Raleigh, NC – Raleigh sanitation workers changed tactics, after months of protests to city management fell on deaf ears. The sanitation workers held a four-hour and a two-hour temporary work stoppage on Sept. 13 and 14, forcing city management to address their concerns. An important struggle has unfolded in the weeks since.

Gadsden, AL – Despite the heavy rains and the passing weeks, workers at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant here are holding the picket line, demanding job security and better health and insurance benefits. All 1250 workers at the Gadsden plant have been on strike since Oct. 5, leaving the plant idle and plant supervisors scrambling to make tires on their own. The United Steelworkers of America, who organized the strike, represents eleven other plants in America and two in Canada, a total of 15,000 workers, all of whom are participating in the strike.

Workers' rights are under attack in South Carolina. Later this summer, five members of the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) will be going on trial. Elijah Forde Jr., Kenneth Jefferson, Peter Washington Jr., Rick Simmons, and John Edgerton face up to 5 years in prison. They are changed with felony riot. In truth, they have done nothing wrong. They stood up to a union-busting shipping firm and exercised their right to picket. For that, South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon says they deserve “jail, jail, and more jail.”

Hamilton, AL – “This is a fight to the death. We will not let the scabs have this plant. If we can't have it, we will shut it down,” vowed the local United Steel Workers of America membership.

Gary, IN – Edgewater Systems for Balanced Living is a social service agency here whose services cover children with developmental disorders as well as adults with chronic mental illness. The 180 housekeepers, maintenance workers, therapists and teachers are members of Teamsters Local 743. These workers care for their clients, often giving out of their own pockets to buy things for them.

Chicago, IL – Members of Teamsters Local 743 are preparing to join the massive national march on Sept. 1 in Saint Paul, Minnesota to protest at the Republican National Convention. They see this march as part of the effort to defeat the Republicans this fall. This march will be the first time in 45 years that Local 743 is joining a national mobilization.

Chicago, IL – The U.S. Attorney here handed down a 14 count indictment against former Teamster Local 743 presidents Robert Walston and Richard Lopez and former Teamsters Local 743 employees Cassandra Davis Mosley, David Rodriguez and Thaddeus ‘Teddie’ Bania, March 6.

Chicago, IL – The University of Chicago Hospital employed Richard Berg as a housekeeper for 16 years. In 2004, they fired him at the request of Bob Walston, the criminal that was principal officer in Teamsters Local 743, Berg’s union. Berg had led the New Leadership Slate (NLS) that had twice won in local elections that year, but each time had been denied their elective offices by the massive theft of votes by Walston’s gang. The gangsters decided to eliminate the challenge once and for all: if Berg didn’t work in a Local 743 shop, he couldn’t be a member of the union and could never run for office again.

Chicago, IL – Five union reformers entered the offices of Teamsters Local 743 Dec. 31 to receive keys to the union hall from their opponents who had lost election in the fall. The old president Richard Lopez knew he was defeated and that he might be going to jail.

Chicago, IL – Sirlena Perry is a clerical worker and a trade unionist in Chicago. She has also been a supporter of the Teamsters 743 New Leadership Slate for many years. She gave a speech introducing members of the Slate when they were honored at this year’s People’s Thanksgiving in Chicago, an annual fundraiser for Fight Back! newspaper.

Fight Back! has been a supporter of the reform movement in the Teamsters since we began publishing, but the struggle inside Teamsters Local 743 began years earlier. We interviewed Richard Berg, the president-elect of Local 743 about the history and meaning of the victory over the sell-out gangsters that dominated that union for so many years.

On Sept. 1, 2008 the Republican Party will hold its national convention at the Xcel Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. They will be there to nominate John McCain for president, and justify the wars against – and occupations of – Iraq and Afghanistan. The Republicans will gather to celebrate economic policies that have brought riches to the few and foreclosures, homelessness and unemployment to the many. Republican delegates will cheer the anti-immigrant attacks as party leaders try to use racism to cement their reactionary supporters. We can also expect attacks from the podium on women’s rights to control our own bodies and attacks on gay marriage.

Chicago, IL – A cheer rang out Oct. 22 as the U.S. Department of Labor announced the winners of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) officers’ election for Local 743. Richard Berg and the 743 New Leadership Slate beat the incumbent Ford-Galvan Unity Slate. After twelve years of difficult and sometimes frustrating campaigning, a new day is dawning in Local 743.

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Action Alert from the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War.

Chicago IL – Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 743 are looking forward to a fair election this time around. In a flurry of action, Robert Walston, former president of IBT 743 resigned under pressure, to be replaced by Walston’s former Recording Secretary, Richard Lopez, as president of the local.

Chicago, IL – Teamsters Local 743 officers admitted their guilt. Through their attorneys and in front of U.S. District Court Judge Kennelly they submitted a motion that admitted that they sent Teamster ballots in their own election to the bosses. And guess what, the bosses voted.

Minneapolis, MN – In a great display of unity and solidarity, activists from around the country gathered on the University of Minnesota campus, Feb. 9-10, for an organizing conference to plan the anti-war protests at the Republican National Convention.

Working at United Parcel Service (UPS) is a backbreaking, grueling job. Few people last even one year. Most who work there for a long period of time have back and/or joint pain. The main jobs, loading the trucks or delivering packages in the boxy brown trucks, are especially taxing. The loading jobs are so rough that UPS only wants part-timers to do them, figuring no one can handle the job for a full eight hours.

Oregon Teamster Tom Leedham came up short in his bid to unseat Jimmy Hoffa for the top spot in the union. Leedham ran the kind of campaign that Fight Back! readers like to see. His basic theme was that trade union power comes from the workers, not the officials. Leedham said that we need to organize that power to confront management to win better contracts and protect our Teamster pensions.

Chicago, IL – As Fight Back! goes to press Teamsters are getting ready to count the ballots in the showdown between the slates of incumbent International President Hoffa and the reform challenger, Local 206 President Tom Leedham. The Tom Leedham Strong Contracts, Good Pensions slate, with extremely limited resources, took out a message of rank-and-file power to challenge employer greed.