Teamsters LGBTQ+ Caucus, President Emeritus, Margo Storsteen’s reflection on the early days of our Caucus

The Teamsters LGBTQ+ Caucus was formed in 2004 with the encouragement of the Teamsters Human Rights (HRC) director Cheryl Johnson.The caucuses initial title was the Teamsters GLBT Caucus. 

The first Caucus President was Bill Munger,member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen BLET.  They crafted by-laws, created a logo, a banner and a pamphlet but it was difficult to sustain and maintain an active membership.

In 2010, the Teamsters HRC asked Margo Storsteen to help rebuild the Caucus as part of her responsibilities as a Commissioner.

Some of the initial steps in rebuilding the Caucus included:

Updating the logo to LGBT

• Updating the By laws
• Participating in Pride marches in Seattle and the Bay area.
• Paricipating in voter registration\tabling for the Caucus in Santa Fe Mexico
• Tabling at the 2012 Womens conference in San Francisco: holding our first workshop
• 2013  First LGBT workshop at the Teamsters Unity Conference ( 5 people attended)

The new members Crafted an updated logo,pamphlet,pins and created the first LGBT Caucus t-shirt.  With the financial and legal assistance from LU117  whose Principal Officer was Tracey Thompson we were registered as  501C3 and became financially solvent through t-shirt and button sales at TNBC conferences, the Women’s conferences and yearly contributions from Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way BMWED