-
Local and National Union News
Important change to administration of Local 355’s Health and Welfare Plan
Effective April 1, 2024, we changed plan administration from Zenith American Solutions to BeneSys, Inc. The change will enhance the efficiency and quality of services provided to you and provide positive improvements to the administration of your health benefits. Please click here to learn more about what has changed and what has not changed.
Happy National Third Shift Day!
May 8, 2023 | Today we celebrate and salute all of the Teamsters and workers nationwide who keep essential services and supply chains moving while most of us sleep. Thank you for all that you do! Happy #NationalThirdShiftWorkersDay.Teamsters VIP+ open enrollment is now!
May 6, 2023 | Get enrolled in the NEW Teamsters Voluntary Income Protection Plus (VIP+) Plan. These new benefits will help provide Teamster members additional financial protection if they can’t work due to illness, injury, or loss of DOT License and FAA Medical certification for medical reasons. Teamster members who enroll by May 23 will have their coverage become effective on June 1, 2024. Visit TEAMSTERSVIP.COM to learn more.Costco Teamsters rally in Norfolk, Virginia
May 6, 2023 | (Click image to enlarge.) Rank-and-file Costco Teamsters from Maryland and across the nation joined General President Sean M. O’Brien at a rally Sunday in Norfolk, Va., in support of the union-wide initiative to organize and mobilize workers at the wholesale retailer ahead of national contract negotiations this year. “Working families in Norfolk have energized national organizing efforts at Costco. Now, Teamsters across the country are standing together to make Costco the ‘good employer’ it claims to be,” O’Brien said. Since the landmark victory in Norfolk, the Teamsters have set up massive organizing efforts for Costco workers across the country. Why this matters: More than 900 Costco workers in Maryland are members of Teamsters Local 570 (Baltimore).Teamsters, members of Congress take on Amazon safety crisis
May 3, 2023 | Teamsters leaders and Amazon workers joined with Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Tina Smith (D-MN) today to announce the introduction of The Warehouse Worker Protection Act in the U.S. Senate that would hold Amazon accountable for its dangerous safety practices and abusive production quotas. A bipartisan House version of the bill will also be introduced in the coming weeks. Learn more.May is Mental Health Awareness Month
May 1, 2023 | During this month, the Teamsters reaffirm our commitment to prioritizing mental health as we continue the fight to improve our members’ health care and wellbeing. We are dedicated to helping create a society that recognizes the importance of mental health, reduces stigma, and provides accessible, compassionate, and evidence-based support and resources for everyone.Anne Arundel County Teamsters ratify new contracts
May 1, 2023 | Contract negotiations can often be routine and predictable but the 2024 round of bargaining against officials in Anne Arundel County (AAC) was anything but! Local 355 has four separate collective bargaining agreements with the County –– park rangers, police communications, fire battalion chiefs and correctional program specialists –– and covering 80 members. Each of the existing contracts are one-year agreements and beginning in December 2023, dozens of bargaining dates were scheduled for new contract talks. Local 355 News
Elsewhere in the News
In Labor’s Mission to Organize the South, Another Domino Could Soon Fall
.jpg)
May 7, 2024 | ORGANIZING | Late last month, workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers (UAW). This was the first time workers at a foreign car maker’s plant have unionized in the U.S. South, the least unionized region in the country. …This new wave of organizing won’t be the first time unions have seriously attempted to organize workers in states unfriendly to labor. In the mid-1940s, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) launched “Operation Dixie” in hopes of unionizing Southern workers, particularly those in the textile industry. Their goal was not just to improve Southern workers’ lives or grow their ranks, but also to maintain union strength in the North, as industries began relocating to the South due to lack of union density. But Operation Dixie failed in large part due to racist Jim Crow laws and other racial conflicts in the region, the legacies of which workers still deal with today. In These Times
Federal Labor Law Could Be Completely Upended By This Summer
May 7, 2024 | WORKERS’ RIGHTS | The country’s two richest men are quietly pressing what could be the biggest labor-law issue of the 21st century — a claim that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional. And a Supreme Court case expected to be decided in the next two months could give a green light to the theories underlying this claim, throwing an enormous monkey wrench into labor relations both in workplaces that have a union and in those that don’t. “We’ve never had anything like this before in our history,” said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Courthouse News Service
Week Ending 05/04/2024
• Workers rule the streets on May Day
• Is this labor’s comeback moment?
• Will the Supreme Court kill the NLRB?
• The most dangerous jobs in America
• Major newspapers accuse AI companies of stealing content
• CDC updates guidance on protecting workers from bird flu
• Crash data involving new truck, bus drivers is getting worse
• AFL-CIO report exposes deepening racial disparities in workplace safety
• Labor leaders honor Key Bridge victims on Workers Memorial Day
• New Key Bridge could cost nearly $2B & take until 2028 to finish
• Teamsters condemn DHL’s anti-union tactics at shareholder meeting in Germany
US Union Members See Record Pay Raises, Outpacing Nonunion Workers
May 3, 2024 | WAGES | Unionized workers in the US saw record raises, while nonunion workers’ pay barely beat inflation over the past 12 months, the latest government data show. Wages of private sector union workers rose 6.3% in the year ended in March, the largest increase in data back to 2001, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics employment cost figures released Tuesday. Meanwhile, nonunion workers in the private sector saw a 4.1% bump in their salaries over the past 12 months, not much higher than inflation. Bloomberg News
|
