Teamsters Highlight Renewed Militancy, Rank-and-File Power at 50th Annual TDU Convention

At the 50th annual Teamsters for a Democratic Union convention, 550 Teamsters talked about building power in their workplaces, from UPS barns to school bus yards to the San Diego Zoo. They swapped tips on running for local union office and debated TDU’s strategic priorities.

A major theme at the convention, held in Chicago November 7-9, was the union’s renewed militancy. Teamsters elected Sean O’Brien in 2021 to head the 1.3-million member union; the TDU-backed O’Brien-Zuckerman Teamsters United slate ran under the slogan “new leadership and a new direction.”

“We saw that election as an opening—an opportunity,” said TDU organizer David Levin. “And we’ve challenged ourselves to make the most of it: new leadership taking on employers by mobilizing members, TDU building union power from below.”

All around the convention, TDU members shared how they are organizing in their locals to make the most of this opportunity—whether supported by local leaders or organizing in spite of them.

“No one is coming to save us,” said Steve Tesfagiorgis, an Eritrean immigrant and custodian at the University of Minnesota, where workers organized a contract campaign and a victorious five-day strike in September against the wishes of their local union officials. “We need to get respect for ourselves, by ourselves.” TDU provided tools to help members run a vote no campaign on a weak contract, hold Zoom meetings of hundreds of workers, and create leaflets in five languages.

Katherine Wallace, a nurse at Michigan’s Corewell Health, saw the nationwide practice pickets during the last UPS contract campaign and was inspired to join an organizing drive in her workplace. Ten thousand Corewell nurses voted to join the Teamsters last year, in one of the biggest private-sector union organizing victories in decades.

Members of reform groups in the United Auto Workers, Electrical Workers (IBEW), and Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) were also in attendance. Colin Smalley, a leader in the Federal Unionists Network, told the Saturday morning plenary that TDU has been an inspiration for FUN’s efforts to create a “a cross-sector, big tent organization to build collective power and revitalize locals” of government employees.

‘STRIKES ARE BACK’

Dustin Roach, president of Local 135 in Indiana, talked about how the new Teamsters leadership is giving members tools to build power. The administration is supporting strategies long championed by TDU, like militant contract campaigns, coordinated bargaining at employers like Sysco and U.S. Foods, and an increased willingness to strike. O’Brien, who addressed the convention on Friday night, said there have been 300 strikes since he took office three and a half years ago.

“Strikes are back in the Teamsters,” said Roach. “We’re not afraid to prepare for them. We’re not afraid to use them. We’re not afraid to win them.” Two hundred workers at the Horseshoe Casino are on strike for union recognition with his local, reviving a tactic that was once the most common way for workers to form a union

The convention highlighted recent wins like a new contract for warehouse workers at Zenith Logistics, a third-party operator for Kroger. Zenith workers with Local 100 in Cincinnati won a $5 raise in year one, dramatic improvements in the health care plan, a doubling of personal days from three to six, and language that requires the employer to turn away ICE agents unless they have a judicial warrant. The contract is the product of a serious strike threat, and follows big wins at Zenith by Teamsters locals in Louisville and Indianapolis.

Under the new leadership, the Teamsters international has been willing to provide resources for fights like these—coordinating picket line extensions, for instance, and providing enhanced strike benefits of $1,000 a week from day one of a strike. Strike pay is set much lower by the Teamsters constitution, but the international’s executive board can approve higher strike benefits—and it has not only done so repeatedly, but has also encouraged locals to publicize it to give them more leverage with employers.

“Victories like Zenith never happened during the Hoffa administration,” said TDU Steering Committee member Frank Halstead of Local 572. “Companies like Zenith and Kroger weren’t afraid of a strike. Strikes were used as a threat to force bad contracts on members.”

RANK-AND-FILE POWER

As the reform group approaches its 50th anniversary, the convention reflected on its history and achievements.

Longtime TDU national organizer Ken Paff described the group’s early years surviving attacks from the mob. “When we started we didn’t know how to run anything but our mouths,” he said. “Today our members run locals and strikes and organizing drives and contract campaigns.”

The focus, he said, has always been on building power from below—on display in workshops like enforcing the UPS contract, defending immigrant worker rights, and running for local union office.

“During the Hoffa years, rebuilding union power meant we needed to vote out the international union leadership,” said Levin. “Today, our focus has shifted to the local level—building model, militant, progressive local unions.”

Many members at the convention were running for local office to replace leaders they feel are selling members short.

Among them were 20 members from Local 320; most had been part of the September strike at the University of Minnesota. One of their big wins was blocking the university from moving their next contract expiration date to December, when the campus is mostly empty, which would have weakened union leverage. They emphasized how TDU had helped them pull off the strike despite opposition from union leadership.

“Our 320 officers told us we couldn’t win higher wages, couldn’t get our contract lined up with other unions on campus,” said Christy O’Connor, a senior custodian. “Over and over they told us we could never strike the university and win. But we did it.”

Tesfagiorgis and O’Connor, who are both stewards and were strike captains during the walkout, are running on the 320 Teamsters Action Slate. “We need new leaders who will listen to the membership and answer the phone when we call,” Tesfagiorgis told the convention. Ballots will be counted in early December.

