Teamsters Union

Examples of Teamsters Union in the following topics:

• The Decline of Union Power

  • While more than one-third of employed people belonged to unions in 1945, union membership fell to 24.1 percent of the U.S. work force in 1979 and to 13.9 percent in 1998.
  • Dues increases, continuing union contributions to political campaigns, and union members' diligent voter-turnout efforts kept unions' political power from ebbing as much as their membership.
  • Automation is a continuing challenge for union members.
  • The shift to service industry employment, where unions traditionally have been weaker, also has been a serious problem for labor unions.
  • As if these difficulties were not enough, years of negative publicity about corruption in the big Teamsters Union and other unions have hurt the labor movement.

• Strikes

  • The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, a major distribution center for the Upper Midwest.
  • Led by local leaders associated with the Trotskyist Communist League of America, a group that later founded the Socialist Workers Party (United States), the strike paved the way for the organization of over-the-road drivers and the growth of the Teamsters labor union.
  • This is either because the union refuses to endorse the tactic, or because the workers concerned are not unionized.
  • In many countries, wildcat strikes do not enjoy the same legal protections as recognized union strikes, and may result in penalties for the union members who participate.
  • Members of the Teamsters union wielding pipes clash with armed police during a 1934 strike in Minneapolis.

• Landrum-Griffin Act

  • Enacted in 1959 after revelations of corruption and undemocratic practices in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Longshoremen's Association, United Mine Workers and other unions received wide public attention, the Act required unions to hold secret elections for local union offices on a regular basis, and provided for review by the United States Department of Labor of union members' claims of improper election activity.
  • On the other hand, it cannot be said that union corruption and abuses of union power have disappeared.
  • But such conduct in the union movement is not as common as it was twenty years ago; and, in large measure, that can be credited to the existence of the Landrum-Griffin Act. " Senator Griffin acknowledged the shortcomings, particularly with regard to the Teamsters.
  • However, Griffin argued that these violations were contrary to the Act, placing the blame instead on the Department of Labor for failing to pursue action against the Teamsters union for its corruptions.
  • Ultimately, the act's technical failures were exploited by both the courts and union officials—most famously the Teamsters, whose president, Jimmy Hoffa, among others, notably raided the union pension coffers for his own personal investments.

• A Brief History of Organized Labor

  • Unions started emerging in the mid-19th century.
  • The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 was a conservative measure that weakened the unions, and highly publicized reports of corruption in the Teamsters and other unions hurt the image of the labor movement during the 1950s.
  • The percentage of workers belonging to a union (or "density") in the United States peaked in 1954 at almost 35% and the total number of union members peaked in 1979 at an estimated 21.0 million.
  • Private sector union membership then began a steady decline that continues into the 2010s, but the membership of public sector unions grew steadily (now 37%).
  • The graph shows steadily declining union membership in the last 6 decades.

• Toward Permanent Unions

  • Unions began forming in the mid-1800s.
  • The conservative Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 weakened the unions.
  • Highly publicized reports of corruption in the Teamsters and other unions hurt the image of the labor movement during the 1950s.
  • The percentage of workers belonging to a union in the United States peaked in 1954 at almost 35% and the total number of union members peaked in 1979 at an estimated 21.0 million.
  • Private sector union membership began a steady decline that continues into the 2010s, but the membership of public sector unions has grown steadily (now 37%).

• Work in Industrial America

  • Women who organized their own unions were often turned down in bids to join the Federation, and even women who did join unions found them hostile or intentionally inaccessible.
  • Through the efforts of middle class reformers and activists, often of the Women's Trade Union League, these unions joined the AFL.
  • From the beginning, unions affiliated with the AFL found themselves in conflict when both unions claimed jurisdiction over the same groups of workers: both the Brewers and Teamsters claimed to represent beer truck drivers, both the machinists and the International Typographical Union claimed to represent certain printroom employees, and the machinists and a fledgling union known as the "Carriage, Wagon, and Automobile Workers Union" sought to organize the same employees, even though neither union had made any effort to organize or bargain for those employees.
  • In some cases the AFL mediated the dispute, usually favoring the larger or more influential union.
  • The AFL often reversed its jurisdictional rulings over time, as the continuing jurisdictional battles between the Brewers and the Teamsters showed.

• AFL and WWI

  • Women who organized their own unions were often turned down in bids to join the Federation, and even women who did join unions found them hostile or intentionally inaccessible.
  • Through the efforts of middle class reformers and activists, often of the Women's Trade Union League, these unions joined the AFL.
  • From the beginning, unions affiliated with the AFL found themselves in conflict when both unions claimed jurisdiction over the same groups of workers.
  • For instance, both the Brewers and Teamsters claimed to represent beer truck drivers, while the Machinists and the International Typographical Union claimed to represent certain printroom employees.
  • Officially, the AFL adopted a philosophy of "business unionism" that emphasized unions' contribution to businesses' profits and national economic growth.

• Labor Unions

  • The SEIU, or service employees international union, is the fastest growing union in North America.
  • Other forms of unionism include minority unionism, solidarity unionism, and the practices of organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World, which do not always follow traditional organizational models.
  • Union membership had been declining in the US since 1954.
  • Most of the recent gains in union membership have been in the service sector while the number of unionized employees in the manufacturing sector has declined.
  • Although most industrialized countries have seen a drop in unionization rates, the drop in union density (the unionized proportion of the working population) has been more significant in the United States than elsewhere.

• The European Union

• Labor Union Impacts on Equilibrium

  • The primary activity of the union is to bargain with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiate labor contracts.
  • In order to achieve these goals unions engage in collective bargaining: the process of negotiation between a company's management and a labor union.
  • However, the reality of unions is more complex.
  • As an organized body, unions are also active in the political realm.
  • One tool that unions may use to raise wages is to go on strike.