Who Are The Teamsters?
The Teamsters are America’s largest, most diverse union. In 1903, the Teamsters started as a merger of the two leading team driver associations. These drivers were the backbone of America’s robust economic growth, but they needed to organize to wrest their fair share from greedy corporations. Today, the union’s task is exactly the same.
The Teamsters are known as the champion of freight drivers and warehouse workers, but have organized workers in virtually every occupation imaginable, both professional and non-professional, private sector and public sector.
Our 1.3 million members are public defenders in Minnesota; vegetable workers in California; sanitation workers in New York; brewers in St. Louis; newspaper workers in Seattle; construction workers in Las Vegas; zookeepers in Pennsylvania; health care workers in Rhode Island; bakery workers in Maine; airline pilots, secretaries, and police officers. Name the occupation and chances are we represent those workers somewhere.
There are nearly 1,900 Teamsters affiliates throughout the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
Teamsters stand ready to organize workers who want to bargain collectively. Once a contract is negotiated and signed, the union works to enforce it— holding management’s feet to the fire and invoking contract grievance procedures if management chooses not to. Wages and benefits under Teamsters contracts are markedly better than those of nonunion employees in similar jobs. Teamsters contracts guarantee decent wages, fair promotion, health coverage, job security, paid time-off, and retirement income.
The Teamsters Union also performs vital tasks in pension management, safety and health standards, community outreach, governmental affairs, and communications. For more than a century, the Teamsters have been a public voice for the rights and aspirations of working men and women, and a key player in securing them.