Teamsters Fired Up at 2010 Unity Conference
More than 1,600 Teamsters heard some Teamster-style talk in Las Vegas during the two-day Unity Conference. View more photos from this event.
The conference featured rousing speeches, powerful videos and emotional stories of struggle, hard work and victory.
“We listen, we learn, we have great speakers, but most important, we’re together,” Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa told the crowd.
Hoffa began the second day of the conference with a momentous announcement that drew one of the most sustained standing ovations of the event. The National Mediation Board announced that it had changed the regulation on voting so that majority rule will now prevail in airline and railroad organizing elections.
“That’s a victory,” Hoffa told the cheering audience.
The announcement followed Sunday’s discussion of the most successful organizing campaign in five years: the 8,000 Continental Airlines fleet service workers who voted in February to become Teamsters after four failed organizing efforts.
The campaign to organize the Continental workers would have been far easier had majority rule been in effect then, Hoffa said.
Though speaker after speaker acknowledged the difficult economic times that have continued for working people, the Teamsters had other victories to celebrate.
Teamsters organized 80,000 people in three years, including 35,000 school bus workers and 26,000 public service workers. Vice President Rick Middleton announced that the Teamsters will begin negotiations with First Student, our largest school bus employer, for a national contract by July 1.
Teamsters have saved jobs, as well. More than 3,000 carhaul jobs with Ford and GM are still good union jobs because of the union's campaign to shame the automakers, who received billions in taxpayer dollars.
General Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel on Monday noted that economic distress has forced Teamsters to make concessions.
“We’re going to get everything back,” when the economy turns around, Keegel vowed.
Perhaps the biggest applause line was delivered by the General President, though. Hoffa expressed the indignation that so many in the room felt over the taxpayer bailout of the banks. “They said the banks were too big to fail,” he said. “I say the American worker is too big to fail.”