Teamster Notebook

Hoffa Sues Carey for Nine Million Dollars

by Charles Walker

For three years Teamsters President James P. Hoffa has proclaimed that he was going to sue his predecessor, Ron Carey, and return to the membership the money that Hoffa claims Carey stole from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). On April 17, the union filed a civil lawsuit in a New York Federal court.

The suit charges Carey, and several other individuals and groups, with racketeering, embezzlement, and legal malpractice in carrying out a scheme that caused the union to wrongfully make donations of $885,000 to political advocacy groups (Citizen Action, Project Vote, and others), who in return made lesser donations to a Carey campaign committee. The suit says that the Teamsters spent $2.2 million to rerun the 1996 election overturned by the government, and wants the court to order the defendants to pay for the cost of the election. (The applicable law provides for a tripling of damages, hence the possible $9 million liability.)

Five of the individuals named in the suit have pled guilty, admitting their participation in the scheme; and another, William Hamilton, was recently sentenced to three years in jail after a jury trial.

Although the Feds ousted Carey, they never were able to turn up evidence that he had a hand in the scheme that lined the pockets of several Carey campaign aides. Carey has denied that he knew what was going on. Hamilton had plenty of incentive (a lighter sentence) to finger Carey, but the Feds got nothing from him that incriminated Carey.

Carey’s lawyer has said that holding Carey responsible for what was going on behind Carey’s back is like holding a bank president responsible for the larceny of a bank teller. To some it was more like holding Jesus accountable for Judas’s betrayal.

Carey has never had his day in court. Ironically Hoffa’s suit gives Carey the first opportunity to publicly defend himself, though not necessarily before a jury of his peers, nor with an unbiased judge. (Those things are hard to come by in today’s world.)

Hoffa’s legal attack on Carey comes just as the Teamsters are entering the first stages of next year’s union elections. No doubt Hoffa again plans to attack his opponents in the reform wing of the union as alleged beneficiaries of Carey’s supposed crimes, as he did in the last election.

Teamster Reformers Need to Defend Carey

Unfortunately, Hoffa’s unproven accusations are not likely to be met with a vigorous defense. Carey has been ordered with court approval to stay away from the union and its members, including the rank and file. So Carey can’t easily reach Teamster members with replies to Hoffa’s attacks.

In the 1997 election both Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and the candidate they backed, Tom Leedham, campaigned as though the ranks were not concerned about Hoffa’s charges. (The reformers also failed to point out that the government’s action banning Carey from running again was a flat-out denial of the ranks’ right to elect the candidate of their choice.)

One result of the reformers’ silence perhaps was to reinforce the ranks’ natural cynicism about the union officialdom. Under the circumstances, a “they’re-all-crooks” attitude seems especially understandable. That cynicism seems likely to cost the reformers more votes than Hoffa.

Another obstacle for the reformers is the reunification of the bureaucracy — Hoffa’s most notable achievement to date. Despite his selling-out of the Budweiser Teamsters, his failed attempt to put over an inferior contract on the Northwest Airlines flight attendants, and his obvious political bias in taking over union locals, it’s clear that the reformers need every vote they can get if they are to topple the union bureaucracy.

What isn’t clear, is why the reformers continue to ignore Hoffa’s attacks on Carey and by extension themselves. In a close race, Hoffa’s charges, if they remain unrefuted, could deny the reformers the opportunity to have the kind of positive impact on the entire labor movement that Carey had when he led the 1997 strike against United Parcel Service.

April 18, 2000

At Long Last, UPS Ordered to Add 2,000 Full-Time Jobs

In 1997, the Teamsters union battled United Parcel Service (UPS) for more full-time jobs. The Teamsters won, but UPS attempted to welch on the 5-year agreement that settled the strike. When UPS didn’t come through with the jobs the first year, the union took its case to an arbitrator. In February, the arbitrator finally made a decision, ruling that UPS must create the 2,000 full-time jobs agreed to in the 1997 contract.

