By Barry Sheppard
Ballots for the government-run elections for president of the Teamsters union were mailed out in early November to the union's 1.4 million members. The two major candidates are millionaire lawyer James Hoffa, Jr, and Tom Leedham, backed by the rank-and-file reform caucus Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and many supporters of former Teamsters president Ron Carey.
The ballots are to be counted in early December.
Many TDUers view Leedham as a practitioner of the kind of rank-and-file power they promote. Like Ron Carey, he has never been a TDU member. But when asked about TDU at a freight terminal in Ohio, Leedham said, "If it weren't for TDU, we never would be having this election".
Leedham heads a 4000-member local in Portland, Oregon, and was elected international vice-president in 1996 on the Carey slate. Since 1992 he's directed the union's Warehouse Division, representing some 400,000 workers.
Hoffa Junior's claim to fame is that he is the son of former Teamster president James Hoffa. Hoffa Senior had ties to the Mafia, as does the old guard bureaucracy in general.
The old guard was characterised by the use of gangster methods to terrorise the rank and file, and by sweetheart deals with the bosses.
The Wall Street Journal has been campaigning for Hoffa since 1996. Junior is taking advantage of an election rule loophole that allows bosses to contribute to the Hoffa Legal and Accounting Fund. He admits that he has received more than $125,000 from lawyers, employers and politicians.
Recently, it was disclosed that United Parcel Service (UPS) had funnelled money into his campaign.
In 1997 UPS was struck by the Teamsters under Ron Carey's leadership. This strike broke the mould of business-as-usual class collaboration unionism.
Among its features was the mobilisation of the rank-and-file UPS workers through a year-long preparatory campaign in which the union sought input from the workers on what the key demands should be. The result was a solid strike, with near 100% participation.
One of the union's main demands was to roll back UPS's use of part-time workers at much lower pay, one of the many concessions given to the employers by the old guard leadership. Another was to stop UPS from outsourcing work to non-union employers.
These and similar demands struck a chord among workers generally, who have had to put up with increased outsourcing, the use of part-time workers, and other employer attacks, while the labour movement's leaders have often caved in to employers' demands.
The Teamster victory in the strike set a new tone. Workers everywhere were given a boost. Carey planned to build on the victory to organise the workers at Federal Express, another package delivery company, and apple pickers in Washington state.
Government intervention
But just after this victory, the results of the 1996 elections for Teamster president, in which Carey had narrowly won over Junior, were declared void by a government overseer, and new elections were ordered. The momentum of the UPS victory was broken, and a possible turning point in the US labour movement was lost.
It was discovered that Carey's campaign managers had, unknown to him, used union dues money to help finance his campaign.
Carey had made the mistake of turning away from his rank-and-file base in organising his 1996 campaign, unlike in 1991, when he first won the presidency. He brought in professional fundraisers, who were used to the complete corruption of the Democratic and Republican parties, and they just did what was natural to them.
The government-appointed Independent Review Board (IRB) that oversees the union then disqualified Carey as a candidate in the new elections.
In July, the IRB expelled Carey from the union. He was never given a chance to confront his accuser, one of the professional fundraisers, who made the accusation that Carey knew of the operation in return for a lighter jail sentence. Even though the IRB itself found there was no proof against Carey, only allegations, it expelled him anyway.
Meanwhile, the federal election monitor allowed Junior to run, even though his 1996 campaign was also found to have committed serious transgressions of financing rules.
One of the three members of the IRB is William Webster, former head of both the FBI and CIA. He also sits on the board of directors of Anheuser Busch beer company. Anheuser Busch has had a long relationship with the corrupt old guard in the Teamsters, who have a history of making sweetheart deals with the company.
Uphill battle
Leedham is running on a program of rank-and-file control of the union and a class struggle attitude toward the bosses. His slate is more inclusive of blacks, Latinos and women than any slate in Teamster history. He has an uphill fight against Hoffa, who has name recognition.
Also, there is a third slate, headed by John Metz, who once backed Carey but never broke with the old guard.
Anticipating a Hoffa victory, UPS announced it is unilaterally cancelling the promise made in its 1997 contract with the union to add 2000 full-time jobs. UPS knows that no contract need be honoured if the union won't enforce it, and it is counting on Hoffa.
Leedham faces another obstacle. The government-appointed election officer has decided to eliminate the field staff that supervised the 1996 elections. In that election, union members filed hundreds of protests contesting employer and old guard interference, and many were won.
In a legal brief, TDU said, "Because the Hoffa slate controls most local unions and joint councils ... a ruling that cuts back on the protest process exaggerates the tilt in the playing field against the Leedham slate".
The rerun elections were originally scheduled for last February. But in the aftermath of the UPS victory, Hoffa knew Carey was unbeatable. So before Carey was prevented from running, Junior's friend Peter Hoekstra, a right-wing Republican congressman, blocked the financing of the election.
This resulted in a long battle, which was settled by the union's agreeing to provide $2 million for the election, while the government put up $4 million.
The delay has given Leedham more time to become known to the rank and file. The court-appointed election officer suggested that the three candidates engage in a nationally televised debate. Leedham and Metz accepted, but Hoffa backed out.