Tim Sylvester and Fred Zuckerman represent the unity of two different opposition slates that both ran against Hoffa in 2011. Sylvester is seen as part the reform movement that includes the influential group Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). TDU fought for, and in 1991 won, the right of Teamster members to directly elect their International President and International Executive Board. TDU endorsed and help elect Ron Carey in the first such election. Sylvester has been a regular speaker at recent TDU conventions.

Sylvester and Carey were both elected president of the same Teamsters Local 804 in Queens, New York. As a UPS driver, Sylvester supported Carey, who led the historic 1997 nationwide strike against UPS. Carey was reelected when he ran against Hoffa in 1996. After the strike the federal government removed Carey from office, paving the way for Hoffa to be elected in 1999.

Zuckerman, in contrast, was a former Hoffa supporter. He served as the Carhaul Division Director under Hoffa, but broke with Hoffa in the last election to run for VP along with other former Hoffa supporters.

Gina Alvarez thinks that the Sylvester/Zuckerman Teamster United Slate is the best chance that working Teamsters have had to take control of their union in almost 20 years, since Ron Carey was General President. “We have strong candidates, but more importantly, we have the organization and enthusiasm to defeat the Hoffa machine.”

Alvarez should know. She has been involved with the Teamsters for more than 35 years. “I started working at the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund in 1980. That is how I became a member of Teamsters Local 743.” She rose to become Secretary Treasurer of the 13,000 member local union. Presumably because she was a strong voice for rank-and-file power in the Teamsters, she was forced out of office by Hoffa and his executive board in 2010. Since then she has served on the International Steering Committee of TDU.

“It is not just UPS. Under Hoffa’s watch, hardworking Teamsters in manufacturing, freight and other industries have seen their wages and benefits shrink or disappear without a fight,” said Alvarez. “Hoffa sees himself as a deal maker. His deals keep taking us backwards. Tim Sylvester understands that we need to mobilize the rank-and-file workers to fight for better wages, health insurance, pensions and working conditions. That is the legacy of Ron Carey that he enthusiastically embraces.”

The signatures that Sylvester and Zuckerman turned in are just the start of their difficult journey to unseat an incumbent Teamster General President. They need to elect at least 5% of the delegates to the Teamster Convention next summer. If successful, they will then need to get a majority of the votes cast in the autumn 2016 election. The Hoffa slate promises to be well financed. Teamsters United will need to respond with people power. All Teamsters are eligible to vote.

“Hoffa thinks this is his union that he inherited from his father. He runs off to capitol hill and makes deals that are in the interests of his friends,” said Teamster Local 705 activist Benjamin Cline, “but this is our union. We are the Teamsters! Sylvester and Zuckerman are not our saviors, we are our saviors. After we elect the Teamster United Slate we are going to hold them accountable.”

It promises to be an interesting year in the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters!

#ChicagoIL #Teamsters #TDU #RonCarey #TeamstersForADemocraticUnion #TimSylvester #JamesHoffa

Do I remember when I met Pete Camarata? Yeah, I remember. It was in Pittsburgh in the late 1980s before the national convention of our reform caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). All the Teamster reformers were there.

We were excited because we had just won the right for rank-and-file Teamster members to elect the top national officers of our union. Many TDU leaders were busy trying to build a consensus around Ron Carey’s candidacy for General President of the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters (IBT). But Pete Camarata had some tough questions that needed answering before he would support Carey or anyone else.

Pete Camarata was always the guy in the Teamsters with the tough questions. If this guy Carey is really a reformer why isn’t he in TDU? How do we know that he won’t turn into the same as the rest of our so called leaders? He is a UPS [United Parcel Service] guy, what’s he going to do to stop the erosion of the Master Freight Agreement? Is he going to put TDU members on his slate? What about those who have been excluded from leadership like Blacks, Latinos or women? Eventually the questions got answered and in 1991 Ron Carey was elected with Pete’s support, the only reform International President in Teamster history.

Pete always had the tough questions, whether it was in the TDU caucus, his local union or just hanging out. Everyone at the convention knew Pete. How could you not know him? Pete was a founding member and one the co-chairs of TDU. He saw the need for a strong national caucus that could challenge the mob controlled IBT that was selling out its members. And the night before the TDU convention his hotel room was always buzzing with debate.

