Listen: Striking NJ Nurses Have National Importance; Inside the Teamsters UPS Contract

Judy Danella, president of United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 addresses strikers. Photo by Bob Hennelly

By Bob Hennelly

It’s the Strike Summer Edition of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour as we talk with U.S. Sen. Cory Booker on why the nurses' strike at Robert Wood Johnson University in New Brunswick, New Jersey is of national significance in the battle over safe staffing that puts people ahead of profits.

We get a strike update from Judy Danella, president of United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200. Judy is joined by Tamara Lefcowitz, U.S. Steelworkers National Healthcare Working Council, which is composed of USW locals that represent over 50,000 healthcare professionals from New Jersey to California. They discuss how even before the COVID pandemic, the nation had a nurse staffing crisis that’s only grown worse now as more nurses leave the profession or retire.

In the latter half of the show, we check in with the Teamsters at UPS. In 2019, a majority of Teamsters members voted down a concessionary contract with UPS that ended up being imposed on them.

That set the stage in 2022 for the successful reform candidacy of Sean O’Brien to lead the union that has 1.2 million workers in Canada, the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Vinnie Perrone, president of Teamsters Local 804, joins us to discuss the Teamsters'  new 5-year UPS contract which many call historic and was just overwhelmingly ratified last week. Perrone is also a Trustee with the International and was appointed Eastern Package Director.

Listen to the entire show below: