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A small but important group of workers at the Audubon Zoo has voted to join the Teamsters union. Audubon's zookeepers voted 17-14 to join Teamsters Local 270. Despite the close vote, the zoo's management has decided not to challenge the election results, and the union will now be certified as the workers' official bargaining agent. Zookeepers work directly with the animals in exhibits such as the Asian domain and primate center, but their ranks do not include animal curators, who are considered part of management. Audubon has a total staff of about 600, including 450 full-time workers. The Teamsters represent...

President Obama gave a corker of a campaign speech yesterday at the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh, promising to deliver on his promise to ease the rules for union organizing. If you want to know what this means in action, consider the current Teamsters play to control California ports. The dispute concerns the Clean Truck Program announced in 2007 by the Port of Los Angeles to ban the dirtiest trucks from carrying port cargo. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former union organizer, seized on the program as an opportunity to help his Teamster friends. Current law doesn't let the Teamsters organize...

James P. Hoffa is now saying that if Obama pulls the "public option" out of his healthcare bill, it is not a deal killer as far as union support is concerned. Hoffa said that he was only interested in what was "doable" and that they need to "get something done… and declare a victory." Now let's take a look at these quotes from Mr. Hoffa, shall we? What does it mean if we aren't seeing obliged union support without integrity for Obama's healthcare coming from Hoffa's Teamsters? Hoffa is saying that he doesn't care at all what healthcare "reform" will...

Remember how unions are for “the little guy”? Remember how unions can’t wait to take to the street with obnoxious signs and thug behavior to strong-arm some business or another to their will? It’s all about the workers, dontcha know? Well, unless those workers that want to strike happen to be a union’s headquarters staff, that is. In that case union bosses frown on any striking going on. As LaborReport.com notes, this hilariously hypocritical situation has, indeed, happened inside Teamsters headquarters (known as the “marble palace” for its opulence) in Washington D.C. The HQ staffer’s union has announced that they...

UPS employees and Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are claiming that their union leaders forced them to participate in a letter writing campaign and politically motivated envelope stuffing sessions to attack their chief business rival FedEx, the Washington Post reported on August 7. It seems that union members that work for UPS felt pressured and intimidated by union thug leaders to take their personal time to participate in envelope stuffing sessions where mailings attacking FedEx were gathered and set up for the post office. Naturally, the union operatives claim that that all the union members that felt forced...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. business groups are growing increasingly frustrated with President Barack Obama's failure to resolve a cross-border trucking dispute with Mexico they say has threatened thousands of American jobs. "We've got companies that are really concerned," said Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers. "Our calculation is that we've got 15,000 jobs at risk and the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Mexican buyers are shifting suppliers," Vargo said. U.S. manufacturers hold out hope Obama's meeting early next week in Guadalajara with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian...

For Immediate Release July 27, 2009 Contact: Leslie Miller 202-624-6911 (lmiller@teamster.org) Web Site, Ad Campaign, e-Activism Part of Unprecedented Union Effort Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa on Monday announced that the union will campaign vigorously for health care reform using a new Web site, an ad campaign, call-in days, e-activism and events planned throughout Congress’s August recess. The campaign will kick off with a new Web site today, teamstersforhealthcarereformnow.com, to mobilize members in the fight for health care reform. The Web site launch will be supported by a Web-based ad campaign on targeted state blogs and on-line publications.Tens of thousands...

Dr. Howard Dean’s fans come out for the big Democratic summer shindig As Tom Andrews, the director of the leading national antiwar coalition, began his speech at the Maine Democrats’ big outdoor summer shindig in Falmouth, John Baldacci signaled his bodyguard/driver to move the large, dark SUV up the driveway. The vehicle soon hid in the trees, its engine quietly humming. At first, the governor seemed to be paying attention as Andrews, the former First District congressman, launched into rousing tales of how the country, under President George W. Bush, had gone "from peace and prosperity to war and recession."...

WASHINGTON -- How does the Obama administration love organized labor? Let us count the ways it uses power to repay unions for helping to put it in power. It has given the United Auto Workers majority ownership of Chrysler. It has sent $135 billion of supposed stimulus money to state governments to protect unionized public sector employees from layoffs and other sacrifices that private sector workers are making. It has sedated the Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards, which protects workers against misbehavior by union leaders. Cap-and-trade legislation might please unions with protectionism -- tariffs on imports from countries not...

