Teamsters: Taking on freedom of speech around the world
Argentina has faced a lot of adversity in the last decade, not the least of which was the Kirchner Administration’s (and the legislature’s) recent attack on free speech and the press, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. It doesn’t help that the Teamsters locals are cutting off paper distribution, to force unionization under the [more...]

Posted Thu, 05 Nov 2009 .

Retirement: Sexual harrassment by any other name
One of 24 international vice presidents of the Teamsters, James Santangelo, has resigned his multiple posts within the Teamsters union. He was the president of Teamsters Joint Council 42 which represented 129,000 members in California, Hawaii, and elsewhere. He also led Local 848. While the Teamsters maintain they didn’t force him out, you wonder why they [more...]

Posted Thu, 05 Nov 2009 .

Poor Elections Record

Freedom of choice is a matter at the very center of our national labor relations policy, and a secret election is the preferred method of gauging choice.

— Avecor v. NLRB, D.C. Circuit, 1991

Bruce Raynor, president of the union UNITE HERE, explains: "There's no reason to subject the workers to an election." One SEIU local leader has flatly admitted to the Wall Street Journal, "We don't do elections." And no wonder. Even though unions have ultimate control over if and when certification elections are held, they still lose four in ten elections they call. And employees have chosen no representation at all in more than 2,000 certification and decertification elections over a two-year period.

According to the National Labor Relations Board 's annual report figures for cases closed in 2003 and 2004 (covering all NLRB-overseen certification and decertification elections):

All Representation Elections	2004	2005
Overall Union win (%)	53.2 %	56.8 %
AFL-CIO Win (%)	50.8 %	53.8 %
Elections in which no union was chosen	1,272	1,145

In the first half of the government's Fiscal Year 2005:

Unions organized about 24 percent fewer workers through elections than in the same period in the previous year.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organized half as many workers through elections as it did in the first half of 2004.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) won only 43 percent of the elections it held.

Source: Bureau of National Affairs, Dec. 9, 2005