 All right, we have 24 participants already. Hi, everyone, we're just getting going here, waiting as people will begin to call in. Welcome to this call. My name is Alexandra Bradbury. I'm the editor of Labor Notes. And we are joined by several activists from UPS tonight and from Teamsters for Democratic Union. So I can see the participants beginning to check in and we'll give it a couple of minutes as people arrive and then we'll get going with tonight's panelists. Maybe while people chime in, I'll say a few words about Labor Notes, which has been the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back in the labor movement since 1979. We organize a conference every two years. We organize local troublemakers schools. We publish a number of books and we organize events like this to bring rank and filers from different unions together to learn about one another's struggles and learn what we can from each other's fights and build a fighting labor movement. So many of you are joining by video through Zoom and you've got a link in your email explaining how to do that, which means that you'll be able to ask questions. So we're gonna hear from our panelists first and then we'll take as many questions as we can. So at any point if you have a question, you can click the Q and A at the bottom of your screen and type in your question and that way we'll be able to pull as many different questions as we can once we get to that section. If you're calling by phone, there's no easy way to ask a question. So I encourage people to call in by the video feature if you can. And if you're watching on the Facebook live stream, you can leave a comment on the stream and we'll be glancing through those and try to relay as many of those questions as we can as well. So the numbers that are climbing up here will give it another moment as people check in. This is the first time LibreNotes has done a video call like this. So it's a test for us of how this technology can work for this kind of a setting. I can begin to say who our panelists are as people log on. So we're lucky to have three great panelists as well as I know a number of other people on the call from UPS who can chime in. But we're gonna hear from Nick Perry who is a delivery driver in Columbus, Ohio, Team Districtal 413. We're gonna hear from Kristin Turnes who is a part-time inside worker on the ramp at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in local 767 in Dallas. And we're gonna hear from Beth Bresla who's an organizer with TeamStrich for a Democratic Union. And also on the call there are, I know Ken Paff, the national organizer for TDU is here with us tonight. I believe John Palmer, one of the international vice presidents of the Union is on the call. And I know many UPS workers are on the call. Many people who've been active on building this the Vote No movement and many people who can chime into this conversation. So we have, looks like about 100 people have joined us thus far and the number is ticking up as the moments go by. But let's go ahead and get started. I'll just say a couple of introductory words about what has happened thus far, so I think probably most of you have called in because you've been reading it or living it and following this exciting series of events very closely. But folks will know that the contract campaign at UPS this year, there's been a real groundswell from below with rank and file workers, both drivers and inside workers pushing for serious improvements in the wage paid to part-timers and drivers I know pushing for a solution to excessive overtime and harassment and surveillance. But instead the contract that the international came back with did little to address those concerns, raised the part-time wage. Less than people were demanding with no catch-up raises, did little to address those problems and contained this two-tier wage for drivers that would be a real step back, a real concession by creating this hybrid driver position. So people organized for a vote no with the backing of Teamsters for Democratic Union and many Teamster activists around the country and when the results came in, 54% had voted it down. However, the dramatic turn of events, the international declared the contract ratified regardless under a loophole in the constitution that said that unless you had a majority turnout, you would have to have two-thirds voting no for it to really be considered not ratified. Although they also said that they're going back to the table so there's certainly some timing and hawing going on at the top. Meanwhile, the UPS freight contract people will know was decisively rejected and several of the regional supplements to the UPS contract as well. So this is ignited with a lot of anger and I think people will eager to hear what's next but also just want to dropping my headphone. Also just want to take a few moments to celebrate the tremendous victory that Rankin Fowler's won by organizing this no vote in spite of heavy pressure from both the company and the union leadership to vote yes. We was a huge bump up from the turnout and the level of no votes last time to what people were able to achieve this time really in the face of serious pressure. So we have three panelists who are gonna speak today about both about how they achieved that and about what's next and what Rankin Fowler's are gonna do to change the union going forward to make sure these problems are addressed in the next contract, what's gonna happen with this contract? So without further ado, I wanna introduce the three people you're gonna hear from today. As they speak, if you have questions that you know you wanna ask, you can go ahead and chime in with them through the Q&A feature. So it's, if you're looking on the screen, it's down at the bottom of your screen, you just click Q&A, type your question and we'll take as many of those as we can when we get to the Q&A section. If you're watching on the Facebook live stream, you can ask your question by commenting on the live stream. If you're listening by phone, there's no easy way to do it. So try and tune in through one of those video methods. There was a link that was emailed to you or you could send an email to