Letter from the US: Government seeks to discredit Teamsters' president

September 3, 1997
Issue 

Letter from the US

Government seeks to discredit Teamsters' president

By Barry Sheppard

Ron Carey, president of the Teamsters' Union, which just won a historic strike against United Parcel Service, has won increased respect among teamsters and the whole labour movement for his role in the battle. In response, the Clinton administration has launched an attack on him that has been played up in the capitalist press.

The fight against UPS was widely supported. For the first time in many years, public opinion polls backed a union in a strike, by two to one.

The reason was that the teamsters' fight was not seen as a narrow struggle for a few well-paid workers, but a battle for all workers, especially those on the bottom.

The union was fighting for its own lower-paid part-time workers, and won significant gains for them. It also was fighting against"subcontracting" of work to non-union, low-paying outfits, and "downsizing" unionised workers as a result.

Average real wages have dropped over the past 25 years, and unions have become smaller. Yet union leaders accept corporate arguments that they should give concessions to the employers because of international competition. Workers know that temporary and part-time jobs have no security and few, if any, benefits like health care.

The largest corporation in the US now is Manpower, which rents out "temporary" workers to other corporations. Because these workers don't legally work for the corporations, they can be dismissed at any time and for any reason. They make far less than regular workers and usually have no benefits.

So when the teamsters fought to narrow the gap between part-timers and full-timers and against subcontracting, and explicitly linked this battle to the interests of all workers, they struck a powerful chord. When they won, worker morale was given a boost.

For more than a year, the union carefully organised for this battle. Key was the democratic participation of workers in coming up with the key demands of the strike, and winning over the full-timers to support their less favoured brothers and sisters. Mobilising the rank and file was the key.

The fight to democratise the union was symbolised by the election of Carey to the presidency in 1991, and again last year with the support of the rank and file group, Teamsters for a Democratic Union. TDU had waged a two-decade battle against the corrupt old guard, known for its gangsterism and its sweetheart deals with the bosses.

From Carey's 1991 election, the reform leadership worked to rid the union of its most corrupt locals. More than 70 were placed under court-ordered receiverships, though many corrupt locals still exist.

For example, local 807 in New York has been run for 25 years by Joe Mangan with help from the Gambino family. The airport freight local 295 in New York, still run by the Luchese family, was made notorious in the film Goodfellas.

Carey sold the union's two jets, formerly used by the top officials, ended free lunches at headquarters and stopped holding union conferences in Hawaii. He cut pay for union leaders (including his own) and infuriated many in the old guard by stopping the system under which they got multiple salaries.

So how to limit the impact of the union's victory and possible emulation of its reform leadership? Why, with charges of "corruption"!

Right after the strike was settled, federal election overseer Barbara Quindel ruled that the election Carey narrowly won against old guard stalwart James Hoffa, Jr, had to be re-run because of wrongdoing among Carey's supporters.

There was wrongdoing, by some of the consultants Carey hired to raise funds. It was a serious mistake by Carey to trust such types, although he has returned the tainted funds and denounced those responsible. No wrongdoing has been attributed to Carey himself.

Nevertheless, the press was filled with headlines that juxtaposed the words "Carey", "corruption" and "Teamsters". The ploy was to conjure up the Teamsters of the old guard days and draw attention away from the strike victory and the real fight against corruption the new leadership is waging.

Hoffa, who lost to Carey even though he out-spent him US$3.7 million to US$1.6, called for the government board that oversees the Teamsters to rule that Carey can't run in the new election.

This campaign is not reversing the support Carey has built as a result of his leadership before and during the strike. And while it does have an effect, lessons that many workers drew from the UPS battle are not likely to be so easily forgotten.

Unless the government board actually disqualifies Carey from running — which would create a huge turmoil in the labour movement, and could boomerang on the government — Carey will probably win this time with a greater margin than in last year's election.

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