You Should Be Outraged!

As you can see by our lead story, General President Hoffa was re-elected by an overwhelming margin and Ken Hall will be our new General Secretary-Treasurer in March, when the new term begins. Fortunately, I was also elected as Vice President At-Large, which changes my title from my current position as Western Region Vice President. Many thanks to all of you who took the time to vote and participate in the International election.

These are tough and, in many ways, outrageous times. We all look forward to providing our Teamster members with the strongest possible leadership to navigate these increasingly troubled waters.

Since our last edition, the Occupy Wall Street movement has begun. Frankly, my first reaction was: it is about time!

Consider the following:

• In 2007, the top 1% of households owned 34.6% of the wealth in our country, the next 19% owned 50.5% of the wealth, leaving only 15% of the wealth to be owned by working people like us. It has gotten even worse than that. In 2010, the top 1% owned 42.7% of the wealth, which brings our percentage down even more.

• Of the top 120 industrialized nations of the world, the U.S. ranks 93rd in distribution of wealth.

• Most incredibly and just as significantly is the fact that, in the 1970’s, the average CEO of a corporation made approximately 40 times what hourly workers made. Today, that same CEO makes between 300 and 500 times of what our members and workers like us make!

This total disconnect with working people, with union members and with our middle class is what is fueling the Occupy Movement.

Occupy Movement needs our support

Think about it: as union members and as workers, we should be outraged at the fact that healthcare costs are surging out of control and are taking a bigger share of our paychecks, and that 50 million workers in our country don’t even have access to healthcare at all.

We should be outraged that the pensions of public sector workers are under attack and that our private sector pensions are under attack by our employers.

We should be outraged that corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars of cash, while millions of ablebodied workers are out of work and can’t find a job.

We should be outraged that our fellow working class members are losing their homes to foreclosure because of unscrupulous banks who walked away from their folly with bailouts, while many of our friends and families lost their homes.

Perhaps the worst outrage is that for the first time in our nation’s history, our children must face the fact that their lifestyle may not be as good as those of their parents.

These outrages are what have fueled the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Although the Occupy movement has become misrepresented by the press and at times fractured into many issues, it needs to be embraced by organized labor. We need people being aware of what is happening, and speaking out against the injustices that corporate greed has brought upon us all.

To this end, the Joint Council Executive Board and the International General Executive Board have publically supported the movement. Given the outrageous positions that the leading candidates of the Republican Party are taking regarding taxes, the middle class, and working people, we need to make sure we have many sectors of our society that share our values. The Occupy Movement is a good start.

In order to continue to defend our union and our lifestyles, we need to spend this upcoming year bolstering our political clout. This means you will be seeing DRIVE representatives along with your Business agents in your workplace, making sure you are registered to vote and signed up to support candidates that support working people. Please do not take this lightly, as the job, wages and benefits that you save may be your own.

In closing, I want to wish you and your families safe and happy holidays. Enjoy your time, as we have a lot of work to do in the New Year!