Posts tagged Teamsters
SCOTUS asked to consider case of unions refusing to open mail from disgruntled members
July 14, 2025 // “We’ve seen unions agree to process opt-out requests only during a two-week annual window,” noted Freedom Foundation CEO Aaron Withe. “We’ve seen unions go to court trying to prevent us from informing their members about their constitutional rights – paid for with their own dues money. And when all else fails, we’ve seen them forge signatures on membership and dues-authorization forms.” “In this case, they weren’t even that sophisticated,” he continued. “They simply asserted a right to refuse to open mail from the Freedom Foundation because they knew these packages were likely to contain dozens of opt-out requests.”
Unions don’t deliver for workers
July 11, 2025 // Take the recent UPS layoffs. In August 2023, the Teamsters Union touted its new UPS contract as a historic victory, claiming historic wage increases and increased benefits. Fast forward to January 2024, when UPS announced it was eliminating 12,000 jobs. Just a year later, it said it was cutting its delivery business with Amazon in half by the second half of 2026 and was aiming to shutter 10% of its buildings. Why the cuts? Because the union’s monopoly bargaining power allows it to demand wages that make it tough for companies to stay competitive. When costs climb, even giants like UPS have little choice but to cut jobs or invest less in the future. The UPS saga is a shining example of what the Mercatus report highlights: union power can backfire, leaving workers worse off in the long term.
How the Teamsters Cost 30,000 People Their Jobs
July 10, 2025 // "That's true," says Palagashvili. "[Yellow Corp] was having a lot of financial issues. But if you're on the verge of collapse, the last thing you need is a Teamsters Labor Union contract that says you have to increase labor costs. Yellow is basically covered in gasoline, and Sean O'Brien comes and lights the match." Meanwhile, union leadership help themselves. The Teamsters now brag that it has $1 billion in assets. Sean O'Brien pays himself more than $430,000 per year. The same year Yellow went bankrupt, United Auto Workers went on strike against Stellantis, the company that owns Chrysler. Stellantis gave in, giving the UAW a pay raise and promising to open a new plant. But then Stellantis started laying off workers: 1,340 during the strike and 2,450 more the next year.
Pittsburgh-Area Coca-Cola Driver Slams Teamsters With Federal Charges for Threatening Firing Over Refusal to Fund Union Politics
July 7, 2025 // Hammaker’s charges go on to challenge the fact that Teamsters union officials’ policies force workers to “affirmatively opt out of paying for non-chargeable expenditures” (if such requests are accepted at all), as opposed to letting workers voluntarily opt in to such support. Moreover, “the Union has violated the Act by failing to inform [Hammaker] and similarly situated employees of the true amount of dues they are required to pay” under Beck to stay employed, the charges conclude.
UPS offers buyout to union drivers, drawing ire from Teamsters
July 7, 2025 // The package offered through its “Driver Voluntary Severance Plan” is in addition to any retirement benefits, including health care and pension disbursements, according to a company emailed cited by Bloomberg. But according to the Teamsters union -- which represents 340,000 UPS (NYSE:UPS) drivers -- the “illegal” plan violates the contract between UPS and the Teamsters signed in August 2023, and would be less than what rank-and-file Teamsters now earn and could continue to make over the life of the current agreement.
Op-ed: Trump DOL Rule Would Reduce Union Transparency
July 2, 2025 // Keeping the reporting threshold at $250,000 in receipts is a good way to increase union transparency automatically. As that has become a smaller number in real terms over time, more unions have been subject to the highest level of scrutiny in their reports. Conservatives should applaud this win for public accountability. Instead, the Trump administration is looking to shield hundreds of unions from greater accountability by raising the reporting threshold. It’s not as though unions have been doing anything for Trump, as the AFL-CIO and government employee unions remain some of his top political adversaries.
Workers to strike at Tyson beef plant in Amarillo
June 30, 2025 // Teamsters representing 3,100 slaughter and processing workers authorize strike for better wages and benefits at the nation’s largest beef processing plant.
Power-Hungry and Petty: How Shawn Fain Runs the UAW
June 25, 2025 // Fain had the union’s compliance director read the fabricated report of Mock’s alleged wrongdoing into the record at an executive board meeting in February 2024. Mock was never interviewed in the creation of the report, and did not know it existed until it was delivered in the meeting. Mock is a black woman. Fain coordinated with two other black women on the executive board, regional directors Laura Dickerson and LaShawn English, to strip Mock of much of her authority in the organization. Dickerson made the motion and English seconded it. The exact wording of the motion was scripted by Fain’s aides, text messages uncovered by the monitor revealed, and Dickerson said she had agreed to make the motion before the report was even finalized.