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Local 213 Business Rep Anita Dawson (left) joined the picket line in Los Vegas
in support of 29 Hispanic workers who were fired for attempting to unionize
Republic Services, a recycling centre. The centre is notorious for its hot,
dirty and unventilated working conditions. The firing was seen as
a blatant attempt to intimidate the workers.

What's new

Teamster women combine
education and picket line solidarity

By Anita Dawson, Business Rep
This year’s Women’s Teamster Conference in Las Vegas was the largest one yet with over 900 participants. Our local was represented by Jil Buker (BC Egg Marketing Board), Cheri Capadouca (Destination Toyota), Susan More (Sun-Rype) and me.

Key speakers included General President James Hoffa, who gave a powerful speech about the importance of organizing and being active in the workplace to build solidarity and strength for the future. U.S. Secretary of Labour Hilda Solis spoke about improving labour legislation to protect workers’ rights.

After the opening session, we attended a rally at Las Vegas city hall in support for 29 Republic Services workers who were terminated for trying to organize. The employees are attempting to organize to improve their unsafe and low-standard working conditions. The company maintains that it was because the employees’ immigration paperwork was not complete, but some of these workers had been employed with the company for 11 years. How incomplete could the paperwork have been!?

We attended educational seminars on a variety of topics, such as online mobilizing, workplace safety, health issues and self development.

Brigitte Sottile, Teamster Canada’s director of education, put on a seminar specifically for Canadian Teamster Women that highlighted the history of women workers and the significant amendments to Canadian law which have enhanced women’s rights in the workplace.

Next year’s Women’s Conference is to be held in Minneapolis and I am certain that the women selected to attend from Local 213 will have the same positive experience and enjoy meeting with other like-minded Teamster women from across North America.