Teamsters Union votes to support Occupy Wall Street protesters and condemns eviction of occupiers!

[Better Believe It]

NEWS RELEASE

Teamsters Vote Official Support Of Occupy Wall Street
November 15, 2011
Teamsters General Executive Board Passes Resolution Following Eviction In New York

(WASHINGTON) – The General Executive Board of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters unanimously passed a resolution today supporting the right of protesters at Occupy Wall Street to assemble at Liberty Park. The Teamsters further commended New York Supreme Court Judge Lucy Billings for issuing a restraining order this morning restoring protesters’ constitutional rights.

“You can draw a direct line from the Wisconsin protests in the winter to Occupy Wall Street to the overwhelming rejection of an anti-union ballot question in Ohio,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. “Occupy Wall Street is bringing new energy to a fight that labor has been engaged in from the beginning: The fight for an economy that works for everybody, not just the 1 percent.”

Today’s vote by the Teamsters’ 24-member General Executive Board came at an already-scheduled meeting at the union’s headquarters in Washington. The board, after learning of the evictions, which included a New York City councilman and a district leader, immediately ordered a resolution of support be drafted.

Hoffa said rank-and-file Teamsters have participated in Occupy Wall Street actions throughout the country. Teamsters protected encampments in San Francisco and New York, fed Occupy Oakland, led rallies in Cleveland and Chicago, marched in Occupy Chattanooga and supported the movement from Maine to California. Occupy Wall Street protesters have taken direct action against Sotheby’s for locking out 43 Teamsters art handlers in New York, while Occupy Chicago protesters rallied against private-equity firm Madison Dearborn in Chicago.

The resolution states, in part, “just as ‘Occupy Wall Street’ demands that the nation respond to the unrelenting pressure on the middle class, on workers and on the unemployed, the Teamsters have exposed the ‘War on Workers’ being waged by billionaires and CEOs who seek to blame working people for the state of the economy and to ‘fix’ the economy by giving to the rich and taking from the middle class.”

Founded in 1903, the Teamsters Union represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @teamsterpower.

http://www.teamster.org/content/teamsters-vote-official-support-occupy-wall-street


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OCCUPY WALL STREET RESOLUTION

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, representing 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, acting through its General Executive Board hereby adopts the following Resolution this 15th day of November 2011:

WHEREAS, "Occupy Wall Street” is the foundation of the nationwide protest against economic inequality, unfair tax structure, bank bailouts and corporate greed that has affected every worker in the United States, including every member of the Teamsters Union, and brought the country to its current economic crisis;

WHEREAS, just as "Occupy Wall Street" demands that the nation respond to the unrelenting pressure on the middle class, on workers and on the unemployed, the Teamsters have exposed the "War on Workers” being waged by billionaires and CEOs who seek to blame working people for the state of the economy and to "fix" the economy by giving to the rich and taking from the middle class;

WHEREAS, the Teamsters share the outrage of “Occupy Wall Street” over the foreclosure crisis, over out-of-control health care costs, over attacks on pensions, over the fact that corporations are sitting on more cash than anytime in history while millions of able-bodied workers cannot find a job, and that Teamster children may not achieve the standard of living their parents achieved and may never own a home or a pension;

WHEREAS, Union members must fight to keep the gains they have achieved through collective bargaining as corporate-backed politicians attack public sector workers with the same ruthlessness they exhibited in the past 11 months, and private sector employers are following their example;

WHEREAS, just as workers’ rights to organize, picket and strike are abrogated based on unjustified allegations of a threat to public safety and health, “Occupy Wall Street's” Constitutionally protected right to a peaceful protest and assembly must be protected and cannot be curtailed or contained based on unsupported claims of public safety;

WHEREAS, the lockout of 43 Teamsters art handlers by the profitable auction house Sotheby’s has become for “Occupy Wall Street” a symbol of the unrelenting greed of the 1 percent, and “Occupy Wall Street” has for weeks acted in solidarity with the locked-out Teamsters from Local 814;

WHEREAS, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered Liberty Park cleared of all “Occupy Wall Street” protesters and the New York Police Department entered the park with police in riot gear backed up by numerous police vehicles, including a bulldozer, evicting occupiers, destroying property and arresting dozens of occupiers and protesters, including New York City Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez and District Leader Paul Newell, in the early morning hours of November 15, 2011, and

WHEREAS, attorneys working as the Liberty Park Legal Working Group obtained a temporary restraining order directing that occupiers be allowed back on the premises with their belongings.

NOW, THEREFORE, it is resolved as follows:

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the working men and women it represents wholly supports and endorses Occupy Wall Street and opposes any effort to unreasonably restrict, contain or stop this lawful protest; and The International Brotherhood of Teamsters commends and extends its appreciation to New York Supreme Court Judge Lucy Billings for issuing a restraining order that restores the Constitutional rights of “Occupy Wall Street” to peacefully protest.

http://www.teamster.org/content/occupy-wall-street-resolution

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Go Teamsters! Love you all! nt

[femmocrat]

2. Solidarity! n/t

[lonestarnot]

3. Right the fuck on!

[hootinholler]

4. Call for the STRIKE!

Shut this country down for a day.

[Better Believe It]

6. The IBT doesn't have enough members to shut the nation down.

Unfortunately only a small and shrinking minority of truck drivers are now Teamster members. Most truck drivers are now employed by non-union companies or they are so-called "owner operators".

Before we can organize a successful nation strike, we need to demonstrate that a General Strike can be organized in a place like Oakland, California.

A General Strike of course did not take place in Oakland. Several thousand protesters did prevent people from going to work at the Oakland docks thereby shutting it down for several hours.

That was all well and good. However, it certainly was not a General Strike by public and private workers in Oakland.

Public transportation was fully operational.

ALL truck drivers drove. You could see thousands of them on the streets of Oakland driving!

Supermarkets and shopping malls were open for business.

Most public employees worked.

The railroads moved their freight and passengers without disruption.

Public utility workers worked.

Garbage was being picked-up.

And the list of occupations and businesses that were not shut down by strikes is a very long one.

Perhaps I'm just dead wrong and most Oakland workers in most occupations did strike on that day and other progressives can list the tens of thousands of Oakland workers who shut down almost all places of work that day. I'd like to see that hard data and facts.

When a real General Strike is called, as it will be sometime in the future, people will want to know why this relatively smallish action involving fewer than a few hundred thousand people was called a General Strike. It wasn't even a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

Sometimes political terms are misused, misunderstood or abused to the point where they lose all meaning. Like calling every right-wing outfit or politician "fascist" or in this case calling a significant mass protest a "general strike".

Well, I just had to get that small irritation about misleading "general strike" declarations and claims off my chest.

The OWS movement is doing just fine and doesn't need "leaders" to engage in gross exaggeration or soaring rhetoric to make a point.

[Marrah_G]

5. Part of me would be THRILLED to see the Teamsters strike

But the single mom in me that relies on child support from an active teamster is really nervous about it. It so hard sometimes to stay true to your convictions when you are responsible for someone else's life.........

[Better Believe It]

7. Unless we are talking about a real revolutionary insurrection people are suggesting a short strike.

Most political General Strikes last only a day or two unless it is a tactic aimed at replacing the political rule of the rich with the rule of the working class majority.

We are hardly in that situation except in the minds of a few black hooded self-proclaimed "revolutionists" who like "playing" revolution.

[Marrah_G]

8. Ohh... okay

I didn'[t realize it was only a day or two.