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.

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.

Minneapolis, MN – Standing in front of the Federal Building here, March 24, leaders of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War and their lawyers announced they are seeking a preliminary injunction requiring the City of Saint Paul to grant the permits for their September 1 anti-war march. The attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint in federal district court later that day.

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.

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.

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.”

Jessica Sundin, of the Colombia Action Network, led a small delegation of three North American activists to Bogatá in July 2000, to attend a conference responding to U.S. military aid. The delegation also traveled to the area in Southern Colombia controlled by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (FARC-EP). Fight Back! interviewed Jessica about what she saw there.

FARC-EP Spokesperson

I want to say to the people of the U.S. that the Colombian people admire and respect your efforts.

After months of delays and debates, on Thursday, June 22, the Senate voted 95-4 to send another $1.3 billion in military aid to Colombia. Activists around the country responded with an outcry of protest.