chrisatlabornotes.org and he'll try and screen those questions as well. Okay, so our first speaker we're gonna hear from is Nick Perry. He is a delivery driver in Columbus, Ohio, as well as a steward and Nick, take it away. All right, thanks Al. Like Al said, I'm a package car driver in Columbus, Ohio. I've been at UPS for 12 years now. Been a steward for eight of those years, both on the inside and as a package car driver. We're from local 413 in Columbus, Ohio, which a little bit of background for us is we have an international vice president here who we're lucky to have, who's on the Teamsters United ticket. So people are following that. Teamsters United was the slate that ran against Hoffa. We got very fortunate to have someone like that strong here who can try to take on Hoffa for implementing this contract. So I wanna just start out with that, kind of giving you background about me and where I'm from. I wanna go over our contract campaign and how it started and the kind of long bumpy road that it was until just recently in DC where I attended the vote count. And we got in a spirited debate with brother Dennis Taylor who's our chairman of our co-chairman of the package division. So we started a long time ago, kind of IDing. Nick, Nick, you seem to be frozen. Okay, we'll wait a moment and see if Nick can get unfrozen and maybe go ahead and turn to Kristen and then we'll come back to Nick when he gets his computer fixed. So Kristen turns, works on the ramp at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport where she is, I'm sorry, I'm trying to control this at the same time as I speak. So where she's an activist UPS where she's worked for many years and is also part of an effort that workers are getting together to run for office and change their local leadership. So Kristen, take it away and we'll come back to Nick when he gets back on. Am I frozen? I am Kristen turns and I have been employed by UPS since 1999. I am a proud member of Teamsters Local Union 767 where I have served as a steward and I've also had a unique insight to the inner trappings of our local as a local union office staff. It's important to understand that with this vote no movement, local 767 down here in DFW Dallas Fort Worth historically votes yes on contracts and not by a small margin. In 2013, we voted 82% in favor of passing that contract. Contrast that with this year and a very heavy local and of course national vote no campaign. And that was started locally by our union sisters, Debbie Jennings and Andrea Dollar and I grew into a two month local campaign but the statistic on that would be 57% of us as a result of those efforts voted down the contract. We doubled the amount of Teamster members who showed up to vote which was a historic vote for our local and we had like I said we had almost 2,700 members. Our local is just shy of about 8,000 members at this particular point. So we're kind of lateral in terms of voter turnout and the national vote which was 54% vote no turning down the contract with the rest of the country. Now, as a result of the contract which we the tentative agreement that we did not particularly appreciate in full and it's supplement down here in the South which we also weren't an approval of. There was a reformist group called 767 Teamsters United for Change that emerged led by our presidential candidate nominee Brian Perrier. And for several months we have gone to the gates all the outlying centers for UPS multiple times. In fact, they were out there today campaigning in the rain in DFW yesterday, multiple times the day before that and we're not stopping because we don't appreciate what having this contract shoved down our throats. We were very upset about all of the literature that arrived to our homes and in enormous amounts every day. Sometimes I got two or three notifications that this contract was fantastic. I've never seen anything like that before in any of the contracts that I've ever been through with this company. So that was one of the biggest reasons why we felt like it was time for us to get rid of the Hafa old guard officials that were in our local and move toward something that listened and focused more to members wants and needs. And that is exactly what we're doing with 767 Teamsters United for Change right now. Our local union election is coming up in November and we do feel that our vote no snapshot of our local Teamsters 767 is a very good indicator, 50% voting down the contract that people want change and that they would like to feel as if they are being listened to and that their voices matter, that they are gonna be included in future efforts, not only by the Teamsters, but also by our employers as well. And we hope that we're gonna be able to get all of the movement that we've put forth so far off the ground shortly in the coming year and be able to serve the membership in that capacity. Right. Do we have a nick back or? No, you're muted. Am I back? Can you guys hear me? Sorry, internet issues. I'll just have one last thing before you start, Nick. One of the biggest problems that we have, and I'll let Nick talk about this a little bit more because I know he wants to get into what we call the 22-4 part of the contract. And that is for those of you that are unfamiliar with UPS, that was the hybrid driver position that was put forth and created. And it basically would entail having lower wages for weekend drivers, essentially, doing the same work as our ground drivers. But at My Hub specifically, we've already had these combination positions for workers who were inside and outside. And we called them 22-3 combination positions. At Just My One Hub, we had 118 families that were affected by the decision to move an entire sort to another facility or area. The workers were not allowed to follow their positions. And so they had to work split shifts for almost a decade. They are still trying to figure out that situation. It's caused a lot of problems for all of these workers. I've seen people sleep in the parking lot. I've seen people become very ill. I have a friend who's very ill right now because of all the stress of having to go through what she's done at work. And my feeling on that is that if the company and the union cannot collectively get together and figure out some sort of a compromise to address the combination hybrid positions, if you will, that are already implemented in all areas of the United States, then what proof do we have that this new position, which we're calling 22-4, is going to be any better? And I'll end with that. Great, thanks so much, Kristin. And I can see the questions are starting to roll in already. I know a number of people are wanting to talk about how the international is getting away with this, if they're getting away with it and where things go from here. But I want to turn first to Nick to just look back a little bit about where the campaign has come this far and how you did it. Nick, take it away. Sorry, I'll apologize for my internet. I don't know what's going on. Time Warner is not a good internet provider. So, all right. So we started the identifying issues coming out of TDU organizing and Teamsters United campaign. We built a list of all those people that were active. We contacted them, asked them what's going on in their area. And then we started issuing kind of really good contract proposals. Even the union even released the contract proposals that they gave to the company. And they were very strong. I remember calling everyone that I knew and saying, hey, these are pretty good proposals. And I could really rally behind them. Our 9-5 proposal, which is our right to restrict it over time as package car drivers, was really strong. And it included an automatic opt-in, because it's often challenging to even get on the list because you face some intimidation and harassment to even get on the list. And then it included an automatic opt or automatic penalty payment on your check, which now you have to go through a grievance hearing and they can take a few weeks, a few months depending on your local union. So it would just get factored in just like over time and they would pay you. So that all got scrapped in the current agreement, just completely thrown away. Almost all the good proposals that we had that we all backed behind and rallied behind, all just got thrown away. So I think Kristen talked about one of the key ones that we're all against, which is this 22-4 proposal, comes on the heels. What it means is it's the article 22, section four. It just means what's called a hybrid position, the first position known where it's, you're kind of splitting a part-time job with doing driving, even though we know most of them will just be doing driving at a lesser rate. So they want them to make the current inside rate for a package car driving, which package car driving is a higher paid position. So it's creating that two-tier system. So when that came out, it kind of, it was a curve ball and no one really saw it coming, but so we really rallied around the country. We had 50 contract unity week, we had 50 locations that did rallies and parking lot signs or petitions or anything that you could do to get out and show the company and the union that we were against this. And it worked really well. We knew the last time we had like a 30% turn out across the country. It was very unlikely we hit over 50%. UPS is a very large company with a large part-time workforce. It was very unlikely we hit 50%, but we could hit the two-thirds threshold. And we came pretty close. We increased the 44% turnout, which was pretty impressive. Over 30,000 more votes this time than last time. And 54% voted no and voted down 10 supplements, although five were ratified because of this kind of bogus interpretation or whatever of the constitution, but they didn't use last time. Last time if they would have used this, we wouldn't have been talking about all those historic rejected amount of supplements. We'd have been talking about just a handful of them. So I don't know what all you touched on, but I can come back and take any questions as long as I don't get kicked off on the internet here. Great, thanks very much, Nick. And I'm gonna turn it over now to Beth, who was at Team Sure for the Democratic Union has been in touch with UPSers around the country and can say a little more about where things stand now and where folks are looking next. Beth, go ahead. So Kristen and Nick did, I think, a really great job summarizing sort of how we got here. It's been, like Nick said, a long road to get a much, much stronger no vote than ever before and a much, much higher turnout than certainly the 2013 contract where surprised there was no two-thirds rule pushing through the supplements, a number of supplements that were rejected with less than a 50% turnout and less than a two-thirds majority were renegotiated. So we'll get to that. Where we are now, through activity at the buildings, parking lot activity, social media, Facebook, rank and file videos like Tyler Bender's viral videos, we've identified people are coming out of the woodwork wanting to do something about this. And so by no means are we taking a step back. Nobody is taking a break to lick their wounds or feel discouraged. People are feeling energized and ready to fight. So looking ahead, TDU has our annual convention coming up in just a few weeks where we're gonna hold a vote and no summit to sort of prepare activists and members to hit the ground running and peak season's gonna come and sort of knock people out a little bit. But every fall, there are local union elections and every local union has an election every three years. So between now and 2021, all of these local unions where members have voted down the contract and looked to their local union leadership to say, do you have our back or not? All of those locals, like in Dallas 767 and New York City Local 804 and various locals around the country, sort of now it's like a reckoning moment for these local officials to have to take responsibility and members get to hold their leadership accountable. And in the next three years, every local is gonna have this happening. Every local official is gonna hopefully be held to the fire. And so TDU is gonna be bringing activists and members together from around the country to sort of share strategies and make plans to run for a local union office, prepare