Teamwork makes the dream work. The past few months have shown us how much working together and supporting each other is our true source of power as Teamsters. Our Joint Council has shown up on a political and legislative level to promote our California Automotive Regulatory Standards (CARS) Package of legislation, which would provide safeguards and regulation for autonomous vehicles (AV).

Our CARS package consists of AB 2286, which is our reintroduction of AB 316 that would require a safety operator for any vehicles over 10,000 lbs;

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As we watched the election results come in, we were reminded just how much every vote counts. The March Presidential Primary had incredibly low turnout. That means there will be races won by very narrow margins. That also means every Teamster vote counts in a much bigger way.

This past election cycle, we endorsed candidates running for county Board of Supervisors, City Council, State Assembly, State Senate, and Congressional seats. Each of our Locals in their respective territories interviewed hundreds of candidates and chose those who we felt best aligned with our Teamster priorities.

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After 17 years with Joint Council 7, this is my last column as your political director. It has been an immense honor to work with our union.

Starting as an organizer

I was first hired into the Teamsters in 2006. Under the direction of our then Joint Council President, I ran the organizing campaign with misclassified truck drivers at the Port of Oakland. At the campaign’s peak, we put 5,000 people on the streets of downtown Oakland.

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Every year, local, state, and federal government agencies give out billions of dollars to corporations through procurement contracts, tax credits, subsidies, grants, and more. These are our tax dollars “at work.” This raises two questions: does it work for us? And if not, what can we do?

Sadly, the answer to the first question is “not enough.”  However, the answer to the second question is “we can do a lot.”

For decades,

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This is my 16th year as a Teamster. I was hired as political director in 2010 right after the merger of Joint Councils 7 and 38. That merger united more than 100,000 Teamsters from Bakersfield to the Oregon border and Reno under one tent. Overnight, we became one of the largest Joint Councils in the Teamsters. In fact, our Council is larger than 41 states.

I was hired to build political power so we can organize new workers into the Teamsters and negotiate the best wages and working conditions for our members.

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Last September, Joint Council 7 launched our campaign challenging Amazon’s rapid expansion plans in the Bay Area. In particular, we set our sights on the company’s plans to build a giant distribution center in San Francisco on property purchased from one of Teamster Local 350’s largest employers, Recology. This project directly threatened 1,400 Teamster Local 2785 members at UPS.

Our campaign won on March 22 when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed legislation imposing interim zoning controls on that project and on all parcel delivery stations in San Francisco for the next 18 months. 

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The COVID-19 pandemic led to an explosion in online shopping. Teamsters in many industries are working harder than ever. UPS, our largest employer, hired 50,000 Teamsters since the pandemic began. And with the holidays coming up, UPS just announced plans to hire 100,000 more seasonal workers.

Amazon is UPS’ largest customer. Amazon has also rapidly become the second largest employer in the U.S. The company hired 500,000 people last year and just announced plans to hire another 125,000 warehouse workers and 50,000 delivery drivers by the end of the year.

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