Teamsters' History The Teamsters Union was started in 1903 to represent people who worked in the trucking industry. Today, the trucking industry doesn’t even represent its biggest membership.As the number of Teamsters dropped, the union merged with other small unions to keep the money flowing. Today, the Teamsters . . . the trucking industry union . . . is now made up of vegetable workers, sanitation workers, newspaper workers, construction workers, healthcare workers, and secretaries, just to name a few. The Teamsters are also well-known for their corruption.Over the last fifty years, most of the Teamsters' Presidents have been indicted or charged with criminal activity. Their ties to organized crime led to the Teamsters being the first union to be supervised by the Department of Justice.
