Automation - The time to demand job security must start now!

[AlJackson1962!]

From this morning's NY Times (click link below)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/b...smid=url-share

For those interested, here's a little relevant history.

When the implementation of trucking deregulation was on full throttle in the early 80's, Reagan was President, Roy Williams was Teamster General President. By December 15, 1982 - only 18 months into his term as GP, Williams was convicted for conspiracy to bribe Nevada Senator Howard Cannon, to kill trucking deregulation legislation as a member of the Senate Committee overseeing the Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act of 1980. That plan to scuttle deregulation didn't work.

As a member of Local 25 at that time, employed as a fuel oil driver at Ultramar Petroleum, in Chelsea, Mass. (formerly Metropolitan Petroleum), our unit had a craft meeting in or around March 1982, lead by Local 25 Oil Division Field Rep Joe Laffey. Joe wrapped up the latest issues relative to the multi-employer collective bargaining agreement we shared with other Metro-Boston fuel oil workers. Then Joe rightfully warned of the looming disaster confronting the National Master Freight Agreement because of deregulation. Many of us seasonal fuel oil drivers, spared in freight during the seasonal layoff.

Months before that craft meeting, on Solidarity Day in September 1981, hundreds of thousands of Union workers rallied in Washington D.C. expressing opposition to Reagan's declaration of war on organized labor and the working class in general, following Reagan's opening salvo of firing striking PATCO workers that were fighting for a shorter workweek enjoyed by other air traffic controllers in European labor unions (this being a health and safety strike, in recognition of the highly stressful working conditions that air traffic controllers experience). I was there with a TDU contingent. The IBT Executive Board and Teamsters JC10 had endorsed Reagan in 1980 - and again in 1984!!!!

Joe Laffey opened the meeting for questions. I asked Joe if the Union would consider organizing a mass Washington D.C. rally to fight for job security and other protections for freight workers, as common carriers were collapsing under the weight of cut throat non-union competition. I can still hear Joe's words: "Dave, that burns my ass! I can't even get enough guys to come walk a picket line during a strike!"
Unfortunately a respected and prominent fellow driver and TDU member, Tim Costello, had been fired* from our Ultramar seniority list - Tim had been on the list since about 1971 as I recall. Tim was an outspoken, learned activist, and co-author of a 1970's book called "Common Sense For Hard Times" written with "Strike" author Jeremy Brecher. Had Tim not been fired, I know he would have given a much wiser and articulated argument in support of mass action.

I was able to offer up some more encouragement for such a rally. Hundreds, if not more than a thousand rank and file Boston area workers, traveled to and from the 1981 Solidarity Day rally by way of a chartered railroad train, paid for, as I understood by the AFL-CIO. I said: Joe, people will come, the Teamsters have the money, bring box lunches, bring any Local Teamster trucks, lets make some noise. Hell, there was even beer on the train ride home. It was awe-inspiring. But the meeting adjourned at the conclusion of my hurried encouraging words for mass action.

I called my old TDU pal Dave Wolfinsohn,, an early Boston TDU chapter organizer that afternoon. Dave had moved to Detroit and was working there as a Teamster cement mixer driver. Dave W. summed it up by saying: The last thing the IBT leadership wants is a mass rally of rank and file Teamsters. Why? Because the leadership fears the rank and file. I believe it was a cartoon in an old issue of TDU's newspaper Convoy showing Frank Fitzsimmons seated in the back of a limousuine and asking the driver: Who are these poor disheveled workers dressed in rags pushing heavy loads on the loading docks of a warehouse they drove by. The limo driver responded: Those are our members sir! Fitz in the last cartoon frame then yells: Step on it!

TEAMSTERS NEED TO BRING IT TO THE STREETS TO FIGHT AUTOMATION THAT IMPACTS OUR WORK AND OUR JOBS. TEAMSTERS LEADERSHIP SHOULD ORGANIZE IN CONCERT WITH ALL OF ORGANIZED LABOR FOR SOLIDARITY III - the second Solidarity Day rally was in 1991 on Labor Day weekend. I walked that one too alongside the TDU contingent, and IBT candidate for GP, Ron Carey.
LET THE VOICES OF THE RANK AND FILE BE HEARD LOUD AND PROUD!

*We published a lengthy article about Tim Costello's 1981 firing, written by Tim, in our Metro- Boston TDU chapter newspaper The Hub. Tim was near the top of the seasonal seniority list at Metropolitan, but things were quiet on his night shift, as the heating season was winding down. Tim asked a driver he had never seen before, where his load was going - they were both loading Metropolitan owned tankers at the Metropolitan terminal loading racks. The other driver said he was delivering to Boston University (BU). Tim immediately told the other driver he was filing a grievance. BU workers were on strike and despite BU being a major account for Metropolitan, all Teamsters were honoring their picket lines.

As Tim exited the loading racks, he followed the required route to position his loaded tanker truck, at the proper location, shut off the motor, chocked the wheels, and climbed the stairs to the shipping office to get his paperwork for his load. He told the night manager he was filing a grievance on bargaining unit work. He had discovered that during the BU strike, Metropolitan leased one of it's tanker trucks to BU so BU could load and deliver it's own fuel oil to BU buildings while crossing the striking BU workers' picket lines.

In Tim's discharge letter, the Company accused Tim of driving his truck in a kamikaze like attack to block the scab's truck, so Tim would be the first one inside the shipping office, in an effort to grieve ang possibly learn more details about this extreme contract violation. Our TDU chapter held an informational picket at Metropolitan Petroleum's Neponset offices before his grievance was heard - I still have a grainy short 8mm film of that demo: Put Costello back to work.

Local 25 held a NMFA unit meeting in the Spring of 1981 that was large enough that Local 25 rented Boston Symphony Hall because freight was so big at that time. Before the meeting I saw Joe Laffey outside and asked him about the status of Tim Costello's grievance. Joe said a decision was pending (I'm assuming it was deadlocked and before an arbitrator - but we're talking 45 years ago). Joe then added: "Timmy was way out of line that night, but we're going to try." Tim learned that Local 25 leadership had privately allowed (not protested after being aware) Metropolitan to lease a fuel oil tanker truck to BU specifically to circumvent the BU picket line! Tim's discharge was upheld.

Sadly, early activist Teamsters like Tim Costello have been passing away, Tim died in 2012. Dave Wolfinsohn died in 2023. And just a few weeks ago our Teamster Brother Rick Ericson passed away. Rick was instrumental in a 12 year struggle in Local 504 to bring all Massachusetts Lindenmeyr Munroe workers under a Teamster contract including restoration of Employer required contributions into the New England Teamsters Pension Fund.

Dave Robbins, Local 251, retired

[Yard Dog]

I remember that when I worked at Mason -Dixon

[Barry455]

Good article Brother Robbins, thanks. I think the Teamsters have pretty much given up on trucking and maybe automation is part of the reason, but what industry won't be impacted by Ai and robotics?
Your right about the need for labor to come together to fight for a solution but that's hard to imagine with the current leaderships "Teamsters vs everybody" policy. If it happens it probably won't include the IBT.

[AlJackson1962!]

Barry455: I have no argument with your reply above. It would have been hard to believe then, the demise of our Union now, given the members' winning the right to elect International Officers. As a retiree, I remain interested and as active as I reasonably can be. I hope rank and file Teamsters recognize that the power is in their hands to effect change. When you have someone like O'Brien, today sitting behind his racist friend Markwayne Mullin at Mullin's Senate confirmation hearing, it makes one "wonder, how we keep from going under."