I recently caught up with Rosario to talk about the US labor movement’s remarkable year and how it looks from his vantage point. And then there was the broader movement, having a bigger year than it had had in a long time, all of which demanded his solidarity. There was contract enforcement, legislative efforts, and the union’s push to organize Amazon workers to attend to. But for the organizer and Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) member, the work didn’t stop. Less than a week before the newly elected IBT president Sean O’Brien vowed to take the roughly 340,000 workers out on strike, UPS caved, agreeing to the strongest contract the workers have won in decades. If you went to a UPS Teamster rally or picket in New York this year, you almost certainly encountered him. As the July 31 expiration date for the UPS contract neared, Rosario was on overdrive, ensuring that come August 1, Local 804 members would be ready to strike. The experience transformed Rosario, and he went on to become a shop steward and then a full-time organizer for Local 804, which currently represents roughly eight thousand workers in New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. That year, he saw then International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) president Ron Carey announce the walkout in New York, from where Carey, too, hailed.

The Teamster of twenty-nine years had been a relatively new employee at the United Parcel Service (UPS) in 1997, the last time the union struck the company. At the start of 2023, Antonio Rosario was preparing for what was poised to be one of the largest strikes in US history.

Synonym for organize