Teamsters Vermont Local 597

10/04/2026

In November 1927, the worst flood in New England history wiped out bridges and rail lines across Vermont. A postmaster needed mail delivered to Newport, so Harry and Mickey Zabarsky loaded up a truck. Harry drove. Mickey rode on the hood with a long stick, poking the water to find solid ground. Using logging trails and back roads, they made the 46-mile trip in 26 hours.

Harry got his start hauling milk from farms around Barton in a Ford roadster he and his father turned into a truck. In 1921, he and Mickey started St. Johnsbury Trucking.

To land butter accounts in Boston, the brothers parked empty trucks at Faneuil Hall and told merchants that if St. Johnsbury was hauling their butter, it would be there by now. It worked. Their new insulated truck, Miss St. Johnsbury, hit a maple tree and burned on its first run. They sent another truck and finished the job.

The Depression nearly put them under. A dishonest employee left the company $90,000 in debt, and the brothers paid it off in three years. After the ICC took over trucking regulation in 1935, they grew by buying other carriers. By 1961, St. J had 24 terminals in 10 states and was one of the first refrigerated carriers in New England. At its peak it did $300 million a year and was Maine's largest freight carrier.

The Zabarskys sold to Sun Oil in 1975. Sun sold it in a 1986 leveraged buyout, and the debt never went away. St. J closed on June 14, 1993. Some drivers went home on a Friday and came back Monday to locked doors. More than 4,000 people lost their jobs.

Looking back in 1966, Harry Zabarsky figured he was just too dumb to quit. Floods, mud, snow, strikes, hurricanes. "We've been through everything," he said.

🚛 Did you or someone in your family drive for St. J? Got photos? Share them in the comments!

10/02/2026

Industry in 2026 in the US is so consolidated that the dynamics of consolidation and the way consolidation destroys efficiency and competition is forcing prices to skyrocket. This rail mega merger won't help any regular person in the US.

09/29/2026

The members of Teamsters Local 597 unanimously endorsed Prop 3 at our meeting earlier in the year.

Prop 3 will empower workers because their rights will no longer be dependent upon the state legislature and governor, but will put basic protections for workers and their rights to organize into the constitution.

We're in the home stretch of the campaign to pass Prop 3! Join us to make calls to fellow union members every Tuesday between now and the election to help get out the labor vote: https://mobilize.us/s/g1Vh5I

We'll also be out knocking doors in the following communities over the next several weekends:
St. Albans (Sat 10/3): https://mobilize.us/s/4VS2qT
South Burlington (Sat 10/10): https://mobilize.us/s/fHt7ri
Winooski (Sat 10/17): https://mobilize.us/s/NqOK0R
Rutland (Sat 10/24): https://mobilize.us/s/8RrFAm
Montpelier/Barre (Sat 10/31): https://mobilize.us/s/Rb3MAt

09/16/2026

Something Strange is going on in the Town of Stockbridge

As many people in town know, the selectboard rejected a request for a small, standard benefit that was asked for by the road crew earlier this year, which was the final straw and led them to unionize to try and get respect from the town select board.

While it has certainly come back to members of the road crew that other members of town government have been spreading rumors about them, the crew thinks that citizens should be asking important questions about why things are happening the way they are in town.

Did you know that the selectboard decided to cover at least thirteen miles of road this winter via private contractor, it appears, at whatever cost it takes? The board decided in the spring not to replace an outgoing road crew worker that would be needed for the winter. The decision was made before they even looked at the cost of winter maintenance by a private contractor. Now they are in a position of having to hire the contractor at whatever cost, or risk stretching the crew in a storm. They currently have one worker who is released for full duty. The town even had a qualified applicant with tons of experience interested in the position and decided not to even interview them. The Teamsters have the proof of that.

Will the town, with a crew of one have the manpower resources to be flexible enough to react to a major storm this winter?

Did you know that the one worker left on the road crew has fallen further and further behind on maintenance projects because the board chair won’t approve overtime to keep up with projects, even though there is one person and not the budgeted for three people working on the crew? Did you know that the town is currently refusing to pay him for hours worked over the summer during some weeks, refusing to pay for hours worked on his time card? Is that what you voted for?

Did you know that the town took away authority to collect bids for small town projects from the road crew foreman and started issuing no bid contracts for some jobs? On some jobs the town doesn’t know the cost until after the work is done and doesn’t even have a written arrangement ahead of time?

Did you know workers report that some members of the select board have been conducting town business via their private email instead of using an open, public line of communication?

Who gets left footing the bill for a no bid contract? Who pays when town leadership hires whomever instead of letting the road crew foreman put work out to bid? What happens when public business is handled via private messaging? We have seen what no bid contracts look like in Washington, are you ready to take that risk? What happens when there is no one qualified left to do the work, will there even be another no bid contractor left to hire?

Maybe there are great reasons for this, but these certainly seem like the kind of things that should be handled in a transparent manner, with a board willing to answer questions, and if these decisions are mistakes, there isn't much time to dodge the ice berg.

09/13/2026

09/12/2026

09/08/2026

If you are pro-worker, Prop 3 is a great way to guarantee that workers have the opportunity to stand up for their safety and wellbeing. Vote yes in November.

PROPOSAL 3
Sec. 1. PURPOSE
This proposal would amend the Constitution of the State of Vermont to provide that the citizens of the State have a right to collectively bargain.
Sec. 2. Article 23 of Chapter I of the Vermont Constitution is added to read:
Article 23. [Right to collectively bargain]
That employees have a right to organize or join a labor organization for the purpose of collectively bargaining with their employer through an exclusive representative of their choosing for the purpose of negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions and to protect their economic welfare and safety in the
workplace. Therefore, no law shall be adopted that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to collectively bargain with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and workplace safety, or that prohibits the application or ex*****on of an agreement between an
employer and a labor organization representing the employer’s employees that requires membership in the labor organization as a condition of employment.

The measure, which has seen broad cross-party support in the Statehouse, would reaffirm workers’ right to organize and prevent lawmakers from easily reversing existing labor protections in the future.

09/07/2026

Happy Labor Day from Teamsters Local 597. We were glad to be at the Nothfield Labor Day celebration.

09/04/2026

Practice Pickets at Green Mountain Community Network. ⏰️