This month, Working Partnerships USA and the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education released a groundbreaking report entitled “Driverless? Autonomous Trucks and the Future of the American Trucker.”  The author is Steve Viscelli, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania who also spent time as a long-haul truck driver. He captured that experience in a book called The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream. Steve presented his report findings and signed copies of his book at our Joint Council seminar in June.

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For the fifth year in a row, the availability and affordability of health care topped the list of concerns in a nationwide Gallup poll conducted in May.  Health care ranked higher on the list than crime and violence, the economy, unemployment, the quality of the environment, and many other issues.

This should be no surprise to any Teamster.  The rising cost of healthcare is front-and-center in every contract we negotiate, eating away at money we could otherwise put into raises and our pensions.

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With changes at the leadership level here at Joint Council 7, now is a good time to look back on all that was accomplished under the leadership of our former Joint Council President, Rome Aloise, and to look forward as well.

In 2009, when Rome Aloise took over as President, Teamsters in Northern California were divided. In the Bay Area and on the Coast, Teamsters were part of Joint Council 7. Local Unions in the Central Valley,

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