April 18, 2008

On April 5, Local 991 in Mobile, Alabama hosted a stewards seminar, which focused on the roles and responsibilities of the Teamster steward, grievance handling and internal organizing. The stewards represented workers at UPS, Dairy Fresh, Coca Cola, Standard Furniture, Allied Waste and newly-organized New Era Cap. Iliana Flores, Southern Region Training Coordinator from the Teamsters Training and Development Department, facilitated the seminar. James Curbeam from the Teamsters Organizing Department conducted the internal organizing presentation.

Jim Gookins, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 991, thanked the stewards for taking time out of their busy schedules to attend the program, which was held on a Saturday. Gookins also expressed his gratitude for their dedication to the task of enforcing contracts, representing members and consistently organizing to grow the membership.

”The many roles the stewards play day-to-day in their workplace are important and cannot be minimized,” Gookins said. “Your perseverance in all your duties will continue to add strength to our local and instill pride in our members.”

The participants honed their skills and enjoyed themselves while doing it. The handling grievances session was a highlight for Daniel Haywood, while Dwayne Parish enjoyed learning how to organize and grow the union.   

David Couch benefited from the grievance handling session. 

“This information will help me to interact more effectively with members and management,” Couch said. “They are practical skills I can use now.”

The seminar was very helpful for new stewards, too.  “Being a new steward, everything that was said or shown was helpful to me,” said Patricia Wallace.

“I was glad to be here.” said Jorina Collier. “There was so much information, I could not have learned it as effectively without the class.”

Local 991 steward Lavon “Rooster” Lindsey was pleased with the entire presentation and hopes to use the new skills to do more internal organizing.