At the San Diego Zoo, Local 481 leaders had pushed through a contract in 2021 that gave up pensions and locked in wage increases far below inflation. “But the problem wasn’t just bad officials,” said zookeeper Erin Borgardt. “The problem was that we—the members—were divided and disconnected.”

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She and others built a rank-and-file movement, Zoo Solidarity, which earlier this year organized members to vote down a contract, 860 to 272. With the support of TDU activists, Zoo Solidarity members signed up their co-workers on strike pledges and organized a Strike Ready rally, which pushed management to add 10 percent more in wage increases for the zoo’s 2,000 Teamsters.

“We decided we would never allow ourselves to have our backs be put up against the wall again,” said Borgardt, who is running for Secretary-Treasurer on the Teamster Solidarity 481 slate in the election this month. “We’re running so that the next time we’ll be in charge.”

TDU BACKS OZ

The next election for top officers of the Teamsters international will take place in 2026. Top officers are elected by one member, one vote, a reform won by TDU in 1989 under a federal consent decree.

On Saturday afternoon, members debated and voted on a resolution to continue TDU’s strategy of building union power from the bottom up through education, contract campaigns, running for local office, and boosting Teamster organizing drives in core industries.

The resolution also included an endorsement of the O’Brien-Zuckerman Teamsters United slate, with TDU continuing “to participate in the Teamsters United coalition as an allied, but independent organization that charts its own course and has its own campaigns.”

The slate includes several TDU members who have won office in their locals, like Roach, Matt Taibi of Rhode Island Local 251, and Willie Ford of Charlotte Local 71.

The resolution was approved overwhelmingly, with only a handful of no votes.

O’Brien addressed the crowd on Friday night. “If you have a strike, we’re going to send resources,” he pledged. “If you have an organizing drive, you’re going to get resources. If you have any need in your local union, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with us, you’re going to get resources.”

SMALL PROTEST

Meanwhile, a dozen Teamsters and retirees held a protest against O’Brien on the sidewalk outside the convention hotel, denouncing him for cozying up to the Trump administration. They urged TDU members not to endorse his slate.

O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention last year, though the international union did not endorse a presidential candidate. Since Trump took office, O’Brien has allied with the administration on numerous occasions, most recently appearing beside Vice President J.D. Vance in late October to call on the Democrats to abandon their demands and vote to end the government shutdown.

His moves have helped the GOP’s efforts to present itself as a “workers’ party,” even as Trump has gutted the National Labor Relations Board, terrorized immigrant workers, torn up collective bargaining agreements covering a million federal workers, and surrounded himself with viciously anti-union billionaires from all over the world.

Among the protesters outside the convention was Richard Hooker, principal officer of Teamsters Local 623 in Philadelphia, who has announced he plans to challenge O’Brien in the upcoming election as part of the Fearless Slate.

Candidates for international office must collect 31,000 signatures—equivalent to 2.5 percent of members—by the end of this year to become accredited. Then they must win 5 percent of delegate votes at the Teamsters convention next June to appear on the ballot. Delegate elections will take place between January and March.

The O’Brien-Zuckerman Teamsters United slate is the only slate to earn accreditation so far, after handing in 125,000 signatures in August. Ballots in the race will be mailed in October 2026, provided another slate wins enough support to get on the ballot.

‘FOCUS ON WHAT UNITES US’

Inside the convention, a few longtime TDU members voiced opposition to an endorsement of O’Brien. “Sean O’Brien is giving material aid and verbal aid and assistance to people who have put this country in crisis,” said John Zuraw, a UPS driver from Chicago Local 705. “No one is going to tell him to change course besides TDU.” Zuraw urged TDUers to “speak up and renegotiate the terms of the coalition with O’Brien.”

“It’s about signaling to O’Brien that his connection with MAGA is a problem,” Zuraw said.

But these voices were an isolated few. Most speakers throughout the convention argued that the coalition with O’Brien has helped build the union’s power, and that TDU is most effective when it focuses on organizing members around union and workplace issues, rather than partisan politics. These points won most of the applause.

“I don’t like Trump either,” said Tyler Condo, a UPS driver and member of Local 455 in Colorado. “I wish Sean O’Brien was taking a stronger stand against what the President is doing to workers and immigrant workers and unions. But the majority of Teamsters I work with support Trump. I don’t go to work every day looking for a reason to argue with them.”

Condo, who is on the TDU steering committee, noted that there are many other organizations or campaigns to get involved in to protest Trump. Some TDU members, for instance, were active in the Teamsters Against Trump campaign last year.

“Our goal as TDU is to make action plans so we can mobilize Teamsters no matter who you support,” he said. “That’s how you win organizing drives and strikes and contract campaigns.”

A few days after the convention closed, the Local 92 Teamsters United slate, headed by young UPS part-timer and TDU member Damian Kungle, won an election to lead the 2,000-member local based in Canton, Ohio. “We're ready to hit the ground running to involve every Local 92 member to stand up to employers and win strong contracts,” said Kungle.