Updates from around the Local

Using creative opportunities to take on GraniteRock

On April 24, GraniteRock hosted an open house for its customers and dignitaries at the company’s Redwood City facility. Local 853 showed up in force to let guests know how the company had pushed to bust the union and to decimate union wage and benefit guarantees.

“We started the picket at 6:30,” said Business Agent Stu Helfer. “We left at noon, and not one person had shown up for the event.”

Actually, Local 853 had done significant advance work, sending notices to every single city and county legislator in San Mateo County. Union activists also drummed up support from the local building trades council and from several local unions.

Helfer reports that GraniteRock has since been uninvited, by the union crews, to exhibit at events being at the Moscone Center.

Solidarity in blackLocal 853 members who work at VWR in Brisbane designed, produced and are wearing black t-shirts every Friday to show their solidarity with Teamsters Local 676 members who work at the company’s Bridgeport, New Jersey facility. “Local 676 has been in tough negotiations since March,” explains Vice President John Becker. “The company proposed massive give-backs and they’ve been moving in a very aggressive direction in both locations—terminating people, and not letting me into the building to represent our members. The t-shirts show the company that we’re prepared to stand together.”

Teamsters join Women Building California confab

Most people think of construction as a man’s world, but women are definitely an active force in that world, too. Teamster Pam Talavera, who works at Rock Transport, joined more than 300 other tradeswomen from a variety of construction crafts, at the Women Building California Conference on May 2-3 in Los Angeles.

The conference, sponsored by the State Building and Construction Trades Council, is for women who work in construction. Because most women in this “non-traditional” field never see other women on the jobsite, this 8th Annual event has proven to be an important opportunity for women to network and learn skills that will enable them to gain leadership on the job and in their unions.

“It was a great event. I really learned a lot. I met and made friends with a lot of great women who also work in construction— especially a great group of pile drivers who are also from the Bay Area.”

Upon making her presentation about the conference at the Local’s May meeting, Pam said: “The main thing is how important it is to be involved in the union. This is my first time at a union meeting, and I’m going to start coming on a regular basis.”

The conference itself is coordinated by Debra Chaplan, who works for the State Building Trades Council and is also a member of Teamsters Local 853.

More trouble at SF Chronicle

By the end of June, the San Francisco Chronicle will close their Union City production facilities, and subcontract all that work to Transcontinental in CITY. This Canadian-based company says that they aren’t anti-union, but to date, none of the current Chronicle drivers or mailers who have applied for jobs doing what they’ve done so well for years, have been hired.

Local 853 plans to file charges of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board over what appears to be the company’s pattern of discrimination against union members.

Business Agent Chuck Davis has also heard the San Jose Mercury News may also be moving their production to Transcom, no doubt provoking another fight.