The Washington Post has published a glowing article about likely incoming AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka (photo), titled "Trumka Hopes to Mend the AFL-CIO." Writer Chris Cillizza asks in the very first sentence of his story, "Can Richard Trumka reunite the labor movement?" Cillizza portrays Trumka as genuinely puzzled over the reason for the big split in the labor movement: With Trumka's election virtually ensured, the central question is whether he can heal the rift that occurred four years ago when the Service Employees International Union and the Teamsters (among others) left the AFL-CIO to form a new labor coalition known...

FedEx Express is learning what could be the Democrats' economic motto -- "Never Let Success Go Unpunished." Led by Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minnesota), the House on May 21 passed legislation that contains a hidden provision -- a mere 230 words -- that would hobble FedEx Express by completely changing the labor laws under which the company operates. Unless the Senate removes the language from the bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, a mere dozen or so workers in just one city could hamstring much of the nation's overnight delivery service. Americans take for granted that things can "absolutely, positively ......

The Chicago Tribune reports that a "former union officer and two employees of Teamsters Local 743 were convicted in federal court Friday for rigging two elections in 2004": "The three were found guilty on the third day of jury deliberations after a four-week trial in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The federal jury convicted Richard Lopez, the local's former secretary-treasurer, as well as Thaddeus Bania, its former comptroller, and David Rodriguez, an organizer." And President Barack Obama seriously contends the federal oversight to monitor corruption within the Teamsters that has been in place since 1989 pursuant to a consent decree...

Anyone worried that, once in charge, Democrats wouldn't be vigilant in protecting our southern border can relax. The grave threat of Mexican long-haul truckers has been shut down. With any luck, Mexicans will never have the temerity to attempt to deliver commercial goods into the United States again. At least such is the fervid hope of the Teamsters, the fiercest adversary the Mexicans have faced since President James K. Polk sent Winfield Scott south in the Mexican-American War. The union can't abide Mexican trucks because they represent competition, and so they must be blocked - legal obligations, economic rationality and...

Talk about shades of Smoot-Hawley, the 1930 tariff act that was designed to protect American jobs but, not too surprisingly, crippled industries relying on international trade when other nations retaliated. Production kept on plunging and unemployment kept on rising, extending the Depression. In today's extremely global economy, we shudder to think how much worse the consequences today might be. The Mexican trade war may just be getting revved up, thanks to the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress ending a Bush administration pilot program that allowed a limit of 97 Mexican long-haul truck drivers into the United States (whereas, under...

When G-20 finance ministers met in England over the weekend to discuss a way out of the global financial crisis, the group pledged to eschew trade protectionism. That sounds good. But some of the governments represented at the meeting aren't walking the walk on global commerce at home. Instead they're taking the side of special interests that want to weaken foreign competition. One culprit that comes to mind is the U.S.

James P. Hoffa tried his hand at some spin against opponents of the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) last week, denying that a secret ballot is a basic tenet of democracy. "Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy," Hoffa is quoted as saying in a Teamsters press release. How does he justify this idiotic claim? Because, you see, the Soviet Union had a secret ballot "but those weren't democratic," Hoffa reminds us. A facile comparison, for sure. So, Hoffa thinks that eliminating a worker's right to a safe and fair election is perfectly in...

Teamsters President Blasts False Claims About Secret Ballots Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today praised House and Senate sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act. The bill would give workers the choice of forming a union through majority sign-up or a National Labor Relations Board election. It would make it easier for workers to form a union. “In these dire economic times, I can’t think of a better way to restore stability to middle-class families than to strengthen unions,” Hoffa said. “History shows that the economy does well when unions are strong.” Hoffa blasted the hostile, multimillion-dollar campaign to defeat...

House and Senate Democrats will introduce a bill to ease rules on labor union elections as soon as Tuesday, thrusting Congress into one of the biggest battles ever between business and labor and putting moderates in the hot seat as no other piece of legislation has this year. On Monday, investment guru Warren Buffett announced on CNBC that he is opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow unions to bypass the secret ballot and require only signatures on a petition to organize a company’s work force. “I think the secret ballot is pretty important in this country,”...

The U.S. Department of Transportation will make no attempt to stop Sen. Byron Dorgan's effort to kill the Cross Border Demonstration Project, The Trucker learned Friday afternoon. Earlier this week, Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota, included language in the Fiscal Year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill that the senator said would finally bring to an end “the Mexican long-haul trucking program in the U.S. started by the Bush Administration.” The bill, not to be confused with the stimulus package, allocates federal funds for the remainder of the fiscal year. Sources have told The Trucker that LaHood has indicated he will...

