Temco Logistics Drivers Make History as First Home Depot Subsidiary to Unionize

Jaree Beatles had a simple explanation for why he and his fellow flatbed drivers at Temco Logistics in Lithonia, Georgia, voted to join the Teamsters on February 20. "Nobody at this company was willing to listen to us and our concerns until we turned to the Teamsters," Beatles said. "We voted to join the union for better pay, dignity and respect at work, and to have the backing of the strongest union in North America."

The vote, 42 to 33 with four abstentions among 79 flatbed drivers, made Temco Logistics the first Home Depot subsidiary ever to unionize, according to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The NLRB was expected to certify the result the week following the vote.

Temco drivers haul building and construction materials across Georgia on flatbed trucks outfitted with Moffett forklifts, equipment that requires specialized training and certifications. The workforce is majority Black and brown, according to Teamsters Local 528 chief Chuck Stiles.

Stiles was unsparing in describing what the organizing campaign looked like from inside. "The most vicious anti-worker campaign that I've ever seen in my 40-plus years as a Teamster," he said, adding that management's conduct toward its majority Black and brown workforce "was something from the Old South."

Two weeks before the vote, on February 4, the Teamsters filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB alleging Temco management had crossed multiple legal lines. According to the Teamsters' filing, managers threatened employees with bodily harm if they voted for the union and told workers that Home Depot would shut down operations if the union prevailed. The filing also alleged that management coercively questioned employees about their union sympathies and dangled benefit promises to workers who voted no. Home Depot did not respond to a request for comment.

Thomas Gesualdi, director of the Teamsters Building Trades and Construction Materials Division, called Home Depot "one of the most notorious anti-union employers in the country" and said the company "attempted every desperate trick to try to slow down this campaign." Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien framed the outcome in historical terms: "These workers are taking a history-defining step in being the first at a Home Depot company to join a union. They will prove that the Teamsters' militancy and power have no bounds when they win their first contract."

Beatles and his coworkers are already bracing for the next phase. The drivers expect the anti-union pressure to continue as they move toward negotiating a first contract, according to the Teamsters. Winning that contract, not just the vote, is the standard O'Brien has set for this campaign, and the NLRB's certification of the February 20 result is the necessary first step toward the bargaining table.