Teamster officials estimate that UPS must also pay workers at least $80 million in back wages and benefits. A further arbitration covering the second year of the contract is still pending. Hoffa will claim bragging rights in this victory, even though, before Ron Carey’s presidency, the Teamster bureaucracy that Hoffa represents never led a national strike against UPS. Worse, it imposed contracts voted down by majorities of UPS workers. The August 1997 strike was called by the union’s former president, Ron Carey, who shortly thereafter was ousted from the union by the federal government.

“Storm Troopers” on Roof as Teamsters Hold Hearing

Teamsters President James Hoffa threw Philadelphia Local 115 into trusteeship, ousting John Morris, a key Ron Carey ally and one of the few top old-line Teamsters who hasn’t gone over to Hoffa. At one point it looked like Morris would be back at the helm of the union, when a judge ruled that Hoffa had acted improperly. However, an appeals court overruled the judge. Starting January 5, a trusteeship hearing was convened by the international union to hear pro and con testimony which supposedly would be used by the IBT to determine whether or not to return the local union its autonomy.

The hearing was not held in Philadelphia; instead it was convened across the state line in New Jersey, a so-called “neutral” location. Of course that meant that many of Morris’s rank and file supporters couldn’t witness the proceedings. According to the Associated Press (Jan. 5), “Police in riot gear ringed” the hearings. The press quoted Morris as scoffing at “all these storm troopers and people on roofs with rifles.”

The press did not say who called the cops, but the police chief acknowledged that 100 cops were at the scene. It seems more likely than not that Morris, 73, who proudly boasts of his family’s coal-mining background and militancy, will not win this fight. His fate and that of the local union are in Hoffa’s hands, while legal appeals and counter appeals drag on for years.

Politicians on Overnite Picket Lines

First, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore showed up at an Overnite picket line. Then his chief rival, Bill Bradley followed suit. According to a Teamsters press release of December 1, 1999, Gore brought coffee and donuts, along with words of encouragement to New Hampshire pickets. In late December, Bradley made his appearance at a New Jersey strike line. The Newark Star Ledger reported on December 31 that Bradley even “held a picket sign briefly for the cameras.”

If the Teamsters strike lasts until June (and the odds are that it won’t be over soon), it seems safe to guess that some of the Republican candidates (and Reform Party candidates like Pat Buchanan) will make token appearances at the Teamster strike to collar some blue-collar support and bolster their press coverage.

When not on picket lines, the candidates can be found (tin cups in hand?) seeking spare millions from Wall Street. “Lawyers and lobbyists, followed by finance, insurance, and real estate are Gore’s vital sectors…Bill Bradley has impressed the powers that be with his ability to rustle up bucks… much of it from lawyers and investment firms. Lehman Brothers tops his list,” reported the November issue of Labor Party Press.

When in October Teamsters President James P. Hoffa called the nationwide strike against Overnite, he said that he wanted to hit the large non-union firm during the busy and profitable pre-holiday season. If the strikers thought that was a strategy for a relatively short strike, they must be disappointed.

They won’t find comfort in Hoffa’s January assessment of the fight with Overnite. Hoffa said then that the strikers and the company are in a “war of attrition.” There’s no question that this “war” is eating into Overnite’s profits. The firm admits spending $21 million in the last quarter of 1999 on strike related expenses, which cut net income to $1 million, as compared with $11.6 million in 1998. Still, Overnite is a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railroad, a financial giant with considerable political clout. The Chicago Tribune (Jan. 8) reported that Overnite remains adamant that it cannot accept a contract that puts it on par with other major union carriers. The paper also quoted a Teamsters spokesman as saying, “We can hold out as long as the workers want to hold out.”

A striker who is delivering pizzas to support his family told the paper, “I’ve seen my best friend cross. Me, I’ve been out on this too long to go back. And my wife is backing me. She said, ‘Do what’s right.’”

