The Teamsters are now at our barn looking to get us organized.
I am looking to get both sides of the story from anyone who can help. Part of me would like to sign up and get the protection they offer as Fl;orida is a right to work state and you can get fired for peeing on the toilet seat.
My questions are,
does being a Teamster give you protection from being fired at will?

if you go on strike do you still have to pay member dues?

How can a family man pay his bills if he is on strike, this one worries me a lot as I have a family to support and walking a picket line with no money to pay the bills is scarey, Yes i do plan for a rainy day however some strikes can last a long time.

Any other information / suggestions you have would be very helpful, this is all new to me. I am attending an organizational meeting this weekend and would like to be armed with some knowledge before going in to it.

Thanks for your ideas and help...

Timberwolf

 

Timber,

Heres my thoughts and some of my experience with the teamsters. My experience is from a previous job with Sysco where we were teamsters,

Protection from the teamsters will basically be good for you. Lets say pre teamsters, managers having a bad day. You looked at him wrong and he says you fired. What options do you have? None you go find another job and/or collect unemployment.

With the teamsters this same situation would be that you file grievance. Your shop steward. Then from there it gets grieved and you go to arbitration. They find in favor of you due to the unethical activities that the manager did. You now get your job back, plus all back pay that you lost do to the circumstances.

I am not sure about the member dues if on strike.

The chances of a strike are slim. Yes they do happen but UPS's last strike was in 1992 I think. If you do strike you will not get paid, however you are striking because you are looking for better conditions than what you currently have. UPS just signed their contract for 5 years. So once you get a contract you will be set.

Here a couple sites that may help with some of your uncertainty.

www.teamsters.org

http://freight2008.org/news.php

I am definitley for being a teamster. Yeah there is some goofy things that go on but, my opinion is we getter better things than non union. IE, benfits,pay,pension etc....

I am sure more people will respond there are a few of us on here.

 

yes you still pay member dues and if your laied off you need to go in and pay so much to take you off active (back then i think it was $5 )other wise you keep paying member dues and it build up...i found that out the hard way :shock:

 

But being in a Union has its downside also. Once they are in all the runs go up on bid based on Senority and if you have little time with the company you will get the worst runs there are till that person retires. Benefits will be good however just do not do on Strike you do you will lose EVERYTHING you have. The Teamsters pay you 75 a week to be on strike considering what you make a week while working it is a pittance and they could pay you alot more considering Hoffa Jr gets a salary of 400K a year as President and does nothing.

 

:roll:

My brother works for UPS and his 20 years is coming up in 2010. He's been a package driver the whole time and will retire with a pension of $4000 a month. Yeah, those Teamsters are soooooo horrible. He had to strike last time. But, he had money in the bank(like most responsible people do) and weathered it just fine. And because of that solidarity they got a good contract. And because of that last strike in 1997 hurt UPS so bad they signed their new contract 7 months before the old one expired. I've worked union and non-union. Without a doubt, the union gigs always had better pay and benefits every time. Power in numbers people.

 

Then ask any of the Old timers that were with the Teamsters in the 1970's before Deregulation during the strikes back then. My father was one and had a choice to make cross the line to feed his family and save his house or try to live on 20 bucks a week strike pay. He chose to cross and now the teamsters is refusing to pay him his EARNED pension calling him a SCAB WORKER FOR SOMETHING HE DID IN THE 70'S.

 

Big Diesel take a F&&&ING LEAP OFF A CLIFF AND DIE.

 

Why would Big Diesel wanna do something like that? Could you imagine what that would do to his MVR, if he leaped off of a clift? :shock: :P :lol: