O'Brien Rallies UPS Teamsters in Atlanta

this is a house of Labor this is a year of Labor we're in battles on every front and I thank you all for being here this morning we've got the largest private sector uh bargaining agreement in the country up against the ropes right now UPS the big Behemoth that made a hundred billion dollars last year a company that I've been fighting for 35 years since I was 18 years old and I'm proud to say that today on this very day that we stand here we've got leadership at the IBT like we've never had before we've got leadership that we're not back down we've got leadership that has let UPS know that the concession stand is closed not just not just in the UPS contract in YRC at Holland in the movies we're supporting our side after most important our our Riders give we'll support in our Republic solid waves all these contracts that are up the ground right now and we're coming in strong we're coming in hard and under Sean o'briar's leadership and Fred zuckerman's leadership we're going to take back what our members deserve from these white collar crime settings foreign [Applause] it humbles my heart to see you here and as many of you know as I mentioned those words that are going on on the front here we got battles on every corner I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into those I'm gonna let our general president do that but on behalf of this executive board here I'm not going to introduce him up here quite yet but I want to tell him thank you I want to say something and this is absolutely true and it's absolutely from the bottom of my heart I've had the privilege of working full-time at this local for the last 13 years had the privilege of being a steward of ups for 14 years I've had the privilege of being a member of this local for 35 years and I can tell you then I have never in my life in my career in my seniority tenure here at local 728 see a president a general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at our house more times in my entire career than I've seen this man in the last year [Applause] and I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap this up and I'm going to turn it over to our general president but before I do I want to remind all of you we're in this spot to get God's going to talk about all that's going on but I just want to remind you after the actors together Writers Guild YRC Hollywood Republic all of it UPS we are together solid air to win and we're going back to Washington D.C and because this man gave me the privilege and the honor to be a part of the national negotiating committee I can assure you with his leadership we're playing chess they're playing checkers and we're going to go back to DC and we're going to get the greatest Growers and richest contracts that you've never seen without further ado I take a great honor and a great privilege to introduce your general president my general president Sean O'Brien to his second home local San Antonio [Applause] thank you Matt Higdon said in exactly how I wrote it thank you I want to thank local 728 for embracing me and allowing our great International Union to be here today Matt has been a tireless Fighter for UPS members and when I saw Matt in action getting 44 supplements done by the deadline that we put on this company he did tremendous work we made tremendous gains with one zero zero foreign Zuckerman to me Matt and I can write the checks they just got to find a way to pay for him right and he's been a tremendous tremendous uh help for us as well but look we're here today for a couple reasons we're here today to make certain that UPS understands that we have 340 000 deep 340 000 strong and we will put their ass in the street if they don't do us right by our memory all right [Applause] now we are we are once again because of your faith and commitment to restoring the power back into the Teamsters Union you rank and file members whether you're at UPS yellow YRC whatever their name is uh movie division Cisco Republic you have actually empowered us to do what's right by working people you have instilled in fighting Union Spirit back into the International Brotherhood of teamsters where we're 1.3 million strong and look we have fighting on all fronts we are at yellow right now you're in the fight of your life and we are in the fight of our life as Leaders making certain this company understands that the concession stand is closed you have given back billions upon billions of dollars since 2009 and I'm reading I'm reading all the propaganda online and that's probably from trolls known as YRC management where they are blaming the Teamsters Union for their demise that is furthest from the truth we do not want to see any company suffer and go out of business but at some point in time we cannot keep sacrificing wages conditions that our forefathers and four sisters fought long and hard for in the freight division [Applause] I'm a proud very very proud fourth generation teamster truck driver I'm a truck driver and it is embarrassing and frightening to see a company like yellow making excuses and blaming the Teamsters Union and their members for their demise they've got billions upon billions of dollars from you they got 700 million dollars from the federal government under the Trump Administration they got 600 million dollars from Apollo Investments and they can't pay their bills they have mismanaged this company which was once a great company yellow roadway Holland they've mismanaged it to a point where they've got a decision to make in the next 48 hours they either pay the benefits of our members or they're going to put their asses on the street [Applause] you know they went to a federal judge yesterday trying to get a temporary restraining order against the International Brotherhood of teamsters they've been in the workplace and it's failed miserably at that attempt thankfully and they've been going with all this crop again on how they want to give you 11 dollars per hour and that's okay we'll take it if they want to give it but the true story is this they want to give you 11 an hour contingent upon you sacrificing wages and conditions and getting a deal that's going to keep them afloat and when they say them afloat Darren do nothing Hawkins the CEO when I pose this question to him I said to him have you taken a pay cup in the last 10 years have you sacrificed like our members have had he said no I haven't so you took your 2.1 billion dollar salary last year I have and I said don't you feel don't you feel criminal about doing that he goes I have a contract and I said so do we so do we why not I know that there's going to be there's going to be criticism because of our position we're taking with yellow but it's necessary at this point in time sometimes you know you have to sacrifice the short-term pain for a long-term game and we are going to make certain that we take care of every one of our members at yellow we're going to make certain that there's opportunity we're going to make certain that you get jobs in the event that yellow chooses to strike themselves and not pay our members benefits and their pensions but more importantly today we're here to spread the message of unity and we're going to have fights we're going to have sacrifices we're going to have losses but at the end of the day the biggest thing we have to do is stay United One Vision One mission is to make sure we're bigger faster stronger and our brothers and sisters at sag-aftra and also the Writers Guild and we got 2 000 [Applause] there today working in the motion picture industry now I'm a fourth generation Teamster as I stated and my dad gave 51 years of sacrifice and where's my brother Terry Johnson stand up stand up Terry [Applause] 50-year team stuff and he can tell you I can drive right Terry I can drive Terry is worth the motion picture industry like many people in here and I know that's not your fight right now it's sag after it's the writer's Guild but without the Teamsters Union nothing gets done on those movie sets and unfortunately unfortunately like everything else Corporate America has engraving themselves in the motion picture industry where they care more about the bottom line of a balance sheet than they do the workers and the people behind the scenes that make them the success they are and again this fight today in the movie industry may not be the teams this fight but it will be off by the year two years down the road so we need to send a message but more importantly more importantly the one thing that we have that Corporate America doesn't have that stockholders don't have that these crooked politicians don't have we've got cards and conviction intestinal fortitude to whether any single storm that we see coming our way and UPS is going to be the biggest fight of Our Lives UPS represents the largest collected by any agreement any Union throughout this whole entire country throughout this whole world and it's important it's very important that we win this fight that we make certain that the people on Main Street are rewarded before the people on Wall Street up [Applause] we are going to the table with the most amount of Leverage we've ever had you know what that Leverage is 340 000 rack and file members at UPS 1.3 million members Nationwide North America are the biggest most powerful influencing Union in the world that is the International Brotherhood of teachers now we've made tremendous gains at that table people told us you'll never eliminate the 22 for wage rate 210 wage system done you're never going to get Martin Luther King we're never going to get Martin Luther King day as a paid holiday done [Applause] you're never going to stop you're never going to stop UPS from forcing Us in on our day off done [Applause] you will never get air conditioning in the vehicles done [Applause] you will never ever ever get rid of inward facing cameras and technology that holds our members hostage done [Applause] now we have the most important part of this contract this week it's the economics it's the economics that we are going to fight like hell to make certain our part-timers and full-timers are rewarded accordingly now the part-timers the last two contracts have been left behind I can guarantee you regardless of what happens this week whether we get a deal or we don't get a deal that UPS part-timers will be required rewarded accordingly it is embarrassing it is embarrassing for a company so successful where they made 100 billion dollars last year it's embarrassing when I go around the country and I don't go meet with local union leaders I don't believe me with politicians I want to be grimy in the middle of the workplaces talking to our members making sure we understand it the trials and tribulations of the job that you all are doing and it's embarrassing for such a successful Corporation where there's a hundred thousand employees of UPS making less than twenty dollars per hour some are living in Tacoma shelters some are on government subsidized meal plans some are working two three jobs single mothers single dads trying to make ends meet and you have this company rewarding stockholders record dividends 50 increase 8.4 billion in January and then the CEO of upper management taking 30 million dollars in February of stock buyback debt stock buyback all the while those frauds have never touched the package never kept supply chain solution moving never sacrifice their health and well-being through the toughest times through the pandemic now it's our time it's our time to be rewarded accordingly now look I know people are scared I know people are scared I know people live week to week I know that potential labor strike could be devastating to the economy but that's not on us that's on UPS UPS [Applause] if UPS chooses to not do the right thing and reward the people that have made them the tremendous success they're going to strike themselves they have potentially throw this country into a recession and I've been doing meteor all week for the last two weeks and look I definitely have a face for radio there's no doubt about that okay but the question I keep getting asked is are you scared that you your union your members will put this company into a recession and my answer is this no UPS provides seven percent of gross national product throughout this country e-commerce has exploded and look I'm typical like everybody else I want my package yesterday right and we actually probably can do that at some point in time but UPS UPS is going to throw this country into a recession the one thing I say I said look 33 years is a team so fourth generation I learned what it is to be a good union person around my dinner table we have disagreements we had debates we've actually had fist fights but when we walk out that door the dysfunctional family we are at that dinner table We Are One mission one direction to make this Union bigger fast [Applause] and we will we will program we have been through recessions we've been through layoffs we've been through it all as Teamsters but the one constant that is rest assured that will be there is that the economy will come back volume will come back and we will be back at work and we will not compromise our integrity and or our beliefs because of a tough time in the economy we know what we have done for this country we know what we've sacrificed to make certain that goods and services provided and we know our worth we know our value we know what we deserve and it's not what we want it's what we deserve and what we're going to take from this white collar crime syndicate known as United fossil service [Applause] thank you foreign [Applause] strategy with UPS we've been building this momentum for two or three years the IBT uh strategic initiative Department we've been building this momentum we've executed the plan executed the plan fall through we've been disciplined but UPS needs to understand that they've got two roads to go down here they've got one where they can be a model employer where they can reward the people that have made them the success that they are and give what we deserve or they can go down the other Road where they can be greedy they can watch try and watch their balance sheet grow reward Wall Street instead of Main Street and then they're going to put their ass on the street they're gonna put their ass in the street so we're going to DC today and prepared because we're almost there we're at that five yard line we're at that five yard line and here's the thing we're in the fight we are in the fight of Our Lives but the one thing that's great for us as teams is we might get beat up we might get bloody but we got one more round one more [Applause] one more round and look we've been we've been very very successful so far with UPS you know why because we got 340 000 deep but we have to think of the bigger picture here we've got to take this contract in any contract that we negotiate who went forward we've got to set industry standards for every single industry we represent that's why we will not accept we will not accept anything that is not beneficial to our members and we have this strategy we want to organize Amazon 500 000 members [Applause] we're going to take this contract with the highest starting wages for part-timers with Health and Welfare with pensions with 60 improvements in that contract and we are going to go to the non-union and say this is what you get when you join the greatest organization in the entire world the international [Applause] this week this week is going to be our defining moment in the Teamsters Union it's going to be the defining moment for labor we have organized we've strategized now it's time to pulverize this white ball person known as UPS and here's the message it's clear it's simple whether you're a YRC or yellow I mean YRC I want to say YRC formal yellow formerly known as YRC right whether you're a republic whether you're Cisco whether you're UPS whether you're a public sector whether you're anybody that wants to take on 1.3 million strong put your helmets on bucket chin straps it's a full contact sport thank you very much [Applause] deserve and I just want to give you a little bit extra something you might not know my son my wife's right here one of my sons he works for YRC and then go one of my other Sons works for UPS in Dalton Georgia all of you are my family but that don't pissed me off and pissed my wife off because they're messing with our babies now okay [Applause] we all get it thank you for coming out brotherly sister [Applause] [Music] everybody just mingle around hey we wanted to get in Get Loud get crowd and get out here quick we know you got your weekend we're going to be minging around saying hello to everybody because enjoy yourself enjoy your house get to know everybody and talk later thank you God bless all of you [Applause]

Channel: Teamsters

Views: 43,435

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Id: pI1y6etKYdY

Length: 23min 52sec (1432 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 24 2023