Outta Hours, I appreciate and respect that you are concerned enough about this local enough to reply. I also appreciate the dignity with which you responded. I don't expect everybody to share my views identically, but I do expect my brothers and sisters to see the facts and be capable of evaluating the leadership of our local.
I supported Jenkins. I am and have been incredibly active as well. I worked the Americold campaign for our local. In fact, I donated my time to work that campaign since the local only wanted to pay supporters for a few days here and there. It was like pulling teeth to have Jenkins authorize the organizer to put gas in our vehicles because he didn't want to do that -- even though we were driving hours and hours every day on our own dime when gas was a zillion bucks a gallon. He wouldn't call back when we asked him for assistance (when I say "we" I mean his local's organizer and volunteers such as myself from our local, other locals, and the IBT's organizing team); he wouldn't cooperate with the IBT organizers or the organizer 745 sent to help US unless Wesley was begged, tracked down, and pressured. Carlos Rios, who is candidate for VP, worked that campaign. He ALSO volunteered. In addition, I knocked on doors during the Versacold campaign. I ran middle-of-the-night flyer distribution with the IBT on other instances. As a Teamster, I signed up over 700 people to register to vote by myself in the various hubs for the 2004 presidential election. The local presented me with a jacket for being one of three top internal organizers year before last. I'm "there". I'm active. Where were the "experienced" guys? They weren't there. At all.
Jenkins never once visited in the year and half or so that the IBT paid for our local's "war room," which was just 15 minutes from the union hall. He sent John Shorts to visit one time. Wesley didn't want to organize any new members into the local, and, believe me, that message was very clear...and embarrassing. Even today, the Americold contract, over a year later, has not been ratified. Our brothers and sisters there are in the cold, and Jenkins has done NOTHING to help the reproach that's being taken on them by the company for organizing. Talk to them. I have. Do you realize how awful it feels for me to have reassured them that we care about them, that they should sign the cards, and then have the local's leadership behave so arrogantly? It is infuriating.
Jenkins stayed in an anti-union hotel. Two suites. Our money. That is not insignificant. It's HUGE. Trust me. He's wigging out that the members found out about that. Mark my word.
The DFW combo people have been working split shifts for almost a year with little to NO response from the hall. There are a hundred of them, and they are all upset with good reason. The company has been allowed to violate the language, give zero notice for change of operations, and reduce those workers pay by about a thousand dollars a month each. There are jobs in the day hub, which would make those shifts contiguous, thus resolving the controversy, but the cries and pleas from those workers fall on deaf ears. I don't have a combo job or work in the hub, and I have even called the hall to share that I'm constantly witnessing new hires touring the hub in orientation classes (prior to peak). Meanwhile, none of the other buildings are affected. This is not rocket science! They bragged about creating all those jobs during the last election, but there is nothing to brag about now. The work is there, but Wesley Jenkins wouldn't know because he is NEVER there. Never. The workers at my major north Texan air facility don't even know who their president is.
Furthermore...
Allied: Seven workers allowed to be terminated for being out on injury and refusing to cross a picket line to return to work. SEVEN people lost their jobs, and the people at Allied all know the local put up no fight.
Wesley Jenkins laid off Sandra Jimenez, the local's friend/T organizer and replaced her with a P/T UPS employee with far less seniority than Sandra. Then Wesley refused to allow Sandra to contribute the last TWO payments into her pension in order to be vested. The only reason is denied that was to be vindictive. And it cost her almost everything. Luckily Sandra was offered jobs by just about every major union in California within a month. She just organized ANOTHER major campaign on the west coast. WHY did he let her go? He told people in 'confidence': "She was becoming too popular." And he said she was "stealing time," even though she did more for our local in a year than he did in an entire decade. On top of that, with Sandra gone, there is no Spanish speaking rep at the hall.
Weber: Wesley Jenkins has allowed for language to be included in the latest contract that allows for the company to expand its operation in Mexico by decreasing its workforce here.
AWG: There are workers who have urinated on themselves because they are not allowed to leave their work areas. Complaints about that have gone completely unanswered. Ask those guys. They're fed up with being treated like they don't deserve basic rights.
The Joint Council 80 even voted Wesley Jenkins off after he served a term. We have no representative for the largest local in Texas on our own JC. A GROUP OF HIS PEERS VOTED HIM OUT and replaced him.
This is all the recent stuff, too. It doesn't have to be this way.
Since you have been with the local for a couple of decades, you know this is not how leadership should treat its members. We need to work with each other, the locals in our area, organize internally and externally. That is NOT happening, and we are suffering as a whole.
I mean no disrespect to you in my reply -- just returning the discussion with my additional viewpoints. Best of luck to you, Brother/Sister, regardless of the results of this election.
