News Updates

Veterans in need of jobs got a boost today with the formation of a partnership between the U.S. Army Reserve and Helmets to Hardhats, a national program the Teamsters Union supports that offers job assistance and training opportunities for union jobs to veterans. The alliance was announced at a Pentagon ceremony today.

“The Teamsters Union is a proud supporter of Helmets to Hardhats,” said General President Jim Hoffa. “Our brave men and women who defend our country deserve as much help as we can give them when they return from their tour of duty.”

The Army Reserve created the partnership with Helmets to Hardhats to give more veterans the opportunity to learn a skilled trade through federally approved apprenticeship programs. The partnership between them will allow employers to recruit and train qualified veterans.

Helmets to Hardhats is a national, non-profit program that connects military service members to quality career opportunities in the building and construction trades. The Teamsters Union, along with America’s 14 other building and construction trade unions and more than 80,000 employers, work with representatives from the program to connect National Guard, reservists, transitioning active duty and retired military veterans to jobs that provide family-supporting wages and benefits in the construction industry.

Also, on July 10, Teamsters Joint Council 42 in Southern California will sponsor a job fair for veterans and active military at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, Calif. Employer representatives will be at the fair to interview job candidates interested in construction trades work.

The Teamsters Union was founded in 1903 and represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Teamsters Training Director Mark Johnson has been selected by the National Academy of Sciences to serve on a panel to develop a project statement and select an entity to conduct research into the feasibility of a single transportation workers identification credential.

Tightening of security after September 11 resulted in multiple federal security credentialing requirements for workers in the transportation sector. Drivers are required to undergo and pay for multiple background checks to meet security credentialing to do their daily job. These include the Hazardous Materials Endorsement for their CDL, the Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC) for all port facility workers, long shore workers, truck drivers, and others. Additionally, there are a myriad of state and local security requirements that have become burdensome and costly for the transportation worker. 

The research would consider the costs and benefits of the current programs as well as the alternatives, and address tradeoffs that may exist between safety and security in the various options. The research will also attempt to identify overlapping requirements and analyze the steps needed to convert the Commercial Drivers License (CDL), or similar licenses and credentials into a single transportation worker card that would be universally recognized. 

"I like the objective of this research and my hope is that it leads to results that make it easier and less costly for workers to meet all security requirements in the transportation sector,” Johnson said. 

Mixer truck drivers who work at AJO Concrete Construction Inc. in Baltimore, and are members of Local 311, recently ratified their first agreement with the company. The contract contains strong language providing for job security, seniority and overtime rules for the eighteen drivers in the bargaining unit.

Teamsters Local 200 announced this week that workers at NexGen Building Supply in Milwaukee, Wisconsin voted unanimously to join the union.

NexGen, one of the last non-union wall board supply companies in the Milwaukee area, agreed to a four-year contract that included excellent gains in health care and retirement benefits. The agreement eliminated any co-pays for health care and enrolled the workers in the Teamsters 401(k) plan. The total value between wages and benefits was $9 higher than what the workers earned prior to the new agreement taking effect.

“This is a great group of workers and we are happy to welcome them into our union,” said Tom Benvenuto, Local 200 Business Agent. “They remained strong throughout the process and voted unanimously for representation and for the new agreement.”