Today Vanessa Krinker, 49, drives the number 45 bus to and from Garden Home in Southwest Portland. She wears a TriMet uniform and is a proud member of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757. But in 1997 she was active with Teamsters Local 63 in Southern California, and took part in one of the greatest strikes of the modern era.
Krinker was a part-timer at a small UPS hub in Victorville, California, in the Mojave Desert an hour northeast of LA. She’d grown up nearby and had been at UPS two years. Her job was to load and unload trucks. It was hard work. Part-timers’ wages had been frozen at $8 an hour for 14 years.
But under new leadership, Teamsters prepared for a fight with UPS, holding rallies and circulating a petition signed by over 100,000 members. Krinker was active in the union, and handed out leaflets to coworkers on break.
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