Fight Back! News

News and Views from the People's Struggle

Labor

By Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War

ACTION ALERT: Tell St Paul officials to grant permit for RNC anti-war march

Fight Back News Service urges all of our readers to respond to this action alert from the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War. Please forward it as widely as possible.

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By staff

Fight Back! interviewed Richard Berg, a candidate for vice-president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on the Tom Leedham Strong Contracts, Good Pensions Slate. Berg is also a key rank-and-file leader who has spearheaded the fight against corruption in Chicago’s Teamster Local 743. The outcome of the Teamsters election is vital for all working Teamsters and will impact the direction of the labor movement as a whole.

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By staff

Chicago Worker Richard Berg Assaulted by Mobster

Las Vegas, NV – Richard Berg, a long-time leader in the Teamster reform movement in Chicago, was assaulted at the International Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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By staff

Teamster International president Jimmy Hoffa has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. He will probably raise millions in an attempt to fend off a largely rank and file effort to unseat him. Why is he afraid of the Teamster members? Because under his watch workers have lost ground, pension benefits have been cut, widespread corruption continues and working Teamsters are mad as hell.

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By staff

Group of labor folks, posing for picture.

Chicago, IL – Richard Berg stood with workers who are members of Teamsters Local 743 in front of the Russian Turkish Bathhouse on Division Street. “This place is run by the mob. Everyone knows it,” stated Berg, presidential candidate for the Teamsters Local 743 reform group, the New Leadership Slate (NLS). “Our local is run by gangsters as well. We want it back.”

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By staff

Chicago, IL – Are Jimmy Hoffa’s days numbered as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters? Many rank-and-file activists think it is time for a new leader. Chicago Teamster activist Adrian Esquivel said, “Hoffa broke every promise he made, it’s time we elect a real Teamster with the strength and courage to turn this union around.”

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By staff

Chicago, IL – Robert Walston and his gang stole the election in Teamsters Local 743 in October 2004. The members of Local 743 knew this at the time. Now, the U.S. Department of Labor is backing up the charges brought by the reform candidates of the 743 New Leadership Slate.

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By staff

Tony holding sign saying, "Fair Elections."

Chicago, IL – The company and the union officials agreed: The workers would get nothing. These workers that had made the company owners rich by making lamps to be sold to wealthy people around the world, these workers, would now get nothing. The company was being sold and their jobs would be eliminated. Most had worked in this factory for more than 25 years and now they would get nothing.

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By staff

International Teamster President James P. Hoffa is in trouble. He is discredited because of his lies and his complete inability to deliver for rank-and-file Teamsters. During his last run for president of the union, Hoffa claimed that he would not raise union dues. Hoffa lied. After he won he said he had to raise dues to negotiate strong contracts. His slogan was, “Five cents an hour for Teamster power.”

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By staff

Chicago, IL – It wasn’t the usual lunch hour. Everyone that walked past the University of Chicago administration building saw it. Students, community activists, members of SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Local 73, the Illinois Nurses Association and the Teamsters Local 743 marching together, all united to fight for reform Teamster, Richard Berg.

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By Fight Back! Editors

Richard Berg, a rank-and-file leader in Teamsters Local 743 has been fired. Fight Back! received a copy of an open letter that’s being circulated by Berg that calls for a protest on Jan. 11. The letter is reprinted below.

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By staff

Chicago, IL – As Fight Back! goes to press, the gangsters in Teamsters Local 743 have succeeded in stealing another election. When votes were counted on Dec. 4, the old guard emerged with 1,651 votes. 1,257 votes went to the opposition 743 New Leadership Slate.

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By staff

Chicago, IL – When rank-and-file members of Teamsters Local 743 arrived at the door of their union hall at 9:00 a.m., Oct. 16, they were forced to stand outside in the cold. Rogelio Garcia, Elizabeth Michaca and Josefina Mendez were denied entrance into the building that is paid for with their dues money. They had come to watch the ballot count in their union officers’ election.

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By staff

Chicago, IL – The officers’ election in Local 743 was held once this fall. Now it’s being held again.

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By staff

Chicago, IL – Rank and file union members of Teamsters Local 743 say the corrupt officials of their union are stealing the election for local officers.

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By staff

Immigrant workers again being denied right to vote by union officials

Chicago, IL – Rank-and-file workers will rally Oct. 7 to stop an attempt by the corrupt leaders of Teamsters Local 743 to steal the election for union officers. The rally will take place at Teamster City, 300 S Ashland at 4:30 p.m.

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By staff

Chicago, IL – Workers laid off from their jobs at a Bedford Park factory are continuing their fight to win fair compensation. 175 former employees of the Silver Capital Corporation have picketed, held a one-day strike and even rallied outside the union offices for their cause. On Sept. 15, 35 workers went to the National Labor Relations Board and filed charges against the sell-out leadership of Teamster Local 743.

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By staff

Chicago, IL – At 6:30 in the morning on Thursday, Aug. 5, over one hundred workers went to work at the Frederick Cooper lamp factory. For 80 of them, it was the end of their week, because the company had cut out work on Friday. This reduced the workers’ income by 20% – one dollar out of five.

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By staff

Chicago, IL – Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 743 say it’s time for a change. “We can’t stand another term of the current officers,” Richard Berg stated. Berg is the presidential candidate of the 743 New Leadership Slate, which will be on the ballot being mailed out on Sept. 22. The votes are to be counted on Oct. 16.

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By staff

Chicago, IL – Teamsters reformer Richard Berg is being threatened with expulsion from the union. A rank-and-file activist, Berg has been a housekeeper and a member of Local 743 at the University of Chicago Hospitals (UCH) since 1989. The gangsters running the local are out to get him for the ‘crime’ of fighting for workers.

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