Hoffa’s Self-Policing Plan

In September, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa hired a former federal prosecutor, Ed Stier, to head up Hoffa’s supposed effort to rid the union of corruption. Hoffa hopes such moves will cause the federal government to drop its 10-year oversight of the union (which has cost the union $80 million so far). Some skeptics say that Stier will be under Hoffa’s thumb, so he can’t be expected to be either thorough or nonpartisan.

Those critics may well feel their skepticism is justified when they learn that Stier has named mostly Hoffa allies to a task force charged with drawing up a “Code of Fiscal and Fiduciary Conduct.” On the 21-person task force there is only one supporter of Hoffa’s opponents, former President Ron Carey and presidential candidate Tom Leedham. Then there is one officer who formerly was in Carey’s corner, but later opposed both the Hoffa and the Leedham slates; and an officer who once served under Stier during a court-ordered local union trusteeship. Presumably the only other highly credible Teamsters Stier could find were 17 officers and 4 members who are Hoffa supporters, including two IBT Vice-Presidents, and ten who are from locals of IBT Vice-Presidents.

In other words, Stier has assembled a group that with few exceptions could be a Hoffa campaign committee.

Recently, the Feds agreed to ease their 5-year intervention into the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), though only after the union’s president retired amid charges of personal corruption. A New York Times labor reporter speculated that as a result the Hoffa leadership “can be expected to intensify its campaign to get the federal government to relax its far more intrusive oversight of the teamsters” (Jan. 21).

If there’s one city that symbolizes the worst in Teamsters history, it might be Las Vegas. At one time, Teamster pension money bankrolled some of the gambling enterprises controlled by mobsters there. You might think that if Stier had much influence with Hoffa, he would be able to block Las Vegas as the site for the Teamsters next convention, if only to avoid the usual media stories that remind Teamsters of where so much of the money went. The first convention after government intervention began bypassed Las Vegas for Orlando, Florida. Then President Ron Carey selected Philadelphia for the 1996 convention. Now Hoffa has chosen Las Vegas (a “Family” town) for the union 26th international convention, in 2001.

Hoffa Eyes 40,000 Port Truckers

For years owner-operator truck drivers at the nation’s ports have been among the most exploited workers. Many attempts at union organization have been blocked by legal restrictions on their right to enter into collective bargaining agreements. The self-employed port workers are treated as though they were corporations, subject to anti-trust laws. Their plight is similar to that of the tens of thousands of computer industry workers hired as so-called subcontractors, whose compensation is below that of ordinary employees.

Despite the tough legal challenges, the port drivers are once more moving toward organization, and the Teamsters union wants to help them. The drivers have plenty of issues, but the most immediate provocation is the 12% rise in diesel fuel costs since January 12, threatening their ability to make their truck loan payments. The workers also complain about freight companies’ favoritism when dispatching out loads, unpaid time when waiting in congested ports, being forced to buy insurance coverage from the same companies they drive for, and the lack of heath insurance.

In February, Miami truckers shut down the port, protesting an insurance scam. “The drivers can’t make it,” said Hernandez [the drivers lawyer]. “They are working some weeks for free because they are paying as much as $210 a week in insurance” (Bloomberg News, Feb. 16).

Last November, port truckers successfully tied up operations in Vancouver, Canada, over similar issues. That inspired protests in Seattle, Baltimore, and Charleston, followed by February 19 Teamster-coordinated protests at seven of the largest U.S. ports, causing slowdowns in cargo shipments.

The union has announced a Bill of Rights for port drivers, including fair wages, health and pension benefits, pay for all time on the job, ironclad whistle-blower protection for reporting overweight containers and unauthorized transport of toxic or hazardous material, and freedom to organize a union, free from threats of retaliation, including being fired and blacklisted.

A union statement said: “America’s ports are giant money machines. They can [still] thrive while treating the drivers that carry the freight with dignity, respect and fairness.”

