Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

New NYC TWU 100 Transit Union Crew Hits Hard at Former TWU Leaders, MTA on $
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/01/new_transit_uni.php

Runnin' Scared
Labor
New Transit Union Crew Hits Hard at Former TWU Leaders, MTA on $
By Roy Edroso, Friday, Jan. 29 2010 @ 10:51AMComments (0)
Categories: Featured, Transportation

​The new administration of Transit Workers Union Local 100 -- which swept out the old regime on a Take Back Our Union ticket last year -- is apparently looking back in anger, and leaking details of questionable expenses under the leadership of former Local 100 boss Roger Toussaint and his successor, Curtis Tate. amNYhas learned that in 2008, the union sprang for atwo trips to Great Adventure for thousands of its members, costing $1.7 million.
Toussaint tells amNY that the union had scaled back its annual Great Adventure "Family Day," which it started in 2001, after litigation resulting from the 2005 transit strike ate into its finances, but went ahead with these last hurrahs -- one held last year, another scheduled for later this year -- because they couldn't cancel the reservation. He said union officials have constantly and conscientiously re-negotiated its deals with the amusement park, and that this expense was only coming up as "a political issue more than anything else."

S. Carolina ILA 1422 Workers Reform Their Union, Build Soliarity Ties, Stop Scab Labor, Fight Police Repression & Build International Solidarity
http://www.troublemakershandbook.org/Text/Running Your Local Strategic Planning/ILA 1422 La Botz.htm

Nationwide Campaign to Defend the 'Charleston Five'
SOUTH CAROLINA LONGSHORE WORKERS REFORM THEIR UNION, BUILD COMMUNITY TIES, STOP SCAB LABOR, FIGHT POLICE REPRESSION AND BUILD INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
by Dan La Botz

If we had to choose one story that showed both the kinds of attacks the labor movement faces and the unity and creativity that it takes to beat those attacks, we couldn't do better than to choose International Longshoremen's Association Local 1422 in Charleston, South Carolina.

As we entered the twenty-first century, shipping lines and stevedoring companies supported by the state government attempted to introduce a non-union operation on the Charleston docks. It was not their first attempt. Over a hundred years of workers' self-organization to create strong unions and high-paid jobs was threatened.

The local responded by mobilizing members to shut down the non-union facility. The authorities counterattacked with violence and repression that sent several workers to the hospital or to jail, and eventually indicted five workers on felony charges. Throughout 2000 and 2001 workers and unions around the country came together to defend the "Charleston Five."

A Chicago coup attempt in the Teamsters
http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/15/coup-attempt-in-the-teamsters

A coup attempt in the Teamsters
Lee Sustar explains the background to the attempt by the Teamsters bureaucracy to oust the reform leadership of an important local in Chicago.
January 15, 2010

Richard Berg outside worker-occupied Republic Windows and Doors in December 2008

A COUP against the reform leadership of a big Teamster local in Chicago is underway--and it's aimed at restoring the corrupt old guard leadership to power and snuffing out union democracy.

Teamsters Local 743 President Richard Berg and the local's vice president, Gina Alvarez, were removed from office January 11 by Teamsters Joint Council 25, a body comprised of the leaders of Chicago-area Teamster locals.

Although Teamsters General President James Hoffa reinstated Berg and Alvarez pending a full investigation by the union, the charges remain. The Joint Council alleges that Berg and Alvarez improperly handled the severance package of a fired union representative and wrongfully denied membership in the local to some union representatives for 18 months.

So although Berg and Alvarez will remain in office for now, the controversy will, at the very least, be used by the old guard to besmirch the reformers' New Leadership slate.

