It is my pleasure and privilege to serve the more than 140,000 Teamster public employees across the country.
Public employees are America's everyday heroes.
From Maine to Southern California, Teamster public employees respond to life threatening emergencies, clean our public schools, drive our city buses, transport our children to and from school, serve as security guards in public housing, take care of our elderly in nursing homes, plow our streets in winter and collect our garbage on sweltering summer days. We are also your city hall clerks, your nurses and other medical professionals and technicians, your correctional facility guards, your policemen and attorneys and other workers in your state and local court systems. During the 1990s, America experienced its longest peacetime economic expansion. This expansion resulted in nationwide multi-million dollar budget surpluses for public municipalities across the country. Most of these surpluses were built on the wage and benefit sacrifices of public employees.