Airline Snoops in Workers’ Home Computers

Teamster flight attendants were ordered by a federal judge to permit Northwest Airlines into their homes to rummage through their personal computers. Bloomberg News (Feb. 9) reported that “District Court Judge Arthur Boyllan this month said the airline could hire computer forensics experts to copy the computer hard drives of as many as 25 union officials and flight attendants.”

“What the judge is doing is quite drastic,” said Neil Berstein, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and a labor arbitrator. “The court’s actions go beyond what has been ordered in any other labor dispute,” he said.

The company snoops were trying to build a case that the workers had advocated a sick-out that supposedly forced it to cancel 300 flights during the year-end holidays. The flight attendants have been working four years without a renegotiated contract. Last year they rejected a substandard deal that Teamster President James P. Hoffa strongly recommended. Bound by the oppressive Railway Labor Act., the union can’t strike until the government virtually gives its OK.

After the union agreed to abide by a temporary restraining order (TRO), the case against the union was suspended. But the union left two rank and filers out in the cold, refusing to provide legal representation, saying that they did not hold union posts. Two experienced lawyers who have represented union militants and reformers were enlisted to help win their case. On the eve of the workers’ court hearing, the airline backed down and the charges were dismissed.

Ashley McNeely, a flight attendant and a TDU leader, hailed the victory, but said: “Unfortunately, the majority of the union leadership opted to take a weak settlement, rather than fight to get the TRO dismissed. Individual defendants represented by the local [union] attorneys were never consulted to see if they wanted to go forward with the case or to accept the settlement. The TRO is still in effect against our union and these other defendants. Once again we see it pays to stand up for your rights rather than cut a bad deal with the company.”

Drivers Out-Tough Bakery Bosses

When 1,400 Teamster drivers walked off the job at Wonder Bread bakeries in Biddeford, Maine, and Wayne, New Jersey, a Teamster official told the press that the union would shut down one bakery every day the union was forced to stay out. “It’s a wave that’s going to go right across the country,” said Richard Volpe, the Teamsters Bakery Division head (Associated Press, March 20). True to his word, the union also struck the billion-dollar company in New York

City, Buffalo, and Philadelphia. Within a week, from Maine to Washington, D.C., grocery shelves were stripped of 400,000 loaves of bread plus a variety of baked goods such as Twinkies. Then on March 25, the union and company announced new talks and said the strikers would return to work.

The stated dispute was over the firm’s refusal to abide by an arbitrator’s decision that the “drivers should deliver only one brand at a time because they are paid different rates depending on which product they handle” (Associated Press, March 23). However, more than that may have been at stake for the union. Bakery drivers in Pittsburgh had been struggling to get a new contract from the bakery giant. Clearly those drivers needed some leverage. So coincidentally or not, the drivers in Maine and New Jersey hit the bricks the same week as the Pittsburgh drivers, and stayed out until the Pittsburgh drivers’ local union announced a settlement.

Most union bureaucracies, especially the Teamsters, work hard to limit the geographical spread of strikes. In fact, many unions often refuse to allow strikers to take full advantage of even the narrow rights permitted strikers under state and federal anti-union laws. Chances are the Pittsburgh drivers would still be off the job without the solidarity of the 1,400 New England and Mid-Atlantic strikers.

So ironically, the quick victory by the bakery workers underscores how reactionary the bureaucrats’ routine strike policies are. Clearly many strikers endure unnecessary hardships when they are blocked by their own officials from enjoying the willing support of other workers. Just as clearly, strikers become demoralized and reluctant to fight back the next time their contract is up. Consequently, unions lose members, and workers’ share of the national product shrinks.

Teamsters Back China Trade Deal for UPS

The Teamsters Union is at the front of organized labor’s fight to deny China the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets that most other nations have. But that hasn’t stopped the union’s president, James P. Hoffa, from pushing a little-publicized effort to get President Clinton’s backing for a campaign by United Parcel Service (UPS) to win highly-coveted air rights inside China. UPS is fighting other U.S. air carriers for access to the Chinese market.