Removal of Chicago Teamsters Local 743 Leaders Stopped Temporarily By IBT Pres Hoffa

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2010/1/14/removal-teamsters-743-leaders-stopped

Removal of Teamsters 743 Leaders Stopped
Hoffa Grants Stay of Effectiveness to Berg and Alvarez
By Staff | January 14, 2010
Read more articles in Teamsters
Chicago, IL - Two days after Teamsters Joint Council 25 suspended Richard Berg and Gina Alvarez from office over trumped up charges, the International president, Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. has granted them a stay of effectiveness. This will be in place until the international hears their appeal. Berg and Alvarez will be restored to their positions in the union immediately.

The two reform leaders of Local 743 were charged with corruption. Ironically, neither of them was accused of personally benefiting in any of the charges brought against them. In fact, Secretary Treasurer Alvarez and President Berg had worked to put the local union back into the hands of the members after decades of true corruption. The officers of the local for years before Berg and Alvarez had stolen elections and forced sell-out contracts onto members. These practices were accepted by the Joint Council.

Chicago Teamsters boot Local 743 boss Berg

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1986074,teamster-union-berg-011210.article

Chicago Teamsters boot Local 743 boss Berg
He's accused of improperly firing, giving $20,000 severance to an organizer

Comments

January 12, 2010
FROM ChicagoUnionNews.com
Richard Berg -- who took the helm of Teamsters Local 743 on a reform plank, ousting an "old guard" regime rife with corruption -- now is being booted out of office for alleged violations of union rules.

Berg is accused of improperly firing a Local 743 organizer and, along with secretary-treasurer Gina Alvarez, signing off on a $20,000-plus severance check for the man, officials said.

The firing and the payout first should have gotten approval from Local 743's executive board, a Teamsters official said.

Berg also is accused of preventing two business agents from rejoining Local 743 -- even though they apparently were entitled to do so. Some viewed the move as an attempt by Berg to undercut future political rivals.

The alleged violations were brought by members of the group's executive board to the Teamsters' umbrella organization for the Chicago region, Joint Council 25, which made the decision to boot Berg from office and strip him of membership for five years, the official said.

What Killed Roger Rebel? A Self-Inflicted Wound of NYC TWU 100 President

http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2009-12-18/Editor's_"Razzle_Dazzle"_Column/What_Killed_Roger_Rebel_A_SelfInflicted_Wound.html

What Killed Roger Rebel? A Self-Inflicted Wound

By RICHARD STEIER
In the 1974 movie “The Gambler,” the title character, Axel Freed, is asked by a bookmaker how he, a Harvard-educated college professor, could have gotten himself $44,000 in debt with his betting.

Axel, played by James Caan, replies, “I maneuvered.”

That is essentially how Roger Toussaint squandered a career as a labor leader that once glowed with promise and became so radioactive among his own members that his hand-picked successor was handily defeated by John Samuelsen Dec. 7 in the Transport Workers Union Local 100 election.

It didn’t matter that Mr. Toussaint and his cohorts did everything they could to stack the deck to protect their power, including a try at some chicanery on the morning of the actual vote-count. They managed to get so many of the union’s 37,000 members either declared ineligible to vote or too alienated to bother that only a shade over 10,000 took the trouble to mail in ballots. Nine years earlier, Mr. Toussaint by himself got 12,465 votes, justifying his claim that he had been given a mandate by his rank and file.

NYC TWU 100 Samuelsen’s Eye on Reuniting TWU 100
http://www.thechief-leader.com/news/2009-12-18/News_of_the_week/Samuelsens_Eye_on_Reuniting_TWU.html

Samuelsen’s Eye on Reuniting TWU

Defeated Toussaint’s Choice in Bruising Battle
By ARI PAUL

TAKING BACK THE UNION: Flanked by supporters on election night, Transport Workers Union Local 100 President-elect John Samuelsen promised to end infighting in the union, dispel racial divisions and unify his rank and file against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. His Take Back Our Union slate has a two-vote majority on the executive board and won four of seven vice presidencies.
The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang
Just after 6 p.m. in the basement of the Park Central Hotel in midtown Dec. 7, the numbers were clear: the dissident Take Back Our Union slate of Transport Workers Union Local 100 had swept the four local-wide offices, with Track Inspector John Samuelsen taking the presidency over Curtis Tate, and the slate’s candidates captured four of the seven vice presidencies.