DALLAS — Union officials were confident Tuesday that new legislation in Congress would halt Mexican trucks from making long-haul trips into the United States. A $410 billion spending bill House Democrats presented Monday includes language that would prevent Mexican-licensed trucks from traveling beyond commercial zones along the U.S.-Mexico border. The wording is aimed at ending a pilot program backed by the Bush administration that permitted up to 500 U.S.-certified trucks access deep into the U.S. "This is a really big win for us," said Leslie Miller, an International Brotherhood of Teamsters spokeswoman. "Historically, there has been very, very strong support"...

I missed Clintonite moldy oldie-turned-Obama economic adviser Robert Reich’s testimony a few weeks ago on how the government should spend federal stimulus money. The Berkeley professor engaged in academic fantasy land talk about getting all the cash out to workers as quickly as possible — a pipe dream debunked by the CBO report I mentioned in my column yesterday. Even more noteworthy, however, were the comments Reich made about which workers deserve the stimulus bucks most. Reich’s proposal exposes the lie that the Obama administration is actually interested in revitalizing basic infrastructure for the good of the economy. No, what...

Organized labor helped elect Barack Obama and now eagerly awaits his promised support for its top priority—a bill that would make it easier to set up union locals. The Employee Free Choice Act would allow unions to create local bargaining units without winning the vote of a majority of workers in a secret ballot. The local unit would be certified if a majority of workers endorsed it by signing an authorization card handed out by union organizers. Fair enough? Not really. The so-called card-check bill would not protect workers and it would not be "free choice." It would strip away...

Regarding Dr. John David's commentary, "Make it Easier to Unionize Workplace": Labor unions certainly have their place in a contemporary American economy, but not at the expense of employee free choice and economic security. Indeed, the Employee Free Choice Act would severely erode the freedom enjoyed by employees for nearly 75 years to make a private, fully-informed decision about whether or not they want a union to represent them. Too often, the losing party in a union election - the company or the union - blames its loss on the opposing party's "coercive and underhanded" tactics. In reality though, the...

Alright so this auto bailout bill is in a holding pattern. But just remember that it doesn't mean it is dead. So here are some facts that should keep you seething ... The Big Three currently pay 85% of union benefits to UAW members ... who aren't even working. Yep. Remember how I told you about the Job Banks for union workers? If a union worker is employed at a plant that closes, the auto makers still pay 85% of their union benefits. Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, says that his company must reduce operating costs ... but his...

“You just sit and you worry,” said Pat Weber, a construction administrator in Fennville who was laid off more than a year ago. “In the last year, I’ve put in for more than 100 jobs. I stopped counting after 110. It’s just so defeating.” All around Fennville and its neighbors here in southwest Michigan, front lawns are peppered with for-sale signs and merchants complain about slow days. But while this remains a beautiful place with none of the obvious blight of Detroit on the other side of the state, residents say the hardship beneath the surface is very real. It...

The New Plan? Cripple Honda! Save Detroit with Card Check! Eliminating the secret ballot and making it easier to organize U.S. Honda and Toyota workers (and imposing contract terms via binding arbitration) would "level the playing field," says Dem. Congressman Tim Ryan. ... Then when Honda and Toyota responded by importing more cars from abroad, we could have import quotas! Eventually the whole automotive sector could be planned by Congress in conjunction with existing business and labor interest groups. Red State has seen the future and it is corporatist. ...12:21 P.M.

Unions are to blame for the Big Three automakers’ problems, according to a television ad meant to stoke public opposition to organized labor’s number one legislative priority. “Steel, auto, airlines. What do these industries all have in common?” asks the ad sponsored by the business-backed Employee Freedom Action Committee, which was active in several hotly contested Senate races this year. “Hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and union bosses that helped put them out of business.” The advertisement urges people to fight the Employee Free Choice Act, which unions hope will be taken up quickly by the Democratic Congress and...

President-elect Barack Obama, who co-sponsored the misleadingly titled Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate in 2007, has vowed that the measure, called “Card Check,” will be the law of the land once he’s in office. Given the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, if Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss loses Georgia’s runoff election on Dec. 2, Card Check probably will become law—and that would be terrible news for Americans who want to keep their jobs. Card Check would do away with the present secret ballot process used by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) when employees vote on whether to...

There is a curiously dated logic in unions insisting that Congress pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which belies the back and forth accusatory rhetoric of intimidation between business and big labor. There are two principal methods for employees to join and command employers to recognize their union's collective bargaining request. First: Company workers can get at least 30 percent of their colleagues to sign petition cards requesting representation, send the cards to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and have them oversee a secret ballot election. Second: If more than half of the workers sign up for representation, a...

