Local Teamsters show they’re ready to strike for fair share of record UPS profits

July 21, 2023 by

Hundreds of members of Teamsters Local 120 and Local 638 joined a rally and “practice picket” July 8 at the UPS hub in northeast Minneapolis. Real picketing could begin Aug. 1.

With “practice picketing” outside UPS facilities across the Twin Cities this month, local Teamsters are showing the company that they are prepared to strike – if necessary – when the contract covering 340,000 union members nationwide expires July 31.

“I don’t think anyone wants to go on strike, but we’ll do what we have to do,” Gunnar Johnson, a UPS driver and member of Teamsters Local 638, said while walking a picket line July 8 in Minneapolis. “We’re not asking for the moon. UPS can end this today if they want.”

That would mean settling a contract that meets Teamsters’ key demands: fair wage increases, elimination of a two-tier wage structure and no more mandatory six-day workweeks.

“I don’t think that’s asking too much of any employer, especially one that we’ve sacrificed so much to keep afloat,” Eagan-based loader Rikki Schreiner said. “They are the most successful and most reliable shipping company there is because of Teamster labor. We’ve taken good care of them, and now it’s time for them to take care of us.”

UPS reported record profits of $11.3 billion in 2022, with revenues exceeding $100 billion. CEO Carol Tomé earned $19 million in total compensation. Those numbers make Robert Cristino, a feeder driver in Maple Grove, confident UPS can do better by full- and part-time workers when it comes to wages and work-life balance.

Gunnar Johnson (L) and Robert Cristino, who work at the Maple Grove UPS hub, walked the practice picket line.

“The big lie is that everyone at UPS makes $94,000 or whatever a year. That’s what UPS likes to tell the media,” Cristino said “Sure, maybe you can make that, but you’ve got to work six days a week to get it. It’s too much all the time, and you never get a break.”

Johnson said an arrangement that allows UPS to deny pay increases to part-timers needs to go. “There are part-time drivers doing the same job as me, getting paid less,” he said. “You can go to Costco right now and make more. We just want everyone treated fairly.”

Talks between the union and UPS broke down at 4 a.m. July 5. After two weeks of Teamster picketing, the company finally called the union back into bargaining July 19, as this issue went to press.

In balloting across the country earlier this summer, 97% of Teamsters voted to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike, which would have a widespread impact on the U.S. economy and beyond. UPS delivers 24.3 million parcels daily, on average; that’s on par with the U.S. Postal Service and more than twice as many as FedEx delivers.

Rikki Schreiner is a union steward at the UPS facility in Eagan.

“We want – and we’re going to get – what we’ve got coming to us,” said Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson, who serves as a vice president of the international union. “During the pandemic UPS had no problem taking advantage of our workers, and that stops on Aug. 1, one way or another.

“We’re either going to have a contract, or we’re going to be out on the street fighting for what we’ve got coming to us.”

Schreiner, who has worked at the Eagan facility since 1999, said she’s hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

“I’m ready,” she said. “We have to stand up for what we deserve. If we don’t, they’ll step all over us.”

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Union solidarity key to Delta workers’ organizing campaign

April 19, 2023 by

Sara Nelson, president of the AFA-CWA, led a rally with leaders of the Teamsters and Machinists at the St. Paul Labor Center.

The largest private-sector union organizing campaign in the world came to St. Paul last weekend, as three unions seeking to bring together 45,000 Delta Air Lines ramp workers, mechanics and flight attendants rallied their supporters at the Labor Center.

The April 15 event drew international union leaders from the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA), the Machinists (IAM) and the Teamsters, as well as pro-union Delta workers from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Delta outposts in New York, Atlanta and Detroit.

Delta pilots are unionized, but the remaining 80% of its workforce is not. Delta is the only U.S.-based mainline carrier where flight attendants, fleet service workers and mechanics are not represented by a union – for now.

“It is high time that we put a contract in the back pocket of every single Delta Air Lines worker,” said AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson, whose speech drew a thunderous ovation from more than 150 people inside the union hall.

Nelson’s union has supported organizing campaigns at Delta before, as have the Machinists and Teamsters. Sometimes those campaigns overlapped.

But last November the three unions announced an agreement to coordinate their efforts under the “Organize and Fly Together” campaign, with the Machinists supporting Delta fleet workers, the Teamsters supporting mechanics and AFA-CWA supporting flight attendants.

Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson (R) and the Machinists’ Richie Johnsen praised the coordinated union campaign to support Delta workers.

Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson, who serves on International President Sean O’Brien’s Executive Board, said he believes a coordinated campaign – in any industry – offers workers a better chance of making collective gains.

“Coordinated bargaining is not a novel idea,” Erickson said. “Finally, we’re waking up as unions across the company. This coalition should have happened a long time ago. It’s what we used to do back in the 40s and 50s and 60s, and now we’re going to do it again.”

Nelson led the crowd in chanting “I’ve got your back!” as the rally drew to a close.

“We have a lot of differences, and that is what makes us strong,” Nelson said. “But what we have in common is what brings us together. We all need to take care of our families. We all need access to health care. We all need a dignified retirement. We all need to take care of ourselves and our families when we are sick, especially when we get sick on the job.”

Delta is turning massive profits, and its executives are pocketing more of those gains than at other, more unionized airlines. CEO Ed Bastian’s pay was 26% higher last year than his peers.

Delta’s wages are competitive with other large carriers, Machinists Air Transport Territory General Vice President Richie Johnsen said, but it’s only because the airline knows that falling behind would add fuel to workers’ organizing drive.

“We carry that; the union members at other airlines carry that in bargaining,” Johnsen said. “We create that standard, but at Delta it’s a shell that doesn’t offer all the other things that those of us who have a contract enjoy. And that time is done.”

What would a union contract mean for Delta workers?

Nelson said the AFA-CWA contract at United Airlines is worth $100 million more annually than Delta flight attendants’ total compensation, including wages and benefits. The union contract also protects workers from arbitrary firings, establishes safety protocols and gives workers a say in work rules and conditions.

An MSP-based Delta cargo employee, who attended the rally but asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said safety standards plummeted after Delta absorbed Northwest Airlines, which was heavily unionized, in 2008.

“When we had a union, they would actually train people to do things safely rather than be forced to work unsafe at Delta,” said the employee, who has 32 years of experience in the cargo department. “We get a lot more pressure now to just get the work done rather than to do it right.”

The safety net for workers who are injured on the job, he said, also disappeared after Delta took over.

“I’ve seen guys get hurt, and they’re forced to leave because they can’t do the work anymore,” he said. “With the union, guys would get rehab for their injuries, or there was a part of the contract where they would … put you into a different job. Now, there’s no such thing.

“They don’t care about us. We’re a number.”

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Minnesota’s Erickson part of change coming to Teamsters’ international leadership

January 26, 2022 by

Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson spoke at a rally against wage theft at Finish Line Express in 2018.

Tom Erickson won’t be sworn in as Teamsters Central Region vice president until March 22, but the principal officer of Minnesota-based Local 120 intends to hit the ground running.

He and other local activists were up well before dawn on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, supporting a nationwide campaign to push some of the union’s large, nationwide employers – like UPS, Sysco and U.S. Foods – to recognize the holiday.

“When you believe in something, it’s easy to get out of bed at 1 a.m.” said Erickson, Local 120’s president since 2014. “I’m a lucky person in that I get to wake up every single day and represent the best workers on the planet.”

That fighting spirit and grassroots energy, according to Erickson, is what separated his slate of candidates, led by President-elect Sean O’Brien and Secretary-Treasurer-elect Fred Zuckerman, from its rivals. Their victory will give the union of 1.4 million workers new leadership for the first time in 23 years, with Erickson becoming the first Minnesota Teamster to take international office in over a decade.

He looked back on the campaign and ahead to the challenges that await in this interview, edited for length.

UA: What drew you to the O’Brien slate?

TE: There were three different slates, and I can honestly say for the first time as a Teamster that all three candidates were viable, good candidates and on the right side of fighting for workers. But talking through it with my team at Local 120, we came to the conclusion Sean O’Brien and the team he was assembling was the future, and we were one of the early ones to jump on.

Sean and Fred built this thing from the members up, instead of saying here’s the guy and forcing it down to the members. All of our team, every one of us on the slate, worked in the craft. That was important to me.

UA: What was the campaign like?

TE: It was a (expletive) ton of work. We outworked the other teams, hands down. Sean just won’t accept anything less than working your ass off. I was lucky to have my wife there by my side, telling me to get going, and guys from Local 120 like Bill Wedebrand, Grant Bendix, Paul Slattery, Ladell Roberts and Karlan Bean showing up at 2 or 3 a.m., sacrificing their own personal time to go campaign.