to run for delegates for the constitutional convention and nominating convention that members can have more power, more control over how we change the constitution. Members can send delegates to the constitutional convention and get rid of the two thirds rule and make sure that there is real democracy and the contract votes and the future moving forward and put real leaders, international union leaders on the ballot and give members a better option in 2021 to vote for true leadership. So I think, I mean for me, oh, the other thing I guess to keep in mind sort of while all this chaos is going on at the sort of national package side, we've also got like Al mentioned the UPS freight contract that was voted down decisively, met the two thirds muster. And so the union's gonna give a 30 day notice to end the contract extension. Those members have also taken a strike authorization vote already, hopefully they'll reach a good deal. Hopefully they'll reach a good deal before Thanksgiving. A lot of the issues on that, on the UPS freight side are sort of similar. There was a two tier proposal in that contract too. Pathetic wage increases, concessions in healthcare and their number one issue is subcontracting of road work. So there's a lot of job security concerns on that contract. Some of you probably also saw Al's good article on local 705 in Chicago. They 705 in Chicago is under its own independent contract. They're not covered under the international, the national master agreement at UPS. So they're preparing to hold a strike vote in early November. They're prepared to end their extension. And they're sort of doing the work now of mobilizing members to be more prepared to take action. So I know that there's lots of questions. So that's it for me. Great, and Beth, a quick question that somebody asked through chat. What is the date of the vote no summit that you mentioned? It's gonna be at the TDU convention, which is gonna be in Chicago, not next weekend, not the weekend after, November 2nd, 3rd and 4th. And anybody can visit tdu.org to get more information about convention, our phone number's there. You can call our offices and we can help you make your travel arrangements, figure out where you're gonna stay and we wanna get you there. Great, all right. We have a number of questions that have rolled in. So we'll begin to turn to those in a moment. But first, I'll remind people if you didn't hear before that if you wanna ask a question, if you're watching on the movie, you can click on the queue. And your question, with the selection of possible watching on the Facebook stream, you can type it into the comments. Nick, were you waving that you wanted to say something before we turn to questions to pick up on Beth's point? Yeah, just something small that I think some people who are maybe newer, like maybe this is their first contract, don't realize like Beth was just saying, at every one of our conventions, Teamster conventions every five years, we can propose changes to the Constitution. Well, Fred Zuckerman who was running it at the time is our presidential candidate of Teamsters United at a number of demands that we changed to our Teamster Constitution and we took to the floor. And if anyone there has been a delegate before, I was a delegate, I was there standing at the mics when you're getting screamed at and belittled because you wanna put forward some progressive changes that would have stopped this exact thing from happening. Fred wasn't even allowed to present half of them on the floor, we were told we were out of order. So just the follow up on that from Beth, this is very important stuff to think about this as a political problem, as well as a problem for us at work every day about this contract. And I'll add to that also, if I might, we voted in John Palmer, our vice president and he's not even allowed to enter our local. And we've requested that he come speak to us, he is our vice president and thus far that has not happened and he has not been allowed, which is incredibly unfair given that that's completely political. And we'd like to definitely see a change in that. And another point that I forgot to mention that's very important about one of the things about the contract that really gave us a boost for vote no in the end was when Amazon announced that they were going to begin starting their employees at $15 an hour. And our contract offered $13 an hour, which meant that our employees would only catch up to Amazon's with the same sort of benefits after four and a half years. And we can't allow non-union companies to come in and start setting the bar for union companies, specifically when we have, you know, the Teamsters involved one of the strongest labor unions in the world. And so I think that that got a lot of people very excited about getting out the vote, getting to the gates and actually submitting ballots. They weren't happy with that. Great. Thank you, Kristen. So let's take some questions. I'm going to try unmuting. I'll call on you and I'll unmute you. You can ask directly. We'll see if that function works, but I will ask people to keep the question very brief. We're going to try to get to as many as we can, but we've got to wrap the call up at 10. So I'm going to start by calling on Robert Colstead. And if you would introduce yourself and then pose the question. Oh, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Oh, wow. Okay, that's pretty good. I actually wrote my question in and I am not a UPS Teamster, although I am a Teamster and I did work on getting a no vote in Minnesota quite a bit because we didn't have, well, there weren't a lot of UPSers in our organization, but we did do a lot of work around it. So I've been paying attention. And when we found out that this contract was going to be ratified or whatever you want to call it, we started doing a little bit of research around that. So we actually looked at the bylaw language. And my interpretation of the language was that in order to implement it, there had to be less than two thirds that voted no. And there also had to be less than two thirds that voted to authorize a strike. And it seems to me that the no vote here didn't meet that