Who killed the U.S. auto industry? To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUVs no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans and Koreans prepared and built for the future. I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II. As far back as the 1950s, an intellectual elite that produces mostly methane had its knives...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic leaders in Congress sidetracked legislation to bail out the auto industry Thursday and demanded the Big Three develop a plan assuring the money would make them economically viable. "Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money," Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a hastily called news conference in the Capitol. She and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Congress would return to work in early December to vote on legislation if General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC produce an acceptable plan. The decision averted a likely defeat of...

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner said Democrats' use of secret ballots to chose its leadership was ironic because the party wants to nix workers' rights to a secret voting in deciding whether to unionize. "The secret ballot election is a cornerstone of our American democracy," Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Thursday. "If it is good enough for House Democrats to rely on during today's high-stakes vote, shouldn't it be good enough for millions of American workers across America who value their workplace privacy?" He vowed Republicans would stand firmly against the Democrat's "card-check" legislation - dubbed the Employee Free...

DETROIT, Nov 20 (Reuters) - United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said on Thursday that lawmakers need to take immediate action on a $25 billion bridge loan bill to support the U.S. automakers or one or more could fail. Gettelfinger, who testified on Tuesday and Wednesday to U.S. congressional committees in support of the loans, said he would not comment on a possible compromise bill reached by Democratic and Republican senators until details were known. When told that one detail might be that the automakers would have to provide a strategic plan to get access to the money, Gettelfinger said...

TALEGAON, India: General Motors Corp. opened a second plant in India on Tuesday, boosting its production capacity from 85,000 to 225,000 vehicles a year. The factory is part of GM's aggressive push into emerging markets, which have helped cushion the beleaguered auto giant from falling sales in the developed world. It also furthers the Indian government's ambition to turn the country into a manufacturing hub for small vehicles. "We believe India in three to four years will be a significant source of profit for us," said GM Asia Pacific President Nick Reilly. The first car — a pint-sized red Chevrolet...

The United Auto Workers union called on Congress and the Bush administration to get a loan to U.S. automakers to prevent their collapse before the legislature adjourns Friday. "Congress must not adjourn with the Bush administration in place without an agreement," said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. "If there's no action, we could see the collapse of one or more domestic auto companies by the end of year." Gettelfinger said the cost of not acting would be devastating for the industry's employees and the U.S. economy. "The current recession that we're in would be made much worse," he added, saying states...

The Big Three automakers’ chief executives testified before Congress today, blaming the credit crisis for their downfall. But Richard Wagoner, CEO of General Motors (GM: 2.11, -0.68, -24.37%) did not use the credit crisis as an excuse for the company’s poor profits when he wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal in December 2005. In his opinion piece, which came amidst record sales, he blamed not the credit crisis, but a kaleidoscope of other reasons, including “intense” foreign competition, soaring gas prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and high benefit costs for the automakers’ downfall. And in his...

WASHINGTON -- A full-court effort by U.S. auto makers to secure federal aid appeared to be on the rocks after the companies failed to convince lawmakers of the urgent need for a rescue. Michigan Rep. Dale Kildee, Chrysler Chairman and CEO Robert Nardelli, GM Chairman and CEO Richard Wagoner, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Michigan Rep. Sandy Levin (left to right) prior to a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill at which the auto makers made their case for federal assistance. Late Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid backed away from efforts to force a vote this week on a Democratic-backed...

The chances of the US Congress quickly approving a bill to save the "Big Three" car manufacturers are said to be "remote" but one economist warned that their collapse could shave 4pc off America's gross domestic product next year. Democrat Senator Chris Dodd, who chairs the influential Senate banking committee, believes that the chances of Congress approving a new bill this week to advance up to $25bn in lifeline funding to Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are slim. "I'm anxious to see something happen," said Mr Dodd, who on Tuesday heard pleas for the money from the leaders of the...

Barney Frank favors bailing out the Detroit automakers over letting them go into bankruptcy. Chief among his concerns is that bankruptcy might "bust" the unions. You know, those organizations whose contract demands have put Detroit on the brink of extinction. The Massachusetts Dem, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was interviewed by Maggie Rodriguez on today's Early Show. He appeared alongside Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Al.), ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, who favors letting the automakers reorganize under Chapter 11. View video here.

There’s a big push on in Washington to bail out the Big Three automobile companies. It’s the usual “crisis” scenario where scare headlines predict woe and economic gloom if something isn’t done NOW!But would a bailout of the Big Three actually solve their problems? No. But it would make sure unions which have held these companies hostage to a failing business model don’t get hurt.Consider this: GM also famously spends over $1,600 per vehicle on the healthcare costs of current and retired U.S. workers while Toyota pays about $200 per vehicle. Although GM also pays about another $1,000 per vehicle...

