Life Experiences

Let's use this thread to post all our positive experiences with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. I bet most of you have some serious and comical venues to speak of !!!!!!!

I'll start this thread off with a funny situation. Back in the mid 70's my first union job was with Branch Motors. I was awarded a bid as the combo fueler and road jockey. I was told not only by the Steward but also the Terminal Manager that if I was in the process of fueling a city unit and a road driver hit the gate I was to finish fueling then proceed to dispatch for the road switch. One night I guess the night Terminal Manager must've had a fight with his wife. He called me on the outside intercom that he had a road driver at the gate. Per orders I was told to finish fueling first. Well I guess I wasn't fueling fast enough because after the 3rd. call from him with no response from me he felt the need to march out to the fuel island to confront me. I explained my situation but non the less he chose to fire me for insubordination. I walked up to the time clock and punched my card. He was standing at the window watching my every move. I walked up to the window and asked him to borrow a dime. He dug into his pockets and gave me the money with a puzzled look on his face! I walked over to the pay phone and called my Steward. Within 30 minutes, in pulls my Steward. He looked at me with this grin,walked into his office and proceeded to announce to all the dock workers to report to the locker room for a meeting. He asked the men to sit tight while he meets with the boss. 2 hours later he walks into the locker room to find all 38 dock workers sound asleep as was myself. Standing right behind him was the Night Terminal Manager with his eyes looking towards the floor. Seconds passed and out of this big brawny boss came the words " I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, can we all go back to work?" Not one person laughed or passed a comment but as a group we all realized the respect was acknowledged. Needless to say I had my job back, we all got a paid lunch because we were on the clock into our 5th hour and not another word was said!!

That's called a union benefit having someone watch your back

I am knowing!!!!!!!

Comical !! This is not a time for jokes you Local drivers need to unite and see HOW so important this is .. Management is saying it's slowing down because the customers are getting wind of the union coming in .. Another lie , what happen to the sales force they showed the door ? I guess that was the local drivers fault, or i know the union did it . IT'S TIME TO ROCK THE HOUSE ... Stand proud , you should have the best in life just like management has , You all work hard !! and the time you put in should show for it ..the company wants you to work you 65 hours a week or more, well they should pay you overtime , Ask any customer you go to and they can't believe you don't get overtime ... Times need to change and you can do it .. I would still be working at NCT if a Union had my back .. G W works for NCT .. and thats that ..

That doesn't work when your competitors are non union. Nice story. Won't work in today's market

3 customers in my area said they are aware of whats going on and will use NCTY no matter what-love the rep and driver of course--first question was will the same driver still be making the pick ups ?

Yes all drivers will stay in their areas only new work or start times will go up for bid

Another story,this time safety related. At RedStar we were required to scale out all New York pedal runs. I was assigned a steady single axle tractor and pedaled at JFK Airport. I scaled the load and found it to be 9000lbs over on the drives. They told me to switch out to a screw which I did and still was over. The dispatcher told me that they didn't have time to rework the load and instructed me to take the load. The obvious choice was not only my safety but the public's as well. Walked right into my Stewards office and low and behold 20 minutes later they reworked the load. Needless to say, it scaled out correctly with my original single axle. Granted I was late for my first appointment but given the circumstances,safety came first and foremost. It's a great feeling knowing you did the right thing and had the support to back your claim.

Here is the problem with these stories. How many customers did you upset by not getting their freight out for delivery. I guess you taught a manager a lesson but you cut off your nose to spit your face.

mike9895 said:

Here is the problem with these stories. How many customers did you upset by not getting their freight out for delivery. I guess you taught a manager a lesson but you cut off your nose to spit your face.

Click to expand...

SAFETY FIRST--BROTHER-----customer upset ? how about the family he could have killed as he made that left turn....cmon, you know better than that. You dont compromise safety.....it could have been possible that initially they didnt realize it was overweight, but fix it.....btw--its the drivers license thats on the line----PERIOD !!

i like the first story except for the fact that you illicited the response you got...couldnt you have answered and just said im finishing up the refueling ill handle the driver when im done...seems like you could have avoided all that by just calling in or radioing the mgr

back then we didn't have radios or even a phone at the fuel island. Remember the 70's??? The night boss was actually a nice guy and later in the week he did approach me and apologize for his reaction. It was all water under the bridge. We talked and he realized it was a safety issue at the fuel island because we weren't allowed to leave any trucks unattended at the pumps whether they were being fueled or not.

thats good, i was thinking you could have avoided it with a 2 way or a reply on the intercom

I've received about 10 phone calls in the past 4 days from drivers that have been following all these threads over the past couple weeks. From what they gather based on the ****-chat amongst the men, most if not all are voting yes. they said that some were afraid of company retaliation should they find out the names of who actually voted yes. Now that the confidentiality has been factually posted and a post made on the New Century Teamsters web page was put up, it has given most if not all the men "on the fence" added protection. It seems to me that this should be an easy win for the drivers. I'm glad I posted my thread about how the voting process works and Local 107 backed it up with the actual post of the ballot.