definition. So there was no strike on the table at the time of the no vote for the contract. And also there was a strike authorization vote that happened prior to the voting on the contract. So it seems to me that just as a peer like language or interpretation of what the sentences say that Hoffa is out of line imposing the contract. Now it also says that Hoffa or the general president has the last word as far as what the meaning of those words are. But I'd just like to hear what, is there anybody challenging this or taking them to court? Or is there some way to kind of deal with it? I mean, from sort of a legalistic standpoint like that. Got it. Okay, thanks for the question. Who wants to answer that? I can speak to this if you can hear me out. Okay, just a little choppy on my end. Okay, brother calls that I'm not a legal guy. I'm just a driver and a steward. So I was at the vote count and it was really misleading what brother Taylor said. There was kind of a recording of the vote count. It was a live stream kind of like this and then audio just like this. So as soon as he said, as soon as the results came out, he said, I think he said something like it's ratified but I'm going to go back to the table and we'll talk with the company. Members have spoken, blah, blah, blah, we were there. And so it was kind of confusing but we all were really excited in the room. There's 13 of us. And then he turned the recording off and he turned around to us and her brother from 89, local 89, which is Louisville, Kentucky, brother Steven Pierce, he said. So do you plan to oppose the contract? And he said, well, yeah, it's ratified. Well, how's it ratified? He just said, you're going to go back to the table. So then we kind of got into spirited debate like Teamsters would. And we mentioned, well, hey, look, what kind of leverage do you have if you just told the company and us that the contract's ratified but you're going to go back to them and ask them to change things. And then I asked, well, if they change things, we're going to have the right to vote on it. Well, no, you're not going to have the right to vote. I mean, you just ratified it. So brother, you're going to go to the table, ask the company to change things. We're not going to have the right to vote on it. I don't think you're going to have much leverage there. And I didn't like that very much. You got pretty defensive. He's a pretty defensive guy. So I don't know legally what you can do. I know we are going to make it a political problem because that's really what this is. Our constitution at least seemed to me pretty clear but it's political suicide if you were to invoke that language, which is why Ken Hall didn't invoke it last time in 2013 because they knew there's no way in hell they'd be there today if they invoke that in 2013. So I can pass it over to anyone else that kind of has the more of a legal brain down this but that's what I think. Does anyone else want to speak to this question? I think Nick gave a pretty adequate and smart answer. It's a constitutional loophole. The constitution is interpreted by the general president and it's hard to say, okay, yeah, let's sue and maybe the precedent will be the wrong one, right? A federal judge is not necessarily gonna side with the rank and file. A federal judge might sort of do what's gonna be best for the company and that's maybe not a gamble worth taking especially if we know that the real way to fix it like Nick is saying is the political problem. The real solution is to get rid of the language of the constitution and the only way we can do that is by getting enough delegates to the constitutional convention in 2021. Okay, so the next question we're gonna take is from Ralph Isarraras in Sacramento, California. Ralph, you're on the air. Yes, hello, thank you for taking my question. A lot of us here in Sacramento feel or they think that the constitution is ratified and there's nothing else going on further like conferences like this call. So I've been trying to spread the news and I wanna get a definitive answer on what is being done, something that I could take home and tell those guys tonight. Something simple that I could spread about what we're doing and where they could go for information and that would be my question. Good question. So members can always check the UPSteamstersunited.org website or tdu.org. For updates, this is a developing story. It's sort of, I think somebody mentioned earlier, we're sort of staying tuned to see what happens. Members have done a really amazing job keeping pressure on the international with good positive news coverage that keep, this has been in the headlines way more than I ever would have expected and kind of keeping pressure on the company, keeping pressure on the international union and keeping pressure on your local union officials. Members have done a really good job of that. We have a petition available online and a printable version that members can be using to sort of pressure Hoffa to return to the table. And those are all on our websites, tdu.org and UPSteamstersunited.org. And you can always get in touch with our office for additional tools. A couple members have told me that they've been printing out the tdu article that explains the two thirds rule and how it was, how the international was able to use it in this context to give people an understanding of how did this happen and how do we change it in the future? So that's, those are a couple of tools you may wanna try, brother. I think one thing that's happening right now that's really useful is there's seven international vice presidents who have all written letters around there on Facebook. And if you need them, treat and get in touch with Teamstersunited and they can give you copies of them. So they're calling on the international executive board to kind of raise this question and their formal gatherings. They're not gonna do that unless there's more international vice presidents that hop on board that seems unlikely, but you could always call international vice president who hasn't signed on yet and tell them, hey, we want you to sign on with this. You're gonna be up for election in 2021. There aren't that many