Teamsters Notebook

Hoffa Moves to Get the Government Out

Teamsters President James Hoffa, Jr., as reported by the New York Times, recently “wrote the Justice Department to ask it to begin a dialogue that the union hopes will lead to shrinking and perhaps ending Government oversight of the union.” The Times also reports that Hoffa intends to appoint Edwin H. Stier, a former federal prosecutor, “to set up an in-house anti-corruption program.” For 12 years Stier was a federal court-appointed trustee over New Jersey Teamsters Local 560, once dominated by the notorious Tony Provenzano.

The Stier appointment received approval from a spokesperson for Republican Representative Peter Hoekstra of Hoffa’s home state, Michigan: “As long as Mr. Stier is given the freedom that he needs to do his job, then this is a very positive step forward for the teamsters.”

In 1998, Hoekstra conducted congressional hearings that attacked Ron Carey. A “friendly” committee witness told the press that a committee staff member suggested that he contact the Hoffa people for help with his testimony, indicating collusion between Hoekstra and Hoffa. A columnist for Transport Topics, a corporate trucking publication, says that the Feds should drop their oversight, suggesting that then donations to the union’s candidates for office would not disrupt the union’s stability.

Overnite Contract Talks Begin, But Hoffa Halts Overnite Organizing Drive

Ron Carey started an organizing drive at Union Pacific’s subsidiary, Overnite, the nation’s largest non-union trucking firm. Carey’s strategy was to get enough of Overnite’s truckers and loaders in the union to get the muscle to bring the entire workforce under the National Master Freight Contract.

Hoffa has discarded Carey’s approach, halted organizing, and is trying to get a contract for the workers already organized. Hoffa will likely argue that a contract will be a beachhead to expand from. If he gets a contract, chances are it will fall far below the national standards. Unionized firms then are likely to demand concessions to meet the newly unionized Overnite competition, say some freight drivers.

Overnite has 166 terminals with 8,200 potential members, and says that the IBT has organized 21 of them. The IBT claims the number is 38 with 3,000 workers.

Hoffa called an unfair labor practices strike at Overnite in early July, but called it off after five days. Hoffa said the strike was a success in sending a message to the Overnite bosses, while Overnite claimed that the strike had little effect on operations, partly because hundreds of workers crossed the lines.

The IBT charged that Overnite instructed scabs to drive “at an irresponsible speed as they leave the terminal gate.” In Memphis the union reported, a scab truck hit a Teamster organizer, who later returned to the picket line with his arm in a sling. There were no reports from either side that attempts were made by the IBT to halt the scabbing.

In June, the NLRB accepted an offer from Overnite that it would pay $1.6 million to certain workers and post notices promising to cease and desist from its prohibited actions. The charges were filed nearly two years before Hoffa took office.

Teamsters Return to Las Vegas

A reported 500 officers from the Western States returned to their traditional stomping grounds in late June, the first large Teamster gathering there since Ron Carey was elected the union’s president in 1991. Hoffa appeared, along with the union’s top elected officials and their staffs. Hoffa reported on his settlements with the carhaul firms, and Northwest Airlines.

The heads of the union’s many trade divisions and departments were introduced, some of them using the occasion to lambaste Carey and his administration.

Hoffa’s second-in-command, General Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel, reported that new rugs had been put down in the offices at the Marble Palace, the union’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, and that the “Palace” was now gussied up and open to the membership. Keegel’s remarks brought back memories of former Teamster President Jackie Presser, who at an auxiliary occasion during the Las Vegas Teamsters convention in 1986, at a sumptuous feast hosted by East Coast bureaucrats, was carried on a sedan chair like a Roman emperor. At that time Presser proclaimed that he had buried TDU, the rank-and-file caucus, and Keegel shouted out to the approving delegates: “TDU can kiss my ass!”

Hoffa Quotes Debs to Locked-out Detroit Workers

On July 15, Hoffa spoke at a Detroit rally of locked-out newspaper workers and their supporters. They were meeting to commemorate the fourth anniversary of their battle against media giants Knight-Ridder (Detroit Free Press) and Gannett (Detroit News). While he didn’t propose any fresh initiatives to get all the workers back on their jobs, he did congratulate them profusely on their pride and toughness. “These proud working men have stood their ground, refused to give up, and demanded fair treatment. Their heroic actions embody the best traditions of the American labor movement.”

At that point Hoffa quoted from an 1894 speech by Eugene V. Debs, who said: “Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians. But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power the planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.” A brief IBT press release describing Hoffa’s remarks did not include a reference to Debs, America’s foremost socialist labor organizer and political leader.

Sikorsky Aircraft Teamsters Give Hoffa Allies the Gate

In July, for the second time since January, the Local 1150 Reform Team defeated incumbent officers who backed Hoffa. Hoffa had overturned the earlier election. An Internet notice stated, “The Reform Team swept the election and the members stated without question that they rejected Hoffa’s choice and wanted their own choice of local leadership…You (Hoffa) should have stayed out of our local politics; you had the support of the majority of our members, then told them their vote didn’t count. We say our vote does count and down the road it will count against you!” The Connecticut local union has 4,000 members.

The Chicago Teamsters Mural

“Gridrunner,” an e-mail magazine, recently took note of the fact that labor muralist Mike Alewitz was commissioned by Chicago Local Union 705 to commemorate the historic 1997 Teamster strike against UPS. That was the first and only national strike by the IBT against the parcel delivery giant.

The mural measures 130 feet by 20 feet. “Gridrunner” reports that a video by Alewitz “describes the imagery of the mural, which is framed by large portraits of Albert and Lucy Parsons, early heroes of the U.S. labor movement, and features the other Haymarket martyrs, leaders of the 1934 Minneapolis teamster strike, and a striker-driven UPS truck clutching in its jaws a bloody tentacle torn from the monster of capitalism.” (For the text of Mike Alewitz’s November 1997 speech dedicating this mural, and a graphic depicting part of the mural, see our predecessor publication Bulletin IDOM, January-February 1998, pp. 19–20.)

The Local 705 leadership was part of the Ron Carey coalition, and supports the Labor Party.

August 5, 1999