Teamsters United rallies in Louisville
2016Bronson Rozier 2016-03Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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LOUISVILLE, Ky.—“We will stand by the members, the members are not afraid to fight, we are going to take back our union!” was the welcomed central theme of the rally for the national Teamsters United militant reform slate of nearly 400, held in Louisville on Jan. 31. The slate is being led by Fred Zuckerman, president of Local 89 in Louisville, rep resenting UPS employees, car haulers for Ford, CSX rail engineers, and warehouse workers.
Supporters came from a wide area, representing many locals. Kentucky and Southern Indiana was represented from as far west as Evansville and Paducah. More from the Midwest came from Chi cago, Ft Wayne, and Indianapolis. Team sters came also from Cleveland, Akron, Dayton, and Columbus, Ohio; Philadel phia and Harrisburg, Pa.; and from Chat tanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, and Atlan ta. Tim Sylvester from Local 804 in New York, a founder of Teamsters United and slate member, flew in from Brooklyn.
Teamsters United is convinced that it can take the union back from leadership headed by James Hoffa Jr. They plan on raising $1 million to defeat the deeply entrenched sellout leadership.
Zuckerman has been a Teamster for 37 years. He be came a Teamster when he helped organize Houston’s Chemical Express workers in 1979. Later he joined Local 89 when he worked as a car hauler at Louis ville’s Ford Plant. He was a steward for seven years and then a business agent, and was elected Local 89 president in 2000.
This campaign is a result of the total bankruptcy of the Hoffa Jr. regime. Perhaps the most outrageous act and the one most responsible for this rebellion was the leadership’s imposing a giveback on the member ship after the proposed national contract had been voted down twice—once by 87% and then 94%! Oth er factors have been the shrinking pension fund, the (Left) Fred Zuckerman, president of Local 89 and and head of Teamster United’s slate.
IBT’s not supporting local fights, and misuse of the union’s credit cards.
Fred was actively involved in oppos ing these abuses.
In his speech Zuckerman reviewed these issues and said, ”Nobody is do ing nothing about it, and it’s got to stop and stop right now—and it will stop when we take office this March.”
He stated the first order of business will be to change the constitution so that the International can no longer impose a contract that a membership has voted down.
He also promised that the Team sters would go back to the basics.
There will be no more raiding other unions, and the Teamsters will be strengthened by organizing their base in freight, warehouse, rail, and construction. He pointed out the need to go on an organizing campaign of all the small independent freight companies that large companies have created in an attempt to weaken the impact of the union in the upcoming freight contract fight. Tim Sylvester, a slate member mentioned the need to rejoin the AFL-CIO.
All labor needs to look at and support this develop ment, and make it part of the return of a labor move ment that will fight in the interests of working people and oppressed. n (Left) Striking transit workers in Barcelona.
Auto Workers.
Unique Sit-Down at MU—The Colum bia [Missouri] Daily Tribune reported on an unusual variation of a sit-down by grad students at the main campus of the Univer sity of Missouri, “More than 60 graduate students used the first floor of Jesse Hall as their office during a ‘grade-in’ event Thurs day [Feb. 25], which started at 9 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. The Coalition of Graduate Workers, a student group unaffiliated with the university and working toward form ing a union, organized the event as part of its graduate education week activities. Organizers encouraged graduate students to bring folding tables and chairs or find a spot to sit on the floor in Jesse Hall while they did their work. ‘A lot of the work that graduate students do tends to go unnoticed,’ said Kristofferson Culmer with the Forum on Graduate Rights student group. ‘The research hours in the lab, the office hours grading, mentoring—a lot of the functions