of you and seven of you already said that this needs to be changed and this contract should be ratified, so. Could I add a little, Al? Sure, go ahead. This is, I'm Ken Paff. I work for Teamsters for Democratic Union, Tdu National Organizer. I'm happy to work with these great people who are speaking and those who are on the call. As has been said, I think Brother Colstad asked a good question. Unfortunately, the Constitution does give them the power to do this. They didn't have to, but they have the power under the Teamster Constitution. There's no federal law requiring any vote whatsoever on a labor contract. Teamster Constitution said, off of signs of contract, that's it, you're done. That would be lawful. Now, the Constitution doesn't say that, but it does give them unfortunately this kind of leeway. In answer to the brother from Sacramento, another excellent question. I think that questions have been given. It's influx, as was said. One thing that, as Nick said, Taylor was pressured to say, well, I'm going back to the company for more. Well, we should be listing our demands and people across the country should be voicing those demands and not just the seven vice presidents to put the heat on them. There's heat coming from other quarters as well. Local 705 has a separate contract in Chicago. They are not under the national agreement. They have 8,500 Teamsters at the largest distribution hub in the country that isn't an air hub at the so-called catch, the Chicago area consolidation hub. They say they're gonna either get a good contract at the next table. They're gonna get reasonable proposals or they're gonna move to end the extension on their contract. And frankly, that would be a powerful move. And I hope the members there push on that. I hope the leaders continue to take that stand and everybody in the country should support them because they're standing up for everyone and they are not bound by the national agreement. Well, following up on that, Adam Young had a question about what's happening in Chicago. Adam, you are on the air. Adam Young, are you there? Adam, we can't hear you. All right, well, we may need to come back to Adam. We'll try again to call on him. So let's go to a question from Gilman Bagga. Gilman, are you with us? Yes. All right, go ahead. I mean, that's the question says, I know that in long-term, what we need to do is vote in progressive officials to the local and national unions, but is there anything we can do about contract ratification right now? Can we leverage peak season in any way? Can we threaten the sick in? I mean, I don't know, yeah. Who wants to address that? I can try to take it. I mean, personally, look, I don't know how good it'll do to pressure other international vice presidents, but that's what I was mentioning before. I think that it's pretty worthwhile. There aren't that many, it's not that hard to call. I've called and they're not gonna respond, but I mean, they get 200 calls, maybe that's something else. I don't know how worthwhile it is, but I think that's a good avenue to put a lot of pressure on because there aren't that many people. A sick in, I think that seems to be a... It sounds good, but it would take a lot of organizing and a lot of membership participation that wouldn't be supported by the international and would most likely result. I mean, if you do it in Columbus, Ohio, they're just gonna run the work around you and fire everyone in Columbus, Ohio. So it wouldn't happen. I don't know. We couldn't call a nationwide sick in. I mean, I'm a package car driver, I'm pissed off. These hybrid drivers are gonna be the end of the good package car job. It's a miserable contract. It was kind of sold to us bad. Look, I'm pissed off about it too. I don't think a sick in is the right answer. I think you're gonna... Don't do it if you're thinking about it. You're gonna get fired. I think Ken sort of mentioned this a little bit earlier too. And this is sort of in line with what Nick was saying also. In a lot of areas, this is a good opportunity to start getting people to... People took more action in a lot of places around this contract than they ever have as union members. And this was an entry point for a lot of people who have not been that engaged with the union in the past. Albeit this is a tough entry point since, hey, the first time you vote, guess what, it doesn't matter. But I think a lot of members from around the country, even if you don't have a local union election this fall or something, are continuing to have parking lot meetings or continuing to be engaging with members at the buildings, where it's visible to management, having a little meeting before work and walking into the building together to show management that you're united, starting to try and enforce the contract more strongly than you have in the past, maybe getting people to file on supervisors working for the first time ever instead of letting it slide or demanding your aid when they try to send you home early. There are small things that people can start doing to get people's feet wet, to build to something bigger. You got to start somewhere. And I think that was what Nick was saying, sometimes you have to walk before you run. And in a lot of areas where people haven't wanted to walk before or haven't been able to mobilize people to start walking before that's starting to happen more. We're going to try again to call on Adam Young who had the question about a cop seem like having a problem with his mom before. So, I'm attempting to... Adam, try again. Adam, we can't hear you. Can you try asking your question again? Looks like we're not going to be able to hear him, so I'm going to go ahead and read that question. He had written, I saw earlier, Chicago is threatening to strike at the beginning of peak. How do we get every hub on board? Anyone? I think this is pretty similar. Somebody else could jump in, but I think this is pretty similar to the question that was just asked. There's... We don't have the backing of the International Union to mobilize that kind of action. We're trying to get more local union officials and stewards oriented towards action, but action on that scale is not necessarily