For 22 days in August, 180 Local 315 Teamsters battled Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI) a trash-hauling-industry mega-giant.  The dues-paying Teamsters were trying to win a contract with reasonable limits on mandatory overtime. Forced constantly to work 12 and 14-hour days, the workers have little time to share with their families. 

By all rights the striking garbage Teamsters should have been able to count on the support of the 50,000 Teamsters of Joint Council 7, led by President Chuck Mack. Would the strikers have won, if the Joint Council had done its duty to the strikers?  We will never know.  Mack and the Joint Council left the strikers isolated, facing alone belligerent bosses professional strikebreakers and jackbooted thugs! 

Why didn't Chuck Mack lead the Bay Area's Teamsters in defense of the embattled BFI workers? Why didn't Mack call on all Bay Area Organized Labor to rally to the BFI strikers' side?  Why didn't Mack mobilize public support for the strikers, like the International Union did for the 1997 UPS strikers? 

Why did the Joint Council Executive Board (which includes Mack, his brother and his brother-in-law) vote to deny the strikers the right to extend their picket lines to other Bay Area BFI work sites?  Why did Mack keep his Local 70's BPI workers on the job, even though their contract had expired?  Why did Mack's local 70 officials order their BFI drivers to go through picket-lines at the dumps?  Why did Mack's Local 70 officials say they would call the cops on BFI strikers, if they didn't get off Local 70's property? 

Just like all Bay Area Teamsters, the 180 dues-paying strikers deserve to be backed-up. But the strikers were left in the lurch. They didn't get a nickel's worth of help from Mack's Joint Council.  Now Mack is asking Teamsters to vote for him for higher office and more pay.  Some folks say Mack's conduct proves he's not interested in taking on corporate greed and creating a better life for all Teamster families. They say that Mack and the Hoffa gang want to take us back to the days when the union was a country club for officials who made back room deals with the boss. What do you think? 

BAY AREA TEAMSTERS FOR RANK & FILE POWER