For 27 years, when Anthony (Tony) Sanders, Sr. has not been playing Santa Claus, he’s been working as a cashier at New South Parking at the San Francisco Airport. A member of Local 665, Tony has served as a shop steward for the last 18 years.
What’s great about the job, he says, is that while “it’s the same job every day, there’s something new and different every day and I meet different people every day.” It’s the people who keep it interesting.
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Robert Olson has worked as a facilities painter at San Jose State University for the last 18 years. He has been an active member of Local 2010 since the Teamsters began representing members on his campus about five years ago.
Robert’s job is to take care of the university. Besides painting the vast facility that includes 32 buildings and a new football stadium, he and his three co-workers also do drywall and stucco work,
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Jose Ramirez has worked for Iron Mountain, a document archiving company, in its Oakland facility for 32 years, but that’s not where the magic is.
He serves as Lead Transportation Coordinator, dispatching drivers each day, and monitoring customer calls to help them solve problems. His territory runs from Eureka at the north, through the Bay Area, and down to Fremont, currently, and San Jose, starting in August, as well as east to Livermore,
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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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“By nature, I like to help people.” That’s what Renee Wilson says both about why she enjoys working at UPS and why she’s gotten involved in her union, Teamsters Local 431 in Fresno.
Wilson has worked as a UPS package car driver in Fresno for 20 years and has had the same route — a mix of residential and business stops — for the past 15 years. She makes about 135 stops a day.
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Felicisima Horcabas, also known as Emma, has worked at the University of California, Davis Health System for 25-plus years.
Her job title might be administrative assistant, but her work is interesting and diverse. She currently works at the UC Davis Chaplaincy Department, fulfilling requests from people of various faith groups asking for prayers, ceremonial healing, baptisms, blessings, etc. “I get to observe that religion crosses all races, genders, and cultures, and I get to schedule their meetings with their mutual faith group,” she says.
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Trina Johnson has worked for UPS at the Bayside hub in Richmond for 21 years, and she loves her work and her union. “I’m a gal in brown. With the uniform that you wear, you’re proud. During the pandemic, when everyone was in shutdown, we were out there, bringing good things.”
Dealing with different people each day is one of the most interesting aspects of Trina’s job. “You bond with your customers. It’s like we’re all family.
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As he waited for his school bus in 1980’s San Francisco, Luis Estrada would watch the garbage men running with their pack cans and picking up garbage every morning. Those Teamsters Local 350 members inspired young Luis to become a garbage man.
On August 2, 2000, Estrada began his career at Allied Waste Services of Daly City and as a member of Teamsters Local 350. “I was working full-time at the San Francisco Produce Markets and part-time with UPS in South San Francisco.
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Samuel Styles has been a member of Teamsters Local 70 and worked as a delivery driver for Pepsi in Hayward for nearly three years. He’s out delivering Pepsi products every day to Safeway and Lucky stores, 7-11s, neighborhood corner stores, and restaurants. “I’ve delivered to every city in the Bay Area in one week. It’s great because I get to see different things, like restaurants that I’d like to try.”
The benefits he appreciates most about being in the union are the medical and dental.
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For 36 years, Greg Doench has been a package car driver for UPS, first in Concord and then in Oakley. What he enjoys most about his work is being outside and being active.
“My job allows me to work in the city I grew up in and that I still reside in,” he says thinking about the residential route he’s had for the past 18 years. “I get to see a lot of people that I grew up with,
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