something that's feasible in the next two months before peak season, but I encourage other people to chime in, too. Can you repeat the question because it cut out? Oh, sorry. Yeah, so the question said, I saw earlier, Chicago is threatening to strike at the beginning of peak. How do we get every hub on board with this? So, I guess there might be a clarification needed of whether the questioner is asking, should every hub strike, or which I think Beth is saying that's not possible, or is there a way other hubs can help support Chicago? Perhaps that's part of the question. Did anybody else want to chime in on that one? Quick comment, Al, this is Ken. If it would come to a strike in Chicago and you can bet your life savings that Hoffa will be in bed with a company to try to have that off, but if there is a strike, it is in the Teamster Constitution I mean, excuse me, in the labor contract with UPS nationally that you have a right to respect the picket line at your primary place of employment, i.e. at your UPS building, and they could send out pickets. Now, the international would very likely clamp down, but even a strike in Chicago, a major hub in this highly integrated company would have enormous impact. So, I'm not saying there's gonna be a strike in Chicago, but they have a lot of clout. They're not helpless, and hopefully the members there will push forward to try to resist some of these concessions that have been imposed nationally, including the two-tier agreement. All right, we've got another question from Rosemary Stedronski. I'm just trying to unmute here. And then, hang on, sorry, glitch on my end. All right, I apologize. I'm trying to unmute Rosemary so she can ask her question. Apologize, just a moment for the technical difficulty here. There she was for a moment. There, all right, Rosemary, you're on the air. Sorry about that, go ahead. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, yeah, my question was, and I think it's kind of been answered, but it basically was what can the members do in the future to change this constitutional language and other constitutional language at the next Teamster Convention? Because so many people are concerned about the language, and I know that Nick had talked about it because the guys were there at the last convention with Fred, and they had tried to change this language, but I think the members need to understand what all they can do and what needs to go forward in the future at the lower levels, at the local levels, in order to really make the impact to change this because this movement needs to start growing now to move forward for the next three years. Great question, who wants to take that? I can take it, I was at the convention with Rosemary, so, hey Rosemary, I mean, the answers, yeah, what we said, I mean, every five years you can run for delegate to go to the convention. We can change the constitution at the next convention. Those elections are ran by the election supervisor, they're not like a local union election. They have, you can protest on the national level, you can get with TDU if there's any kind of problems with the election, sometimes we find those in locals where there aren't often elections being ran, but the problem at the convention is that we're outnumbered. Most delegate elections go uncontested, they're just your local officers who go to Vegas and they go and they wear their red vests and they act like sheep, whatever, hoppa, and the whips they go. When you go to the convention, it's a pretty shocking and startling thing if you're against them and if you're for the members or you're speaking for your brothers and sisters back home. So that happens every five years and I encourage everyone who's on here who's a teamster, whether you're a UPS teamster or not, if you're just a teamster, run for delegate. We need you to run for delegate, we need you to win. So contact TDU, TDU.org and figure out when your delegate election would be and all that kind of good stuff. Like Rosemary was saying, what else you can do every local has a union election in the next three years like sister Bresselow was saying, you can do that as well but the delegate election is where you can actually change the constitution. Right, and that's definitely coming. We're seeing a change at local 767 already. We've always been a very Hoffa strong local. It was bad news for you to say out loud that you supported anyone else outside of Hoffa. And I would say that that also goes for a lot of the other locals that are in the Southern region. So we started off with having one delegate. Hello, Ron Beard, you're an awesome guy. And since then, right now what we need to do is jump in and mobilize and have more people understand that we can organize and run as delegates together and support one another and learn more about the delegatory process so that we can do exactly like how Nick just explained it, change this two thirds rule and everything else that needs to be addressed. Great, we've got a question now from Ernesto Diaz. Ernesto, hang on. All right, Ernesto, you're on. Hello, can y'all hear me? Yes, we can. Yeah, I guess my question was more to do on like, if there's been efforts on kind of breaking the isolation. I'm like a student myself and I'm also a part-time worker. So I just had a question on that and I don't know if there's any locals that have been just like outreaching to other groups and if y'all have any advice on that, I guess is my question. So one thing that members have been doing to get in touch with each other, beside obviously on Facebook and all across social media, members are connecting with each other. Another way that members have been connecting is coming to the TVU convention, holding contract meetings in their areas. In the springtime across the country, we had several meetings face-to-face. Members have held contract conference calls. We've held national calls, regional calls. I think there may be some members on this Zoom call tonight who have been holding conference calls pretty regularly, even since the contracts were ratified since the vote count. In some areas, especially ones where there's still negotiations to be done and the five