As a young Teamster I looked up to Pete. In 1976, as the lone reform delegate at the Las Vegas Teamster convention he spoke out against preposterously high salaries for officers. Pete was the lone voice from the convention floor objecting to the election of International President Frank Fitzimmons by unanimous consent. He then went on to remind the delegates of the mob hit on Jimmy Hoffa less than one year earlier. Trying to run him out of Las Vegas, the mob beat him up and left him for dead.

Pete had the courage of ten thousand Teamsters. Unafraid, after the 1976 convention he testified about mob control in the Teamsters before the U.S. Senate. He then ran for president of the IBT at their next convention in 1981.

Like most Teamsters, Pete was a worker. He worked on the dock and then later he drove a truck. He also worked as staff at Teamsters Local 722 and my old Local 743. But unlike most, he could talk to any worker like he grew up next door to them. He was a real leader.

Once I asked Pete if he could talk to some of my coworkers about TDU. The housekeepers and food service workers from the University of Chicago Hospitals, overwhelmingly African American, at first wondered about the big Italian American truck driver from Detroit. But, in no time Pete had them discussing plans for petitions, rallies and other activities to fight their oppression on the job.

Pete was always there when you needed him. He didn’t care what neighborhood or what time of day. If there were workers fighting the boss, Pete wanted to be there.

Peter Camarata was a great friend, but also he inspired me to fight for justice. Pete understood that unions are the organizations of the working class. His life continues to be an example for those who believe in class struggle unionism.

Pete was this year’s recipient of the Big Bill Haywood Award at Fight Back!’s annual People’s Thanksgiving in Chicago.

Richard Berg is the past President of Teamsters Local 743 and currently works as a staff representative for AFSCME Council 31.

#ChicagoIL #Remembrances #Teamsters #TDU #TeamstersForADemocraticUnion #PeterCamarata

The national contract passed with only a 53 % yes vote, the narrowest margin ever, but 18 supplements and riders have been rejected. This means that Teamster President Jim Hoffa and Secretary Treasurer Ken Hall will have to go back to the negotiating table.

The giant corporation reported $4.5 billion in profits last year. In April this year they bragged first quarter profits were up 7% to $1.04 billion. Despite this enormous corporate wealth, the company negotiated major concessions in healthcare from its largely part-time workforce. Teamster President Jim Hoffa and Secretary Treasurer Ken Hall worked hand in hand with UPS management to get the contract with all its supplements and riders passed. Glossy ‘vote yes’ literature was sent to all UPS Teamsters. Union meetings were held across the country where officials told workers to vote yes on contract, supplements and riders.

Under the agreement however, many full-time and all the part-time workers would have to pay substantially increased health insurance deductibles. “Many of us are only making $150 to $300 per week. Union officials were telling us what a ‘good deal’ this was yet when we saw the healthcare concessions, we started to organize!” said Jared Hamil a part-time member of Local 79 in Tampa, Florida, “Without us there is no UPS, yet they want us to continue to bust our butts while living in poverty.”

Workers in Tampa and across the country started organizing. A Facebook page popped up that thousands of UPS workers ‘liked’ and used to communicate. Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), the union’s national reform caucus, provided needed information about the contract in a timely fashion. TDU has also sent a letter to the International Union calling for a revote due to the improprieties found in the voting process.

UPS and many union officials were counting on ignorant workers, especially part-time workers, to blindly follow them. Many officials spoke of the “good UPS jobs” in a country still in economic crisis.

Workers and officials in Teamsters Local 89 in Louisville, Kentucky, where the contract was rejected by a vote of 483 to 3388, took another track. Local 89 President Fred Zuckerman told WDRB-TV, “If we don’t get the things that we want in Louisville we will continue to reject the contract.” When asked about a strike Zuckerman responded, “That is the only leverage we have in our business.”

The Louisville local represents 8800 workers at UPS Worldport Central Air Hub, a major nerve center for UPS. Of these workers, only 800 are full-time. Besides health insurance, creating more full-time jobs has been a major union issue that has not been adequately addressed since former International President Ron Carey led a strike at UPS in 1997.

The ‘no’ vote did not just come from part-time workers. Full-time UPS workers were also concerned about changes in health insurance, forced overtime, work rules and inadequate funding of pension benefits. “UPS Teamsters work awfully hard,” said Kas Schwerdtfeger of Local 344 in Milwaukee after traveling to UPS terminals across Wisconsin, “I have talked to drivers and to warehouse workers. They work so that they can provide for their family while ensuring a decent retirement. We will continue to vote down our supplement as long as we think that our future is in doubt.”

#TampaFL #Teamsters #UPS #TeamstersForADemocraticUnion #ContractStruggle