According to Reuters news service (March 12), “the Teamsters have lobbied top Clinton administration officials to support Atlanta-based UPS in its battle against Delta Air Lines, AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, and Polar Air Cargo for the China air route.” UPS estimates it would add over 1,000 unionized jobs in the U.S., if it gets entry.

Some observers might wonder how Hoffa squares his lobbying on behalf of the union’s biggest employer with the union’s position that because China violates core labor standards and human rights, it should be denied normal trade relations. For instance, Teamsters Vice President Chuck Mack recently told a congressional committee that if China is granted normal trade relations, “the U.S. will have put its seal of approval on one of the most brutally repressive regimes in the world. We will be turning our back on China’s democracy movement, on the thousands of people who have fought, and in many cases died, for freedom in that nation.”

“It’s not a contradiction at all,” said another Teamster spokesperson. “We never said we were against trade. We’re for fair trade, and this (UPS deal) will create good paying jobs in the United States.”

But Chinese workers might easily see a contradiction, if “fair trade” to union bureaucrats means jobs in the U.S. and unemployment in China. Chinese workers are likely to see the labor bureaucrats’ opposition to normal trade relations between China and the U.S. as a shameless mockery of international solidarity with oppressed workers. Also siding with UPS and the Teamster bureaucracy to get the lucrative trade concession from China are the Machinists Union and the Independent Pilots Association.

Hoffa Lets Big Oil Off the Hook

Hoffa wants President Clinton to push the oil countries to cut the price of crude oil and step-up production. But if Hoffa’s also calling on Clinton to pressure Big Oil to stop price gouging at the pump, it’s not making the papers. In fact, it’s not mentioned at all in the many press releases found on the union’s web site. Before speaking at a meeting of trucking bosses, Hoffa told reporters: “Basically, it’s a contrived shortage” (St. Louis Post-Gazette, Feb. 25).

Well, of course it is. And the oil nations, one-time colonies or vassal states of European and American governments, readily admit it. The OPEC countries and their allies apparently have decided not to willingly allow the “market” to price oil below the price of a barrel of good beer, as was the case for decades.

But that doesn’t mean that the oil states have pushed Big Oil (the so-called Seven Sisters) to the wall. A recent report based on a study by the State of California Energy Commission finds that the refiners’ bite of the gas dollar more than doubled when pump prices rose from $1.36 to $1.74 per gallon (San Francisco Chronicle, March 20).

The soaring gas prices hit poor workers the hardest, much like consumer taxes. No doubt some workers will have to cut back on food or other necessities to pay for the gas to get to work, just as some working poor forgo medicine. Hoffa could do all workers a mighty service by standing up to Big Oil. For example, he could demand that the oil moguls open their books, so that workers could fully learn the extent of the sacrifices being imposed on them for the sake of maximization of profits.

“Chevron’s per-share earnings are expected to triple in the first quarter… The same is true for Arco, while Texaco’s profits could increase fivefold, according to business analysts interviewed by the Chronicle.

Teamster Steward Beats Hoffa

Just days after a shop-floor strike leader, Maria Martinez, announced that she and other rank-and-filers would run for union office because of the lack of strike support from Hoffa and their local officials, Hoffa put Local 556 in trusteeship. His move blocked the October election. Then Hoffa’s trustee removed Martinez as a full-time steward at the Iowa Beef Processing plant in Wallula, Washington. Martinez took Hoffa to court and months later won a ruling that reinstates her as the shop-floor representative of 1,300 co-workers. The judge noted that Hoffa’s trustee kept the entire union staff and officers, removing only Martinez. The same judge will preside over Martinez’s suit to get the trusteeship lifted, which would restore the membership’s right to elect its officers. Martinez is a national leader of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), which said, “Hoffa has gotten a lot of good PR lately for his ‘anti-corruption’ efforts. This ruling against his retaliation against an outspoken reformer shows that his actions contradict his press releases.”