Jason Ide, the local's 28-year-old president, is representing the moving and storage workers as they fight for a new agreement with the Greater Movers and Storage Bargaining Group. Slight in build but commanding in presence, Ide was elected in December, becoming the only principal officer under 30 in the network of more than 900 Teamsters locals. Yet the significance of his rise to power speaks less about his age and more about labor reform.
"Jason brings a combination of political savvy and effective organizing to the challenge of reforming a Teamsters local. And that's why his slate was elected," says Steve Early, a labor organizer and writer, who witnessed Ide's address a labor convention shortly after his win.
Early, author of "Embedded With Organized Labor", was first made aware of the New Orleans native in 2008, after Ide helped successfully negotiate a contract for fellow art handlers at Sotheby's in New York.
The Sotheby's contract became a defining moment for Ide, who'd been hired as an art handler at the auction house in the fall of 2004. Walking into Sotheby's back then, Ide sensed tension, he says, among art handlers unloading pricey pieces from plywood crates.
"The guys at the job were very divided," he recalled. Just months before Ide started at Sotheby's, his fellow movers—members of Local 814—were fighting for a new contract. Some eight weeks into heated negotiations, the union rejected terms offered by management. The company barred the employees from returning to work until they accepted concessions. Many of the 50 movers felt their union leaders had caved in, forcing them to accept Sotheby's demand for concessions.
"It became apparent that things could be better," Ide says. "We worked for a company that had a lot of money. We had a decent union, but our contracts had deteriorated over time and there wasn't much enforcement."
Ide, whose trimmed auburn beard adds maturity to his youthful face, was as young as some of his co-workers' children. Yet shared frustrations bred camaraderie. Aided by colleagues, Ide began rallying other workers. "We succeeded in reuniting everybody with a more hopeful vision, a possibility of negotiating a strong contract the next time and preparing ourselves for a strike or lockout," he says.
Having helped out with a few strikes while at the University of Michigan, Ide was no novice. He'd protested alongside workers at Borders bookstore and stood in solidarity with non-tenure track university faculty. "It's Michigan," he says. "There were always labor-related things going on. And I guess that was my big exposure."
At Sotheby's, Ide started a strike fund in 2007 in case their contract expired the following year. "There was a strong sense that it was necessary to prepare to bargain, necessary to prepare to strike," says Ide, who was elected to the bargaining committee.
And prepare they did. The art handlers contacted the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' reform arm, the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, which offered workshops in contract negotiation.