But election committee chair James Mitchell hesitated to announce the results for the official record. For the TBOU supporters gathered on the balcony overlooking the floor where election workers processed ballots, however, the celebration began with slaps on Mr. Samuelsen’s back and exclamations of “You won!”

A New Look at an Old Quarrel Over ‘Waterfront’
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/a-new-look-at-an-old-quarrel-over-waterfront/

January 6, 2010, 11:09 AM
A New Look at an Old Quarrel Over ‘Waterfront’
By JOSEPH BERGER

Columbia Pictures
Marlon Brando in a scene from “On the Waterfront,” Elia Kazan’s 1954 film with screenplay by Budd Schulberg, adapted from Mr. Schulberg’s novel. Questions remain about whether Mr. Kazan and Mr. Schulberg made the film to justify their naming names before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Some quarrels never seem to fade away, and the anti-Communist battles of the 1940s and 1950s are being fought long after most of the original antagonists are dead.

Not only do the arguments over Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs live on, but the question of whether Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg made the classic 1954 film “On the Waterfront” to justify their naming names of former Communist associates, seems to have found an especially robust and curious afterlife with the deaths in recent years of Mr. Kazan, the film’s director, Mr. Schulberg, its scriptwriter, and two actors, Marlon Brando and Karl Malden.

Now comes a new revelation — a footnote, really — that is sure to keep the pot boiling for a good long time. On Sunday night, James T. Fisher, the author of a new book about the film and the New York waterfront, told the crowd attending a reading at Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn, of an intriguing discovery he had made.

Puerto Rico Teamsters Unite for Change
http://www.tdu.org/node/3568

Puerto Rico Teamsters Unite for Change
December 28, 2009: Members are uniting for change in Puerto Rico under the banner Teamsters Making the Difference.

“We are proud to be Teamsters—but we are not proud of Local 901 leaders who have put their own interests ahead of the members,” said Humberto Miranda, a Local 901 Teamster and a member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

“We’re organizing to restore democracy, integrity and power to our union,” Miranda said.

That battle is far from won. But corrupt local officials are on the defensive.

Local 901 principal officer German Vázquez is on his way out after being caught in an embezzlement scandal. (An investigation by the Independent Review Board found that Vázquez gave himself four improper pay hikes totaling $55,532).

The Department of Labor is suing Local 901 for election violations, charging that the local ran last fall’s voting to illegally favor the incumbents.

And the National Labor Relations Board is taking action against Local 901 officials—charging them with retaliating against members for supporting the reform candidates for union office. An NLRB trial that begin in December will continue next month.

A big step for Teamster reform in NYC

http://socialistworker.org/2009/12/18/big-step-for-teamster-reform

A big step for Teamster reform
Former Teamsters Local 804 member Danny Katch looks at the significance of the reformers' victory in the union's recent election.
December 18, 2009

Tim Sylvester (left, facing camera), the newly elected president of Teamsters Local 804, with a group of UPS drivers (804 Members United Slate)

THE TEAMSTER reform movement took a step forward earlier this month when members of the New York City-based Local 804 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters voted for Tim Sylvester and the 804 Members United slate.

The new reform team, which defeated the incumbent leadership of Howard Redmond by a more than 2-to-1 margin, won the election by pledging to increase member involvement and take a more confrontational approach with the local's main employer, UPS. "The membership was ready for change," said Ken Reiman, a member of the new executive board and leader in Teamsters for a Democratic Union. "They told us this at every gate we hit."

The reformers' victory in New York has national significance. Local 804 is one of the largest locals of UPS workers, and the change in local leadership could increase pressure on IBT President James Hoffa to stand stronger against company demands for concessions.