The strike was initiated in Memphis, Tennessee, on October 24, where pickets report the fight for a union is linked to winning back the jobs of five workers who were recently fired.

Memphis is one of Overnite's larger terminals, with 400 to 500 workers, and was one of the six targets in a week-long strike by Teamsters in July 1999.

The fight to organize the 8,200 drivers and dock workers at Overnite has gone on for more than 20 years, and the union has been voted in at 37 worksites, representing 45 percent of the workforce, since 1995. According to Teamsters officials, about 2,000 workers have joined the strike nationwide.

In many places the picket lines are regularly staffed not only by striking Overnite workers, but other Teamsters and union members who are committed to helping them win a union.

Overnite bosses have resisted the union drive every step of the way. They are receiving help from the cops and courts. Judges have granted Overnite's requests for injunctions against the strikers at 11 sites as of November 16, and violence-baiting against the strikers by the company and big-business press has increased.  
 

Strikers face court injunctions

In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, Anoka County judge James Gibbs issued an injunction against the Teamsters strikers November 12. The order prohibits strikers from having more than two pickets at the gate of the Overnite terminal or speaking to the replacement workers. The injunction even prohibits the two pickets from being closer than 15 feet to each other.

The judge also ordered strikers not to follow Overnite trucks. Picketing the scab trucks as they make their deliveries has been a key means of increasing the visibility of the strike, especially in face of a near-total news blackout.

The morale of the Minnesota strikers is high, however, and they are confident they can find ways to affect the company. Strikers and their supporters continue to gather on the shoulder of the road near the terminal.

Here in Georgia, a Fulton County judge came to the company's aid in the second week of the strike, with a 30-day restraining order that prohibits pickets from getting within 50 feet of Overnite trucks, among other restrictions. But strikers are meeting the challenge.

Freddie Cowden, with 16 years at Overnite, and David Gilliland with 9 years, are among the 5 to 10 strikers who go out every day in Atlanta to picket the scab trucks as they make their deliveries around town. Cowden noted that there's been no let up in this "ambulatory picketing" and that "some of the customers run the trucks right out of there" once they see the pickets outside their business. He added that one reason for the nervousness of these business owners is that union drivers, like one from UPS that day, "refuse to cross the picket line," bypassing the business until some time later.

Gilliland noted that Overnite has called in the Atlanta city and the Dekalb county police, the Department of Transportation tried to claim the picket shack was blocking the sidewalk, and the Fire Department was called in to shut down the strikers' fire barrel. But the firefighter said, "I'm in a union, too, so I'm leaving the barrel alone," he related.  
 

Union wins ruling at four terminals

The Teamsters campaign at Overnite has lifted the lid on some of the company's antiunion tactics of intimidating and firing union supporters. On November 10 the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) affirmed an administrative law judge's decision to award the union bargaining rights at terminals in Norfolk, Virginia; Bridgeton, Missouri; Louisville, Kentucky; and North Atlanta, Georgia. The union had lost representation elections at these locations after a majority of workers signed cards asking to join the union. The NLRB ruled that company officials had carried out such a level of intimidation that the election results should be reversed in favor of the union.

Also in the past week the Teamsters strike fund has received a $100,000 contribution from the AFL-CIO, and Teamster president James Hoffa announced that strikers will receive $100 per week in strike benefits from the union.

The Teamster battle against Overnite comes at a time of increased determination among workers to fight for dignity and better working conditions. A historic victory was won in June 1999, when 5,000 textile workers voted in the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) at Fieldcrest Cannon (now Pillowtex) in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Last week the final question mark on the election, the result of a 25-year fight, was pushed aside when the company announced it was withdrawing its challenge to the union victory.

Striking Teamster Dexter Molden, 31, has now been part of two union organizing drives, and for a while both at the same time. He was working his full-time job at Wilen Manufacturing in Atlanta five years ago when he started part-time at Overnite on the dock.

Workers at Wilen, a mop manufacturer, defeated a vicious antiunion employer and voted to join UNITE in 1994, winning a contract the following year. "All companies do their dirt, and both Wilen and Overnite are dirty," Molden said. While money was an important issue at Wilen, at both companies "my main thing was getting a contract," he added.

"Favoritism, goes on all the time. Certain people get the new, air-conditioned trucks with the power steering that's needed for city driving; others get dumped with the bad trucks, sometimes with bad brakes," Molden noted. "Racism plays into it, too, when it comes to getting good runs or bad runs. And I've learned the union can't make the company do anything unless you're willing to strike."

Mike Italie is a member of UNITE. Dick Geyer in Birmingham, Alabama, and Tom Fiske in Minneapolis contributed to this article.  
 
 
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