Organizing Victories at Western Refinery and RTD (Blue Bus)
Western Refinery
Huge news on the organizing front! The NLRB found the drivers and the warehousemen at Western Refining in Albuquerque to be an appropriate unit for collective bargaining and directed an election for representation. That election was held on June 28, 2012 and the employees voted in favor of being represented by the Teamsters. No objections to the vote were filed and a Certification of Representative was issued by the NLRB on July 6, 2012. The vote was close, however considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the company spent on a brutal anti-union campaign this result shows that workers can win and assert their rights if they stand united.
We want to personally thank all of the organizing committee members at Western Refining as well as all of the Teamster member volunteers, stewards, Local Union staff and IBT organizers who devoted a tremendous amount of time and energy to this campaign. Obviously the party is not over yet. We have scheduled contract proposal meetings with the Albuquerque unit and expect to begin negotiations soon.
A petition was filed for representation of the El Paso, TX drivers by Local 745 on July 9, 2012. We hope to follow that up with a petition for Gallup, NM very soon. In the meantime the trial regarding the company’s numerous unfair labor practices will resume the week of August 13th. Continue to talk the Union up whenever you see these Western drivers delivering or run across them up and down the road.
North Central Regional Transit District (Blue Bus)
We had another organizing victory on May 8th, 2012, in Northern New Mexico. The North Central Regional Transit District Bus drivers (better known as RTD - Blue Bus) voted to join Teamsters Local 492. RTD bus drivers covers Espanola, Los Alamos, Northern Pueblos, Santa Fe & Taos. We have had the contract proposal meetings with the drivers and are scheduled to begin negotiations on their first contract on July 17, 2012.
