President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2406, Bruce Davis, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the unique job fair held in Oklahoma City for former Teamster drivers employed by Yellow Freight. Davis also discussed how they were able to accomplish the one-day job fair and the impact it’s had on the city’s job openings.
Davis began working for AT&T, which later became Lucid Technologies and spent 6 years on the job before joining the union, where he spent the next 20 years. Unfortunately, Davis woke up one day, and the facility was being closed, leaving Davis and his coworkers without a job and scrambling to find a way to make ends meet. He said he was lucky to find a job with Oklahoma City Services, where he joined Local 2406. He went from living in poverty before his first check with the city to the middle class after receiving his first paycheck, and he’s never left the middle class since then.
Following the bankruptcy and the shutdown of Yellow Freight, there were hundreds of Teamsters members left without a job in the Oklahoma City area. Davis sought a way to help these drivers find a job and contacted the City’s hiring services about any openings for these drivers. After getting everything in line and negotiations with the city, they created a job fair directly for the former Yellow drivers. The job fair was unique in cutting out the nine-week hiring process and turned it into an event where these drivers could leave with a job and a start date with the city.
The city had several openings from the pandemic and was in dire straights to find workers who wanted to work. The event provided job offers for nearly 80 workers. Davis said they’d taken this job fair concept to local high schools as well, where the graduating seniors were able to walk across the stage and right into a good union job. The city has held several more job fairs and will continue to perform them until they can fill all their openings.
To hear more from Davis, listen to the show above.
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