supplements that were not ratified, members are making plans to keep their demands at the forefront, make sure that their concerns are met. So one way that you can get in touch with other members from your area is through our office here, UPS Teamsters United phone number, I'll announce that and people can take it down is 718-693-0400. You can visit UPSTeamstersUnited.org to sign up to get involved, take action and coming out of the TVU convention, we're gonna hold our vote no summit. We're gonna be trying to put together smaller organizing meetings in different parts of the country to help people figure out next steps and plans. Great, we just have a few minutes left and I wanna take a couple of the questions that have come in by Facebook chat. So here's one of them. Jonathan Bembrie asks, if freight strikes, am I protected as a part-timer to stand on the line with them? Can anyone answer that? Seeing if you can stand on the UPS freight strike, yeah, you can stand on the UPS freight strike line, brother, anyone can, absolutely. Great, here's another one that has come in by chat. Someone wants to know how labor activists who are not Teamsters can help support TVU or support this fight. Are there concrete ways that non-Teamsters can help? Well, I think you could donate to the Teamster Rankin' File Education Fund, which is a nonprofit, it's called TRF. You can donate to that, which helps with legal issues as well as printing books like the Legal Rights of Union Stewards and the FMLA Handbook. So you could donate to TRF, which would be a big help. And one more question that's come in by chat. What are the next steps we need to take within the next three to six months with this contract itself? Anyone want to take that one? Chris and or Nick could share plans you have in your areas, but I know one thing, like I've mentioned, I think that members are doing is getting out there at your buildings and circulating petitions and flyers to keep your issues and demands on the forefront and keep attention on the contract and pressure on your local union officials and on the international and the company. Another thing that people can be doing is sort of holding calls like these, but for members in your own area. So have a parking lot meeting, try and meet other members from your local outside of your building and get people together to sort of, maybe you start out running for steward and try and have stronger enforcement where you work. Maybe that sort of launches you into a bigger project of running for local union office, preparing to run for delegate, building up for the 2021 international election and constitutional convention, but start with something that you think is a reasonable place to start. And internal organizing is always very important, and that's something that you can do without asking permission from the local, always have membership forms on you. You can advocate for, in the right to work states, which we have that rule down here in Texas, not everybody is required to join the union. So it's really important for us as members, especially right now more than ever, to communicate what the benefits are of being a union member to these people. And we can mobilize small units at each facility and communicate with each other, work with our stewards and our business agents and officials at the local, and if they're not amenable to that, then we can organize and mobilize ourselves. Yeah, and I think, sorry, one of the things that you can really do within the next three to six months is don't let cynicism set in. Don't let that take you down a bad path. Luckily, Ohio isn't a right to work state, so we don't have to deal with that that much, but we told Brother Dennis Taylor about that when we were arguing with him at the vote count. I don't think they understand how much right to work groups will take this kind of stuff and run with it, and it's kind of a disaster. But you can't let that kind of cynicism, look, if you don't pay union dues, you don't support the union and you couldn't run against it, your local officers, you can't run for Del, you gotta pay dues for two years. So just as that very concrete, easy reason you should pay dues, aside from it's the absolute right thing to do and you need to do it, you need to be active in your unions. The hardest part, I think, is gonna have telling our members to not let the cynicism set in. We have a very active local with very good membership, and I can totally understand how people are pissed off, we're all pissed off, but we're teamsters, we have to do something about it. So if you wanna do the petition drive, do the petition drive. If you wanna do mass grievances at work, do mass grievances at work, if you wanna do parking lot meetings, do those. I mean, do something, but don't let cynicism set in. Right, and I'm very proud of our local down here, 767, because we had a five and a half hour meeting with Dennis Taylor and we made it crystal clear that we did not appreciate the contract that he had negotiated for us. And so we are seeing right to work states and workers in those states mobilize and support one another. Great, and that's probably a good note to wrap up on as we close in on 10 o'clock. I wanna thank everyone so much for joining us on this call. And I will say that one other way that you can build local solidarity and fight cynicism and build a stronger labor movement is to stay involved with labor notes as well. We do a national convention every two years that brings together many teamsters as well as workers from all kinds of unions in all sectors who are building a bottom up labor movement, we organize local troublemaker schools, we have a magazine that you can use, keep up to date on this and many other fights. And if you're not already, you know, one good way is to join our email list on our website at labornotes.org. So thanks everyone very much for tuning in on the call tonight, thanks very much to Beth and Nick and Kristen and Ken for fielding questions. It's been a great discussion. This video is now on Facebook live, so you can go back and watch it again and relive it and share it with your coworkers. But thanks everyone very much and have a good night.