Teamsters Union

Examples of Teamsters Union in the following topics:

• 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.

• The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)

  • Congress to regulate, charter, and supervise federal credit unions.
  • The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is the United States independent federal agency that supervises and charters federal credit unions.
  • The chartering of credit unions in all states is due to the signing of the Federal Credit Union Act by President Franklin D.
  • As the insurer and regulator of federally chartered credit unions, the NCUA oversees credit union safety and soundness, much like the FDIC.
  • It is sometimes required to place credit unions in conservatorship.

• Credit Unions

  • Like banks, credit unions accept deposits and make loans.
  • Credit unions are democratically operated by members, allowing account holders an equal say in how the credit union is operated, regardless of how much they have invested in the credit union.
  • Credit unions serve members of modest means.
  • Here's what one can expect from a credit union:
  • See Credit Union and Bank Rate Data.

• Modern Labor Organizations

  • Labor unions have lost power in the United States over the years and, today, union membership varies by sector.
  • 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.
  • Historically, the rapid growth of public employee unions since the 1960s has served to mask an even more dramatic decline in private-sector union membership.
  • 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.
  • Unions no longer carry the "threat effect:" the power of unions to raise wages of non-union shops by virtue of the threat of unions to organize those shops.

• Trends in Labor-Management Relations

  • Labor trends include a declining union movement in the US, public sector unions, women leaders, and international unions.
  • Most unions were opposed to Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.
  • Linked to the ITUC, but autonomous, are the global union federations, which seek to bring unions together along sectoral lines.
  • Then there are scores of inter-regional federations, such as the European Trade Union Confederation, the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions, and the Organization of African Trade Union Unity.
  • Summarize the recent history of the labor union movement in America

• National Labor Relations Act

  • Charge filed by Local 713, International Brotherhood of Trade Unions.
  • It was found that an employer, a commercial laundry company, violated the Act by: (1) warning the union's shop steward not to provide information about bargaining to employees; (2) warning employees not to provide information to the union; (3) warning employees not to speak about the union during the workday, including break and lunch times; (4) threatening to discharge employees if they participated in union or other protected activities; (5) threatening employees that the shop would be closed and they would be discharged if the employer had to accept the union's contract proposals; (6) threatening to discharge employees if they went on strike; (7) promising employees a wage increase and new benefits if the union no longer represented them; (8) polling employees as to whether they supported the union; (9) interrogating employees about their union membership, activities, and sympathies; (10) deducting union dues from employees' paychecks, but failing to remit those funds to the union; (11) issuing written warnings to, and then discharging, an employee for supporting the union; (12) failing to bargain in good faith with the union; (13) conditioning bargaining upon the commitment of the union to refrain from handbilling the employer's customers or engaging in any strike or picketing activity; (14) unilaterally stopping payments to various union funds; (15) unilaterally granting employees a wage increase; (16) refusing to bargain with the union because the union's shop steward was present; and (17) unilaterally implementing new rules regarding the union's access to unit employees at the facility.
  • More recent failed amendments included attempts in 1978 to permit triple backpay awards and union collective bargaining certification based on signed union authorization cards—a provision similar to a proposed amendment in the Employee Free Choice Act.
  • Under the NLRA, unions can become the representative based on signed union authorization cards only if the employer voluntarily recognizes the union.
  • If the employer refuses to recognize the union, the union can then be certified through a secret-ballot election conducted by the NLRB.

• Organized Labor

  • An early example of a labor union is the Knights of Labor.
  • The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members (rank and file members) and negotiates labor contracts (collective bargaining) with employers.
  • Union officials can force compulsory union dues from employees, members and nonmembers alike, as a condition for keeping their jobs.
  • Unions have generally won higher wages and better working conditions for their members.
  • Unions seem to do better in regulated, monopolistic environments.

• A Brief Definition

  • Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights identifies the ability to organize trade unions as a fundamental human right.
  • The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong.
  • A collective agreement functions as a labor contract between an employer and one or more unions.
  • The so-called monopoly union model (Dunlop, 1944) states that the monopoly union has the power to maximize the wage rate; the firm then chooses the level of employment.
  • Define the monopoly union model, the right-to-manage model, and the efficient bargaining model as theories of collective bargaining