Teamsters Local 294

Peter Robb, Chief Counsel for the NLRB has been fired!! Read about his blatant attacks on labor unions and why he needed to go.....

UPS Albany Feeder Steward, Mark "Soupy" Campbell is sporting a custom mask he made himself. He and his coworkers are representing Local 294 with their hats. Pictured below: Unidentified preloader, Campbell, Kevin Marschner and Bob Woelfersheim.

Teamsters Local 202 President Dan Kane Jr gives a press conference after Hunts Point workers voted on their tentative agreement with the employer. ~Union Strong

Fast-food workers in 15 cities around the country walked out Friday in a strike for the federal government to increase the national minimum wage to $15 an hour. The group, which is backed by Service Employees International Union, has a petition on its website urging President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to prioritize minimum wage in their first 100 days in office. The petition demands a $15 federal minimum wage, easier rules to join a... union, a focus on racial justice, affordable health care, and holding companies accountable for their failure to protect essential workers on the frontlines of the pandemic. "They want to send a message to both the Biden-Harris administration and Congress to prioritize passing $15 an hour (legislation) in the first 100 days,'' Allynn Umel, organizing director of Fight for $15 and a Union, told USA Today. See more

More than 100 truck drivers who deliver gourmet groceries to Whole Foods stores in the New York area are threatening to strike over COVID-19 safety issues, The Post has learned. Teamster’s Local 445 members claim that their employer United Natural Foods better known as UNFI, a publicly traded supplier to Whole Foods with $27 billion in revenue has refused to give them basic protective equipment including masks and hand sanitizer, and that the company hasn’t disinfected their trucks in months.

In a major victory for administrative workers at the University of California (UC), who have been campaigning to form a union with Teamsters Local 2010, the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has ruled that over 1,000 Administrative Officer II employees were misclassified and incorrectly excluded from union representation. The Board ordered the University to place the workers in a Teamsters bargaining unit effective immediately. As a result, these workers now... have union representation and the protections and benefits provided by the Teamster contract. The victory shows that even with the challenges of the pandemic, and the Supreme Court’s anti-union Janus decision, our union can win large-scale organizing campaigns, said Jason Rabinowitz, Local 2010 Secretary-Treasurer and Director of the Teamsters Public Services Division. Workers recognize that we need unions now more than ever. I am proud to welcome the newest members of Local 2010, and I look forward to welcoming thousands more. When we organize workers and increase our numbers, we build power to win strong contracts and fair pay and benefits for working people. See more

UPS Rome Our Teamster brother Shop Steward Tom Schoen recently received the prestigious Circle of Honor Award. UPS gives this award to drivers who have reached 25 years of safe driving. Tom delivers in the Old Forge area and drives about 200 miles per day. Tom, who is also the co-chair of the safety committee received a leather jacket and a Circle of Honor hat. Mike Ricco and Gary Zeller, two former retired recipients of this award, were there to celebrate as well. Not many drivers receive this award in their careers....Congratulations Tom!! Pictured below: Tom with Center Manager Scott Miller and in the background OMS Judy who put this all together.

Oct. 30, 1912, Little Falls, New York, mounted police attack striking textile workers mostly immigrant women and girls beating some of them unconscious. The police chased the fleeing workers to their strike headquarters, continuing their assault, ransacking the building, destroying their union charter, and arresting the entire strike committee. Despite this, the workers saw the strike through until January 1913, when they won an agreement that included reinstatements, wage increases, and other demands.

As many people remember Sean Connery, and list his greatest movies, no one seems to remember The Molly Maguires (1970), which described the infiltration by the Pinkerton Detective Agency into the union of Irish coal miners in central Pennsylvania. A rare attempt to make a movie about workers organizing, this movie was directed by Martin Ritt, backlisted in the 1950's and later the director of Norma Rae (1979). Connery was powerful as Jack Kehoe, the last of the Mollies to be hung, so remember him by watching The Molly Maguires.

November General Membership Meeting This was our first meeting inside since the pandemic started. It was great to seeing our members. During the meeting President Bulgaro swore in two new members from UPS Hudson. We would like to welcome our brothers Mike Hull and Dylan Thompson!

Show us your selfies of you getting out there and voting.....

OCCUPY FLINT: On Dec. 30, 1936, auto workers carried out a brilliant plan and occuped the General Motors plant in FLINT, MICHIGAN. Afraid of being found out by GM’s extensive network of factory floor spies, planning was carried out by a small group of workers in their homes. Targets were strategic ones: As the time GM had only two factories with the dies from which car body components were stamped: one in Flint that produced the parts for Buicks, Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles and ...another in Cleveland that produced Chevrolet dies. No stamping dies no cars. Learning that GM might be moving the dies out of the Flint plant, the occupy timetable was sped up and the sit-down began on Dec. 30, not in early 1937 as was originally considered. In early February 1937, doing GM’s bidding, governor of Michigan, Frank Murphy, ordered workers to leave the factory. Miners Union president and Committee on Industrial Organization leader John L. Lewis, said this in response: You want my answer I give it to you. I shall personally enter General Motors Chevrolet Plant 4. I shall order the men to disregard your order, to stand fast. I shall then walk up to the largest window in the plant, open it, divest myself of my outer rainment, remove my shirt, and bare my bosom. Then when you order your troops to fire, mine will be the first breast that those bullets will strike. And as my body falls from the window to the ground, you listen to the voice of your grandfather (Murphy’s grandfather had been executed for rebellion by the British) as he whispers in your ear, ‘Frank, are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ Some 7,000 workers sat in at one time or another until Feb. 11, 1937, winning United Autoworkers Union recognition! The newly formed UAW (1935) had challenged one of the most powerful corporations in the world and had won! By mid-1937 there were some 3M new union members one-quarter of all private sector workers in unions. There were 477 factory occupations in 1937 to further union recognition.

Great Union Leader!!! He wasn't afraid to buck the system and wasn't afraid to call anyone out that was putting words in his mouth and defended his rights as an American.