Teamsters poised to choose a newpresident

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 9/1/1998

The 1.7 million members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are scheduled to select a new president this fall. What the results will mean for union workers and their employers will in large part depend on who wins.

What's at stake in the upcoming election? John W. Budd, an associate professor in the Industrial Relations Center at the University of Minnesota, says, "What the Teamsters need most is legitimacy, with an election not tainted with accusations of impropriety. Everyone is aware of [the union's] troubled past. They have to put all the history behind them." Considering the deep divisions that exist within the union and the acrimonious tenor of the campaign, that is likely to prove a significant challenge for the Teamsters' next president.

The election date still is not entirely certain. The process has been tied up in a dispute over who will bear the estimated $8 million cost of running a supervised election. The federal government has agreed to pay half of that cost. A federal judge involved in the issue, David Edelstein, has insisted that the Teamsters raise the rest. Once the funding issue has been ironed out and the election process is in place, voting, which is done by a mail ballot, will take about a month.

The candidate widely considered to have the best chance of victory is James P. Hoffa, making his second run for the job. Hoffa narrowly lost his last bid for the office to Ron Carey in a 1996 election.

That vote was thrown out last year by a federally appointed election officer over charges that the Carey campaign engaged in illegal fundraising. Carey himself took a leave of absence from the presidency and subsequently was expelled from the union by the Independent Review Board, a federally appointed board that oversees union activities.

Hoffa, a labor lawyer from Detroit, is said to enjoy strong support among the union's freight membership, where he outpolled Carey in 1996. He is campaigning on a pledge to unite the union and restore it to the power it once enjoyed. That promise inevitably brings to mind Hoffa's father, the legendary Teamster leader who headed the union when it was a potent force in labor and politics. But the elder Hoffa also is identified with the scandals that erupted over the Teamsters' alleged links to organized crime and with an era when the union's leaders enjoyed costly perks. That's a legacy the younger Hoffa has struggled to put behind him.

Hoffa's principal opponent, Tom Leedham, leader of a 4,000-member Portland, Ore., local, has mounted an aggressive campaign. But as a relative unknown, he faces an enormous challenge in overcoming Hoffa's huge lead in recognition and fundraising. Leedham, who had close ties to Carey but was not implicated in the fundraising scandal, is portraying himself as the candidate of reform.

A warehouseman himself, Leedham was appointed by Carey to head the warehousing division and should do well there. He also is campaigning hard among the 185,000 Teamsters who work for United Parcel Service, where Carey's strength was greatest. Leedham is counting on the support of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a Detroit-based group that campaigned vigorously for Carey, as well.

A third candidate, John Metz, is another Carey ally. He runs a St. Louis local as well as the union's public employees division. Hoffa's allies expect Leedham and Metz to wind up splitting the votes from Carey supporters, providing Hoffa with an easy victory.

The "old-guard, new-guard" issue is not the only one affecting the campaign. Hoffa charges that under Carey's leadership, the union almost went broke and that it needs better financial management. He also contends that Carey settled for weak contracts.

The public battle between the two sides should not distort what effect the election actually will have on the membership. "The day-to-day life of the rank-and-file member is not really going to change too much," predicts Budd, a specialist in labor relations. But the result could have important implications for Teamsters employers. The union won a significant victory last year in its strike against United Parcel Service. The clear willingness to strike helped it in negotiations over a national contract with less-than-truckload carriers. The Teamsters also are engaged in a hostile effort to organize drivers and dock workers at Overnite Transportation, and that is likely to continue for some time. Whoever the winner is probably will want to prove himself to the membership with a victory either in negotiations or in organizing. Fortunately for unionized LTL carriers and their customers, the new five-year pact should outlast the Teamsters' current internecine battles.

United Parcel Service may face some problems with the new leadership. The contract settlement last summer called for UPS to convert many part-time jobs to full-time positions, but that has not happened. UPS says that's because shipment volumes remain some 467,000 packages per day below pre-strike levels. The Teamsters say UPS is not living up to its contract commitment. That dispute may get acrimonious, but another strike is highly unlikely.