DETROIT: When Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Automobile Workers union, appears this week at congressional hearings to help make the case for the Detroit automakers getting emergency U.S. government aid, he wants lawmakers to know what he believes is at stake. "It wouldn't be just one company failing here," Gettelfinger said in an interview. "It would be all three going down." He might as well add the UAW. The union's membership at General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler has been nearly halved to 139,000 workers in the past three years, and it continues to shrink with every new plant...

WASHINGTON: As top Detroit auto executives prepared to make their most intense plea for aid to Congress on Tuesday, General Motors also pleaded Monday for a billion-euro credit guarantee from the German government to help its Opel subsidiary. The request, greeted with some skepticism in Germany - Chancellor Angela Merkel promised a reply by Christmas - demonstrated how what had been building as a Washington drama involving efforts to save the venerable Detroit auto industry was fast becoming a story about how the international industry might be transformed by the spreading financial crisis. Governments around the world, from Tokyo to...

A card-check law would give union bosses an unfair advantage in organizing the workplaceTHE ISSUE: A card-check law would give union bosses an unfair advantage in turning workplaces into union shops. Probably no group celebrated the election of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama as president more than organized labor. For decades, labor unions have watched membership rolls dwindle. In 1983, union members made up 20.1 percent of employed wage and salary workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Today, the union membership rate is down to about 12 percent. In Alabama, union membership is even lower, about 9.5 percent. The...

- - Says Taxpayers Demand Real Reforms & Accountability From Washington WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, made the following statement regarding today’s announcement by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid that he will seek Senate passage next week of a $25 billion bailout for the U.S. auto industry. Senator Reid’s support for this latest government bailout comes on the heels of yesterday’s announcement from the Treasury Department that the federal government has a record deficit of $237.2 billion for the first month of the fiscal year. This represents the highest monthly imbalance on record....

JERUSALEM – The enactment of a "single payer" socialist health care system; passing laws to make joining a labor union easier; raising the minimum wage and increasing labor union support – all these are just some of the policies the Community Party USA has mapped out as crucial for Obama to push through during his term of office. Just days after the party's official newspaper lauded the role of labor unions in Obama's election victory, another article in the Communist Party's Political Affairs magazine by leading party member and Rutgers University history professor Norman Markowitz outlined the kind of "change"...

Chapter 11 would better preserve the valuable parts of the company than an ad hoc bailout. General Motors is a once-great company caught in a web of relationships designed for another era. It should not be fed while still caught, because that will leave it trapped until we get tired of feeding it. Then it will die. The only possibility of saving it is to take the risk of cutting it free. In other words, GM should be allowed to go bankrupt. AP Consider the costs of tackling GM's problems with some kind of bailout plan. After 42 years...

The failure of one or more of Detroit’s Big Three automakers would put a huge initial dent in American manufacturing, but in time foreign car companies would pick up the slack by stepping up production in their plants here, many industry experts and economists say. Whether Washington should let that play out — risking hundreds of thousands of jobs — is a central question Congress will weigh this week as it hears testimony from Detroit leaders who are pushing for immediate federal intervention, before the next administration takes over in January. “Barack Obama has made it clear he understands the...

DETROIT -- The president of the United Auto Workers union said the dire financial troubles of the three U.S. auto makers is the result this year's spike in gasoline prices and the meltdown on Wall Street, not missteps by management or high labor costs. "This industry is in a crisis situation not of its own making," Ron Gettelfinger said in an interview Saturday afternoon with The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Gettelfinger also urged Congress to provide financial help to prevent General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. or Chrysler LLC from sliding into bankruptcy protection. Bankruptcy is "the worst possible route...

One of the best reasons why Detroit automakers should not receive a bailout can be found in a General Motors "Jobs Bank" program that, bizarrely, pays employees not to work. A beneficiary of that program was someone named Jerry Mellon, who worked for GM until his division merged with another in 2000 and he was no longer needed. Except for a brief period in 2001, Mellon received his full salary for not working, which reached $64,500 a year by 2006. Include benefits, and the annual cost to GM exceeds $100,000. To earn his pay, Mellon was given the formidable task...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan said Sunday he would not object to firing executives of U.S. automakers that get proposed federal bailout money. The Democrat said in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" program that senior management at General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) and Chrysler Corp. should consider resigning their posts if it means their respective firms can get federal assistance. Congressional lawmakers are considering $25 billion in emergency loans for the struggling car makers. The Senate reportedly will take up a bailout proposal Monday. "If it was the difference...