Jimmy Hoffa

Gig workers — delivery drivers, rideshare operators, freelance warehouse pickers — are classified as independent contractors specifically so companies can avoid paying benefits, providing job security, or recognizing collective bargaining. They're scattered, isolated, and told they're 'entrepreneurs' when they're really just workers without protection.

A national Gig Workers Alliance structured exactly like we built the over-the-road organizing in the 1930s. Start with one chokepoint — last-mile delivery in three major metro areas. Get workers to sign authorization cards through in-person organizing at apartment complexes where drivers congregate, at charging stations, at the warehouse gates at 5 AM. Build a strike fund before you need it. When you have density, you hit them all at once during peak season — Black Friday, Christmas week — when the perishable cargo is on the truck.

Amazon warehouse workers are the new dock workers — millions of people moving goods under brutal surveillance, timed bathroom breaks, algorithmic management, and zero job security. The Teamsters have made some inroads, but organizing is still fragmented and Amazon's anti-union machinery is sophisticated.

A coordinated national Amazon campaign run the way we ran the Central States organizing — pick the hub cities, the ones where all the logistics routes converge, and build outward. In 2026 that means targeting the massive fulfillment centers in Southern California, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, and the New York metro area simultaneously. You don't ask Amazon for recognition — you build enough density that they can't operate without dealing with you. Establish permanent organizing committees inside each facility, fund them independently, and prepare for a protracted fight.

AI is replacing and displacing workers faster than any previous technology shift, and there's no worker voice at the table when these decisions get made. Management decides to automate, workers get laid off, and by the time anyone organizes, the jobs are gone.

AI Transition Councils — mandatory joint labor-management bodies in any company over 500 employees that must be consulted before any AI implementation that affects more than fifty jobs. These wouldn't just be advisory — they'd have veto power on timeline, retraining obligations, and severance terms. Push for this through collective bargaining agreements first, then legislation. The model already exists in Germany with works councils — we just need to make it American and give it teeth.

Seventy percent of crimes are committed by former convicts. Not because they're bad people, but because the prison system teaches them nothing useful and the world won't hire them when they get out.

A national network of employer-guaranteed job placements for released prisoners, funded by a coalition of unions, with training programs that start inside the prison six months before release and continue outside. The key is the guarantee — you walk out with a job waiting, not a list of numbers to call. Start with construction, trucking, and warehouse work because those industries need bodies and the skills transfer.

Home healthcare workers — the people taking care of your aging parents, wiping asses, giving medications, working overnight — are among the lowest-paid workers in America despite doing some of the most essential work. They're scattered across private homes, isolated, and almost impossible to organize using traditional methods.

A home healthcare workers' union structured around metropolitan areas, with organizers who go door-to-door the way we used to organize over-the-road drivers at truck stops. The pressure point isn't the individual household — it's the agencies that place the workers. You organize enough workers that the agencies can't staff their contracts, then you negotiate area-wide agreements.

The Teamsters pension fund that I built — the Central States fund — became one of the largest pools of worker capital in America. But workers have almost no say in how their pension money gets invested. The money gets used to build hotels and casinos and shopping centers while the workers who created that capital have no ownership stake in what it builds.

A worker-directed investment fund where union pension money gets invested in worker-owned enterprises and cooperative businesses, with workers getting equity stakes in the companies their retirement money finances. Create a new structure where every pension-funded project includes mandatory worker ownership provisions — you want our capital, you give our members a stake.

Remote workers — the millions now working from home on computers — are as isolated as any warehouse worker ever was, maybe more so. They can't see each other, can't talk at the water cooler, can't organize in the break room. Management monitors them through their screens while they sit alone in their apartments.

Digital worker councils using the same technology that isolates them. Encrypted communication platforms owned by the workers, not the companies. Virtual organizing meetings that happen during 'breaks' that management can't monitor. The structure would mirror what we built with over-the-road organizing — you can't get all the drivers in one room, so you meet them where they are, at truck stops along the highway. Now the truck stop is digital.

Portable benefits don't exist for most American workers. You lose your job, you lose your healthcare. You switch from one gig platform to another, your retirement savings don't follow you. The whole system is designed to keep workers dependent on individual employers, which weakens their bargaining power.

A worker-owned benefits cooperative — a national organization where workers pay in and receive healthcare, retirement, and disability benefits that follow them regardless of employer. It would function like a massive multi-employer trust, the kind we pioneered in trucking, but expanded to cover any worker who wants in. The cooperative would be governed by worker-elected trustees, not employer appointees.

The supply chain that moves every product in America — from ports to warehouses to trucks to stores — is staffed by workers who have no coordination across the chain. Longshoremen, warehouse workers, truck drivers, and retail workers are all in different unions or no union at all, which means they can't apply coordinated pressure even though they're all links in the same chain.

A Supply Chain Workers Alliance — a formal coalition that coordinates organizing and strike activity across the entire logistics chain. When port workers strike, warehouse workers honor the picket. When truck drivers stop moving freight, retail workers refuse to stock shelves. You build the structure so that a stoppage at any point in the chain becomes a stoppage everywhere. The companies have integrated their supply chains for efficiency — we integrate worker power for leverage.

Workers who get displaced by automation, trade, or economic shifts have almost no real support for transitioning to new work. Government retraining programs are jokes — they teach you to make mop buckets and license plates, figuratively speaking. Workers need real skills for real jobs, and they need income support while they're learning.

A union-run Worker Transition Corps — a national program funded by contributions from employers who automate, structured like an apprenticeship with income replacement. When your job gets eliminated, you get enrolled in a two-year program that combines classroom training with paid work in a new field. The program would be run by workers, not bureaucrats, and the training would be in fields where there's actual demand — construction, healthcare, renewable energy installation.