But if I could describe it in one word, it was a blast. I got to meet so many great members who asked great questions, and our whole campaign was to stay positive and put the Teamsters back on the map.

UA: You first joined the Teamsters in 1983. Where did this journey start?

TE: I graduated from high school on a Friday night and started on the night shift at SuperValu that Sunday. I started out on the warehouse floor as an order selector and then a forklift operator and truck loader. When I started out, Tom Keegel was my principal officer at Local 544. (Local 544 merged into Local 120 in 1998.) Now, I’ll be a part of the General Executive Board, where Local 120 has not had a voice since the late, great Tom Keegel left.

UA: O’Brien-Zuckerman has been described as the “reform-minded slate.” What does that mean to you?

TE: It’s about the members first, having rank and file members participate in national negotiations like UPS. That’s a new idea. It’s about changing the union and uniting it, not fighting about it. It’s about member engagement like I’ve never seen before in my life.

UA: What does the margin of victory – the largest in your union’s history – say about the opportunities and expectations ahead?

TE: People are ready for a fighter, and Sean’s a fighter. He’s a south Boston guy who’s tough, but levelheaded and keeps his cool. The companies that are bullies out there, they need to know that if they go to war with the Teamsters, they better buckle up.

It’s also about growing the labor movement and being there for each other. At Local 120, we show up where we can – for the Laborers, the Operating Engineers, SEIU, AFSCME, the Nurses. Sean believes that, too. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to debate from time to time, but our focus is on making things better for working people.

UA: What will your new role be?

TE: Uniting this union again is going to be Sean’s task and my task and everyone else that’s part of this movement, right down to the member that just signed his card to become a Teamster. There’s going to be a learning curve, but at the end of the day I get to do what I love. And that’s represent good people. I’m fired up. I can’t wait.

This interview appeared in The Union Advocate’s February 2022 issue. Click here to browse recent issues.

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Teamsters at Marathon’s St. Paul Park refinery strike over safety

January 21, 2021 by

Members of Teamsters Local 120 picket the main gate at Marathon’s St. Paul Park refinery as the sun rises on Day 2 of their ULP strike.

Operations and maintenance workers at Marathon Petroleum’s refinery in St. Paul Park went on strike today. Members of Teamsters Local 120 say they are taking a stand not just for good jobs, but also for the safety of their community.

At issue in the dispute is management’s ability to replace union members with workers from lowest-bidder subcontractors, including firms from outside Minnesota.

“We want a contract that protects jobs where the money goes back into our communities, jobs for people who have an interest in the safety of our community,” Local 120 Business Agent Scott Kroona said. “If somebody comes in from Texas or Indiana, which is what the company wants, their money goes back to Texas or Indiana. And they don’t care about St. Paul Park.”

Local 120 represents nearly 200 workers at the Marathon refinery.

Picket lines went up at each of the facility’s gates at 5 p.m., and they will stay up around the clock indefinitely, Kroona said.

With Teamsters outside, it raises the question of who’s doing the work inside the refinery. Kroona said he expected the company to bring in replacement workers.

“I have to believe they are not as skilled or well-trained as the workers we have in there,” he said. “And when you’ve got petroleum products under high temperatures and high pressure, every job is dangerous. I don’t care how minor a job you’d call it.”

As proof, the union pointed to an April 2018 explosion at the Husky refinery in Superior, Wis., which resulted in worker injuries and residential evacuations in the area. Contractors working in the refinery at the time later sued the company.

“These are some of the most dangerous jobs you can have,” Local 120 President Tom Erickson said. “Mistakes are literally life and death, not just for workers but for people in the community and the environment.”

By refusing to bargain over the impact of contract language that would put more subcontracted workers in the facility – impacts like safety risks – Marathon is forcing union members to take a stand for their community, Kroona added.

“We don’t want to happen at St. Paul Park what happened at Superior,” he said. “We absolutely don’t want something like that to happen here, and it absolutely could happen here.”

The union has filed charges of unfair labor practices against Marathon, claiming the company, in 24 negotiating sessions since late November, has bargained in bad faith.

“Marathon never had the intention of reaching a contract from the very beginning,” Kroona said.

Local 120’s previous agreement with Marathon, a three-year pact, expired Dec. 31.

Teamsters who work at the St. Paul Park refinery last went on strike in the summer of 2006.

