Teamsters

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), formerly known by the name International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, is one of the largest labor unions in the United States. more...

Home
Action Figures
Beanies
Construction Toys & Kits
Diecast & Vehicles
Anson
Auto Art
Bang/ Box / Best
Benbros
Britains
Brooklin
Brumm
Budgie
Burago
Cararama & Hongwell
Charbens
Code 3
Collections/ Bulk Lots
Conrad/ NZG
Corgi
Crescent
Danbury Mint
Detail
Dinky
Dragon
EFE
Eligor
ERTL
Exoto
Ferrari
Franklin Mint
Gearbox
Guisval
Herpa
HotWheels
IXO
Jada
Jadi
Joal
Johnny Lightning
Kinsmart
Kyosho
Lledo
Lone Star
Magazines/ Books/...
Maisto
Majorette
Matchbox & Lesney
Maxi Car
Micro Machines
Minichamps
Muscle Machines
NASCAR
Newray
Norev
ONYX
Other Diecast & Vehicles
Oxford Diecast
Polistil
Revell
Rio
Road Champs
Road Signature
Saico
Schabak
Schuco
Shell Classic
Siku
Solido/ Verem
Spark
Sun Star
Teamsters
Tekno
Tomica
Tonka
Tri-ang
Trofeu
Unbranded Vehicles
Universal Hobbies
Vitesse/ Quartzo/ City
Welly
White Metal/ Hand-Made/...
Toys & Games
Wargames & Role-Playing

The name and logo of the union reflect the origin of the union as a craft union when founded in 1903. A teamster was originally a person who drove a team of oxen, a horse-drawn, a mule-drawn wagon or a mule train, but the word currently refers to professional truck drivers.

Early History

The union, like most unions within the American Federation of Labor (AFL) at the time, was largely decentralized, with a number of local unions that governed themselves autonomously and tended to look only after their own interests in the geographical jurisdiction in which they operated. Teamster locals, however, by virtue of their key position in transport, often exercised a good deal of influence at the local level within central labor councils, the citywide bodies established by AFL unions. For example, the Teamsters were at the center of the City Front Federation strike of 1901, in which San Francisco unions engaged in something like a general strike.

While the San Francisco strike was largely successful, the union's strike against Montgomery Ward in 1905, on the other hand, was not. The national union was unable to offer much effective assistance to local unions and was weakened by internal factions during its early years. Daniel J. Tobin was president of the Teamsters from 1907 to 1952, having been president of Joint Council No. 10, based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Tobin undertook a long jurisdictional battle with the United Brewery Workers over the right to represent beer wagon drivers. While the Teamsters lost this battle in 1913, when the AFL awarded jurisdiction to the Brewers, they won when the issue came before the AFL Executive Board again in 1933, when the Brewers were still recovering from their near-elimination during Prohibition.

Organizing and growth during the Great Depression

Tobin was both cautious and conservative: he vigorously enforced the provisions of the union's constitution that barred strikes unless the union's membership approved strike action by a two-thirds vote, and imposed additional conditions, withholding strike benefits if the union had not made sufficient efforts to mediate the dispute before striking. A group of radicals within the union in the Minneapolis area, however, circumvented Tobin in 1934, successfully organizing every major trucking outfit in the city, a major distribution center in the upper Midwest, and the warehouse workers employed by those trucking companies in a series of strikes.

Read more at Wikipedia.org