Can you tell that it’s 108° out? Across the nation, unions turned out at restaurants serviced by Sysco to let Sysco’s customers know that the company is not bargaining in good faith. Unfortunately, Local 853’s assigned day was the hottest in human memory! Fortunately, that didn’t stop the intrepid staff from leafleting at Cheesecake Factory restaurants in Pleasanton and San Jose in August.
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Getting a union is not easy, as the 50 workers who run the mail room for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, will attest. They work for a contractor called Canon Business Services. Back in the fall of 2021, they contacted Local 853 determined to gain union representation because, according to Business Rep Pablo Barrera, “the management team was unprofessional, disrespectful, and acting as bullies. Wages and benefits are generally poor and the company shows obvious favoritism for the paltry wage increases it does offer a few workers.
Keep readingIn 2021 and 2022, the workers at the Kelloggs facilities in Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Kansas had to go on strike for up to three months to get a decent contract. When the contract at Kelloggs’ Eggo Waffle facility in San Jose was due to expire in June, that recent history was all too real for the 150 members and Business Rep Ray Torres. Fortunately, with two strike authorizations in hand, no strike was necessary and members got the best contract they’ve ever had.
Keep readingIt may have taken over a year and a half, but the thousands of members across California who do sales for Southern Glazer Wine & Spirits & RNDC (formerly known as Young’s Market) ratified their richest contract to date. Local 853 alone has about 684 workers under this contract who received huge wage increases, full maintenance of benefits on their health and welfare, additional holidays, and more.
Business Rep Steve Beck was quick to acknowledge that the bargaining committee,
Keep reading“Ten years ago, there were zero Amazon warehouses in California,” said Shaun Martinez, from the IBT’s Strategic Research and Campaigns Department “Today, Amazon is the state’s largest employer.”
Speaking at a training about Amazon for about 100 Local 853 UPS members at the San Jose Teamster office on November 13, Martinez reviewed Amazon’s growth, from bookseller to major customer of UPS to now being UPS’ biggest competitor—already surpassing Fed-Ex’s market share.
The battle has already begun.
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On July 10 and August 28, Local 853 sponsored job fairs in the parking lots of the Local’s San Jose and Oakland offices, respectively. In all, 18 Teamster employers showed up to fill more than 350 jobs—from drivers (truck, paratransit, school bus, tech bus, and more), to warehouse workers, merchandisers, and manufacturing workers. Hundreds of job seekers came to check out those positions.
We thank the employers for joining us and making their positions available.
Keep readingA majority of the 15 drivers, janitors, and maintenance workers at Crothall Healthcare in Gilroy filed cards to show their interest in joining Local 853. They had a laundry list of grievances, including safety, favoritism, mistreatment, and lack of respect. Surprising everyone, including organizer Pablo Barrera, the company recognized the unit.
“We were sure that we’d have a fight on our hands and would have to go to an election,” says Barrera. “But because the Manteca facility is already under contract with Local 386,
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For the past seven years, Thelma Garza has been working as a ready-mix driver for Central Concrete in San Jose.
Currently, she’s working on the Park Project in downtown San Jose. She says that the developer got permission from the airport to go higher than previous height limits, so, at 50 stories, this will be the tallest building in the city. Her work as a ready-mix driver not only includes driving a concrete truck,
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Merritt Billington has worked at UPS for about 25 years; a career he started when he was 18 years old. He delivers packages in the city of Gilroy for UPS and serves as the Local 853’s chief shop steward at the Morgan Hill Center in San Jose. He makes 150-190 deliveries each day — a workload that’s up by about 25% since COVID started.
For most of his career at UPS, Billington was an active member with Local 287.
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Rather than gathering in a high school auditorium, Local 853 switched its annual Membership Appreciation Event to be a “drive-through.” On October 31, nearly 1,000 members came to the DoubleTree Hilton in Newark to pick up their membership gift, and the “State of Our Union” speech and raffle were held on zoom the next day.
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