Cobleskill Talks With Teamsters: Village Holds Decision for Secret Ballot

COBLESKILL - On Tuesday, the Cobleskill Village Board heard remarks from Tom Quackenbush, the president of Teamsters Local 294 based out of Albany.

The organization, which is just one of many branches of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, is a labor union that seeks to “organize the unorganized” and provide fair contract negotiations and training to communities that request their aid.

According to President Quackenbush, the Village of Cobleskill was one such community, as several Village employees had reached out for Teamsters to be their sole representative. Once they got into contact, information was exchanged before five out of six cards were signed.

With these signed cards, Teamsters requested for the Cobleskill Village Board to voluntarily recognize that their employees had become members, but during the April meeting, they did not do so.

Under Mayor RJ Freitag’s suggestion, President Quackenbush came to the Tuesday meeting personally to relay information and to lay out the plans of what comes next. 

“If a municipality does not voluntarily recognize us, then we take the matter to the Public Employment Relations Board for that recognition,” he said, noting that his organization could use the signed cards as evidence.

However, some members of the Board were not convinced that their employees had signed those cards willingly. Both Ruth Van Deusen and Nancy Van Deusen explained their side, saying that there could have been coercion or that they didn’t have all the facts.

“We just don’t know, and that’s why I’m hesitant,” said Nancy Van Deusen.

Yet President Quackenbush was staunch in his stance, replying “If you know something that I don’t, Teamsters doesn’t want to be members with someone that doesn’t want it either. I urge anyone that signed a card to tell me they don’t want to be a member.”

As their conversation drew to a close, Ruth Van Deusen called for an executive session to talk about the matter. The Board reconvened a short while later to officially table the discussion until a secret ballot vote could be held among the employees to gauge their “true feelings” on a Teamsters membership.