Posts tagged Teamsters
UPS deliveries disrupted, others unaffected as strike continues
April 7, 2025 // UPS deliveries were disrupted for a few days as a result of the Wellesley Organized Academic Workers’ (WOAW-UAW) strike, while other deliveries to the College will remain normal. UPS, which unionized under the Teamsters Union, has the contractual right to refuse to cross a picket line, according to the UPS National Master Agreement Article 9. Students received notices from the UPS shipping email last week saying that “unfortunately, a labor strike (unrelated to UPS) has prevented delivery of your package. Your delivery has been rescheduled for the next business day.”
Fighting Hunger on the Picket Line: Bold New Bill Stands with Striking Workers and Their Families
April 2, 2025 // Under current rules, households with striking members are excluded from SNAP eligibility unless already qualified before the strike. The proposed legislation would eliminate this restriction, allowing striking workers to access critical nutrition assistance. Additionally, the bill would affirm eligibility protections for public sector workers fired for striking and ensure income-eligible households with striking members can still receive SNAP benefits.
California: The Lost Report
April 1, 2025 // On December 3, 2020, almost a year after California’s freelance-busting law, Assembly Bill 5, went into effect, the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was created to study AB5’s civil rights implications. The committee’s officially designated term ended December 4, 2024. There were hours and hours of testimony, much of it recorded on video. But the committee never issued a report based on all this testimony its members heard. Members of the committee say they were told that if they issued individual statements in the absence of any committee report, they would be failing to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the rules of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Labor’s Hidden Monopoly: Why the FTC Should Probe Union Power Too
April 1, 2025 // However, the modern economy calls for a fresh assessment of how we balance worker representation with the benefits of competition. Just as the FTC scrutinizes corporate mergers that could harm consumer welfare, it should consider the anticompetitive effects when a single union controls a significant share of an industry's workforce. Indeed, the FTC’s Bureau of Economics and Office of Policy Planning are both positioned to play a key role in researching labor markets to identify barriers to competition—including those created by government laws and regulations. By studying these dynamics, the FTC can publish research and spotlight how certain government-imposed rules or union protections may inadvertently stifle competition and harm workers.
Free the Economy podcast with Vinnie Vernuccio of the Institute for the American Worker
March 27, 2025 // Our interview for Episode 116 of the Free the Economy podcast is with Vinnie Vernuccio of the Institute for the American Worker. We talk about labor unions, independent contractors, right-to-work laws, port automation, and the future of the American workforce. Free the Economy is hosted by Richard Morrison. Our co-producer and editor is Destry Edwards. Keep up with new episodes by following us on Twitter at @freethe_economy and read our episode summaries, with links to the stories we cover, at cei.org/blog.
Commentary: The tough fight to unionize Amazon
March 18, 2025 // Unionizing a gigantic 21st century warehouse with more than 4,000 workers is daunting. What economists call “the churn” of high worker turnover complicates solidarity-building. So does the heterogeneity of the work force at a place like RDU1 between its hip-hop princes, queer young Latinas and tractor-cap Trumpies along with migrants from more than thirty countries. The job’s grind makes mustering energy to raise labor’s flag tough too.
3 production unions, Post-Gazette reach strike settlement
March 18, 2025 // The newspaper’s mailers and typographical workers, represented by the Communications Workers of America, and the pressmen, represented by the Teamsters, will receive 26 weeks of severance pay, plus additional compensation for staff who were paid on a commission basis. In February, a federal judge in Pittsburgh denied an emergency injunction sought by the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of the three unions. The injunction had asked the court to force the newspaper back to the bargaining table and require that striking workers be reimbursed for future medical expenses.
Op-ed: Josh Hawley’s union-friendly bill may open the door to right-to-work
March 17, 2025 // Hawley, who opposes right-to-work laws, may be inadvertently laying the groundwork for a national version of that same policy, protecting private-sector workers across America from getting fired for not paying union fees. Hawley’s Faster Labor Contracts Act—which the Teamsters union has already endorsed—is billed as a means of stopping employers from delaying negotiations with labor unions. Under current law, businesses and unions are required to negotiate in good faith, and there’s no deadline for an agreement because workers and job creators need time to reach the best deal.
Marshall mum on Senator Hawley’s Pro-Worker framework
March 11, 2025 // According to Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute of the American Worker, the Pro-Worker Framework has been largely lifted straight from the PRO Act. “I mean, now I guess the question is, do you refer to most of these provisions as the PRO Act, or do you refer to them as the Pro Act and the Hawley framework?” Vernuccio said in a phone interview. “Because it looks like Senator (Josh) Hawley from Missouri is copying and pasting a bunch of sections into his new framework.” Vernuccio said only one bill related to this has been introduced so far — the “Faster Labor Contracts Act S.844,” which, among other things, deals with government-imposed contracts by binding arbitration — but the Framework has several other provisions indicating that the concepts are copied and pasted directly from the PRO Act.
Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien’s mission to chart a new political path
March 11, 2025 // The Teamsters president may not claim any vindication, but his approach is encouraging some copycats among his counterparts in other major unions. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention and aggressively campaigned for Democrats up and down the ticket while labeling Trump an anti-union “scab,” has suddenly found a soft spot for the GOP and taken steps to engage with Republican senators.