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Teamsters Local 120 raises $125,000 for veterans charity

October 1, 2018 by

Congressman Tim Walz, the labor-endorsed candidate for governor, joined Teamsters Local 120’s member appreciation picnic, one of several events last month at which the local raised funds for Homes for Our Troops. Walz is a former officer in the Minnesota National Guard.

Teamsters Local 120’s annual fundraising drive raised over $125,000 for Homes For Our Troops last month, thanks to support from union members, employers and friends of labor at several Local 120 events, including the union’s member appreciation picnic and inaugural charity golf tournament.

“It was inspiring to see union members and employers come together to achieve a common goal,” Teamsters Local 120 President Tom Erickson said.

“We don’t always see eye to eye with management,” he added. “But this past week our members and employers put their differences aside and came together to show their gratitude to the brave men and women who have served our great nation, and they knocked it out of the park.”

Homes For Our Troops is a nationwide organization that designs, builds and donates specially adapted homes for military veterans who were severely injured after Sept. 11, 2001. A top rated veteran and military charity, the organization has built 261 homes throughout the country since 2004 and has 94 more projects underway.

The partnership between Local 120 and Homes For Our Troops began three years ago, and it has grown quickly since then. This year’s fundraising total, Local 120 reported, is more than twice the amount raised in 2017.

Soon, Erickson said, Local 120 hopes to sponsor the complete construction of a home for a veteran.

Local 120 represents over 12,500 members in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota who work in a wide range of occupations and sectors.

Learn more about HFOT and ways to show support at hfotusa.org.

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Teamsters cite ‘shady business practices’ at Finish Line Express

December 2, 2016 by
web-lme-teamsters-scene

Former Lakeville Motor Express employees and supporters rally outside Maple Grove-based Finish Line Express, which workers say absorbed LME’s business.

MAPLE GROVE – Heartbreaking, gutless and dishonest were among the ways workers, union leaders and high-ranking elected officials described a Roseville trucking firm’s decision to withhold pay from 90 members of Teamsters Local 120 after abruptly closing the week of Thanksgiving.

Out-of-work Teamsters staged a rally last night outside Finish Line Express, a Maple Grove-based trucking company that, workers allege, has absorbed Lakeville Motor Express’ business since it abruptly closed shop Nov. 20. Local 120 President Tom Erickson said the closure was “surgically done” to shake off the union’s contract more than a year before it is set to expire.

“The same management team that was over in Roseville is exactly the same management team that is in that place,” Erickson said, pointing to Finish Line Express.

Local 120’s officers pledged a campaign to raise awareness of Finish Line’s “shady business practices,” particularly among the company’s clients. They include John Deere, 3M, Land ‘o Lakes and Toro – which, not coincidentally, are many of the same clients Lakeville Motor Express served.

“Every day we’re going up and down this street, trying to find these customers and divert them in a different direction,” Erickson said. “That’s the only way we’re going to win this thing.”

Meanwhile, state officials are pursuing wages owed to workers locked out of their jobs by LME. Lieutenant Gov. Tina Smith, who likened the company’s behavior to “stealing,” said the Department of Labor and Industry has filed six claims on behalf of former LME employees already.

“And I suspect there will be more,” Smith said.

Teamsters Local 120 “passed the hat” to support out-of-work LME drivers.
Lisa and Shane Thompson, pictured with their two sons, are both looking for work since Shane found himself out of a job three days before Thanksgiving.
Steve Satterlee said he doesn’t know how he’ll afford medication for his wife, Wanda, who is disabled.

Several former LME workers described having their lives turned upside down by the company’s sudden decision to pick up and, allegedly, move to Maple Grove without them.

“I spent 14 years here, and now I’m left with no insurance for my family, no paychecks,” Shane Thompson of Braham said, standing next to his wife, Lisa, and their two sons. “It kind of hurt. It’s been kind of a struggle.”

For both Roger Nelson of White Bear Lake and Steve Satterlee of Cottage Grove, there could not have been a worse time to lose their family health insurance coverage. Nelson’s wife faces surgery, and Satterlee’s relies on expensive medication to live a “normal life” with a disability.

“These people don’t (care) about your hardships or my hardships,” Satterlee said of Finish Line management. “They don’t (care) about anybody but themselves. That’s why they’re going this to us.”

Smith pledged assistance for workers navigating the state’s unemployment insurance system, and she said LME could face penalties if it refuses to comply with orders to pay back wages.

“I want the people in these buildings to understand that they cannot just get away with this,” she said.

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