The Teamsters are ratcheting up their campaign against Overnite Transportation by sending Overnite customers a new five-minute video on the abuse they say is suffered by workers at Overnite.

The video presents Overnite workers talking about their July 1999 strike "and their struggle for dignity and a contract in the face of unrelenting harassment, intimidation and abuse by the management at Overnite Transportation Company," says a Teamsters news release. The video also features Rev. Jesse Jackson, Georgia State Sen. Vincent Ford and U.S. Rep. Tyrone Brooks.
The five minute video will be presented to Overnite customers across the country by delegations of religious and community leaders who will be visiting them.
"Dr. King's last major effort in Memphis, Tennessee was fighting for working people," said Jackson. "His case was not so much black and white but wrong and right. The vision not of a horizontal gap between black and white, but between those who get wealth by stocks and those who cannot make a living by sweat. Those who make a living by sweat must organize for livable wages."
"When workers stand up for themselves, we all have to stand up with them," said Ford. "This is not just about 8,000 workers at Overnite locations all over the country. This is about all of us: community leaders, religious leaders standing up with them."
"The customer base of Overnite has a responsibility to say to Overnite," said Brooks, "go ahead and work out your differences with the Teamsters."
The national campaign to organize Overnite began in late 1994. Also this week, the Teamsters announced that the National Labor Relations Board awarded workers at Overnite's Los Angeles, CA, terminal a new election for Teamster representation. The NLRB awarded the new election because of labor law violations committed by the Company in a previous election at the terminal on March 3, 1998. The new election is scheduled for September 28.
Also, two elections for Teamster representation have already been set during the past month. Overnite workers in Laredo, TX, filed a petition for Teamster representation. Laredo's election is scheduled to be held today. Overnite workers in Syracuse, NY, filed a petition for Teamster representation on August 16. Their election date has not been set.