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International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)

Republic shareholders nix Teamsters’ proposal to report labor impact of climate policies

By Jacob Wallace - Waste Dive, May 30, 2024

A strong majority of shareholders voted against the proposal, which urged Republic to more explicitly detail how its investments in automation and artificial intelligence affect workers.

Dive Brief:

  • Republic Services shareholders voted down a proposal last week that would have required the companyto prepare a report on how its climate-related policies affect workers and its supply chain. Republic’s board of directors urged a no vote.
  • The International Brotherhood of Teamsters made the proposal. The labor union argued that Republic needs to address the impact of artificial intelligence and automation —which Republic plans to use to pursue a circular economy for plastics, among other climate priorities — on workers and communities.
  • The company responded that its climate plan already includes engagement with stakeholders and said it would “continue to responsibly integrate technology” while balancing upskilling and retaining employees, per a securities filing ahead of the meeting.

Railroad Worker Unity, Challenging Craft Unionism, and Railroad Workers United 2022 Vote No Campaign

Rail Worker Previews Next Round of Union Negotiations

What’s Next for the Teamsters?

Heat Waves and Wildcat Strikes

By Jeff Shantz - LibCom, January 4, 2024

Green syndicalism puts the connectedness of ecological crises and crises of working-class life at the center of analysis—as outcomes of capitalism. It emphasizes ways in which exploitation of labor and the exploitation of nature go hand in hand and develop together. It also centers the importance of working-class resistance in ending the capitalist social system that causes, and thrives on, both.

Climate crises, which have moved beyond crisis to pose an existential threat to numerous life forms on the planet, disproportionately impact the working class—especially the poorest, most precarious, racialized sectors of the working class globally. Appropriately, heat waves have become a focus of labor action in a range of industries.

According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 53 workers died in the US due to temperature extremes in 2019, and the climate crisis is creating more, and new, hazardous conditions for workers, as heat waves, heat domes, and extreme heat become more regular and extensive. Between 1992 and 2017, heat stress killed 815 US workers while seriously injuring more than 70,000. Extreme heat kills more people each year than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, all of which are also becoming more frequent, in the US, according to the National Weather Service. On the whole, about 700 people die from heat-related illnesses each year. And the situation is only getting worse.

The number of “hot days” recorded in the United States has been increasing over decades. The 2018 National Climate Assessment, a major scientific report by 13 federal agencies, found that the frequency of heat waves increased from an average of two per year in the 1960s to six per year by the 2010s. It is not only the frequency of heat waves that is increasing, but the duration of each heat wave. The National Climate Assessment concluded that the season for heat waves is now a full 45 days longer than it was in the 1960s.

The impacts of capitalist climate crises, which disproportionately harm working class people, impel new strategies and tactics for working class organizing, as well as novel deployments of tried-and-true actions—such as wildcat strikes. Notably, we are seeing a revival of walkouts and wildcats against unsafe and unhealthy working conditions in the context of heat waves and heat domes, especially as these become more intense and more frequent.

Barry Eidlin & Paul Prescod on Labor’s Moment Today

To Beat the Heat, 'We Can't Rely on Management. We Have to Keep Each Other Safe'

By Alexandra Bradbury - Labor Notes, September 20, 2023

The death of UPS driver Chris Begley, 57, who collapsed in August while making a delivery in 103-degree Texas heat, was no isolated incident.

Monitoring co-workers for signs of heat exhaustion has become a routine feature of the job, says fellow driver Seth Pacic, a shop steward in Begley’s union, Teamsters Local 767.

Pacic has learned to discern over the phone when a co-worker needs to find air conditioning ASAP—and when they’re deteriorating so badly that he should call paramedics and brave management’s wrath.

The problem is that managers are always trying to speed workers up, and reluctant to call an ambulance because they report those numbers to higher-up management.

When a supervisor reached Begley, they offered him medical attention—but he refused it, so they took him home. “Therein lies one of the biggest problems: these supervisors aren’t trained in what to do about heat,” Pacic said.

“You can’t trust people when they say they’re ok. Because of the nature of heat exhaustion, your mental acuity is first thing to go. You get really foggy-minded.

“People get single-minded on trying to get home and get into the AC; they almost get fixated. That can be really dangerous if they push through, trying to get done with their day—or a supervisor pushes them.”

Four days after Begley’s collapse, he took a turn for the worse. He was taken to a hospital and life-flighted to another, where he died of massive organ failure.

Pacic wonders if IV fluids right away could have saved Begley’s life. Pacic himself has overheated on the job three times, and says his recovery took two days when he got IV fluids—versus two weeks when he didn’t.

Last year management allowed another driver, Pacic’s friend, to drive himself home despite heatstroke so bad he was vomiting; he totaled his car and sustained a brain injury. Another UPS driver was already in the same ICU.

Pacic believes air conditioning in the delivery truck would have saved his friend. When you overheat you’re supposed to seek out a “cool zone,” like an air-conditioned library or McDonald’s. But those are few and far between in sprawling residential areas.

AC in the truck would mean “a rolling cool zone that follows you wherever you go.”

The year before that, a 23-year-old driver died outside a Waco facility after overheating and wandering in circles. He had never clocked out, but rather than go look for him, management apparently falsified his timecard to close out the shift. His worried mother eventually came looking.

After great fanfare and consulting with Gatorade and Nike, earlier this year UPS issued everyone cooling sleeves and hats.

Labor Rise at End Fossil Fuels Demo

By Ted Franklin - Labor Rise, September 18, 2023


Labor Network for Sustainability contingent at Sacramento, California climate emergency demonstration. Credit: Ted Franklin CC-BY-NC-4.0

Labor Rise members helped organize a contingent of rank-and-file union members to join hundreds of other demonstrations in the End Fossil Fuels march and rally in Sacramento, California, on Sunday, September 17, 2023. We marched under the banner of Labor Network for Sustainability, a national organization building Labor/Climate movement solidarity. The Sacramento action was one of many in the United States during the international week of action to end fossil fuels. In New York City, where the United Nations gathered for meetings on climate, 75,000 people marched.

In Sacramento, where hundreds gathered, Labor Rise member Martha Hawthorne spoke on behalf of Labor Network for Sustainability:

Brother of State Worker Killed on the Job Wants State Level OSHA

Workers vs Heat

By Staff - Labor Network for Sustainability, August 30, 2023

UPS Workers Win Heat Protections Faced with a threatened strike – including “practice picket lines” — by its 340,000 union employees, UPS has agreed to a contract that provides major gains in wages and working conditions for its Teamsters’ members. The contract includes elimination of a “two-tier” wage rate; significant wage increases, especially for the lowest paid workers; and combining part-time jobs to provide new full-time jobs.

Sometimes lethal heat conditions have been a central issue for UPS workers. UPS has promised to equip all new package cars with air-conditioning and to install fans on older package cars. Section 14 of the contract states: 

All vans, pushbacks, fuel trucks, package cars, shifting units, and 24-foot box vans after January 2024 shall be equipped with A/C. Single fans will be installed in all package cars within 30 days of ratification and a second fan will be installed no later than June 1, 2024. Air-conditioned package cars will first be allocated to Zone 1 which is the hottest area of the country. All model year 2023 and beyond package cars and vans will be delivered with factory-installed heat shields and air induction vents for the package compartment. Within 18 months of ratification, all package cars will be retrofitted with heat shields and air induction vents. A Package Car Heat Committee will be established within 10 days of ratification for the purpose of studying methods of venting and insulating the package compartment. A decision must be made by October, 2024 or the issue will be submitted to the grievance procedure. The company will replace at least 28,000 package cars and vans during the life of the contract. 

The contract was overwhelmingly ratified by UPS union members on August 22.

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