By a Teamsters Local 705 member:
Teamsters Local 705 sent a bus of 40-plus “rank-and-file” UPSers to last Sunday’s (March 21) Immigrant Rights march. This was in response to UPS being on the verge of firing hundreds of workers in the Chicago land area through the company’s participation in the E-Verify system.
In January, it was announced that all UPS workers in the Chicagoland area would have to fill out an I-9 form and they had until March 31st. Coincidently or not, April 1st was the date UPS announced it was going to cut management jobs nationwide. With desperation, the workers reached out to Local 705.
The Local has been very responsive to the workers concerns, even going as far as attending a public meeting with the immigrant rights group, Immigrant Solidarity Dupage. They have met with workers and stewards after general membership meetings on how to fight back some of the abuses the workers have endured during this whole process, which includes intimidation and racism from management. Local 705 have even sent extra representatives to the Addison plant where there is a huge concentration of Latino workers that have met with these abuses.
We joined half a million people in D.C. pressuring our leaders for immigration reform. The bus was a large majority Latino rank and filers from many different age ranges, with a few officers. It was a great experience and brought us all together.
No comments:
Post a Comment