Teamster trouble
Lean Production: A Capitalist Utopia?
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* USA Last August, just days after the Teamsters' stunning victory over UPS, a court-apponted election officer annonced that the election for top officers in the 1.4 million union must be rerun. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in union funds had been diverted to help re-elect Ron Carey president. Because Carey had such moral authority as a genuine militant, those closest to him were stunned by the charges. An even heavier blow fell when, on November 17, Election Appeals Master Kenneth Conboy ruled Ron Carey ineligible to run for office. Dianne Feeley In the late 1980s Teamsters for A Democratic Union (TDU), a rank-and-file organisation fighting for democracy in what had been a mob-controlled and corrupt union, intervened in a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. TDU demanded-and won-the right of the membership to vote on top officers, with the federal government monitoring the election process. The union leadership agreed, thinking they could get away with a veneer of democracy without any content. Ron Carey, then president of a large UPS local in New York City, ran for president as a reformer against two members of the corrupt "Old Guard." To everyone's surprise, he won the three-way race.
Once in office Ron Carey ended the practice of multiple salaries for union officers, sold off the Lear jets that represented their lavish lifestyle, stepped up drives to organise unorganised workers (only 10% of US workers are represented by a union), put 75 locals under trustee-
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RESEARCH AND EDUCATION • 48 bed conference centre with six channel interpretation system, library and television room, ten minutes from the centre of Amsterdam and 2 minutes from ship and began the process of turing the locals back to the membership. He also led a one-day wildcat strike against UPS in order to protect working conditions.
Under Carey's leadership, too, the Teamsters fought against the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and began to forge ties with Mexican workers.
While the "new" AFL-CIO leaders talk about organising the unorganised,
Carey went much further: he stood for internal democracy, for workers organising other workers, for a squeaky clean union, and he opposed "co-operation" or
"team concept" schemes that disarmed workers. Although a genuine reformer.
Carey remained an ally of TDU, not a member. He never was won to the idea that a rank-and-file movement is a strategy. For him, the union should function as an effective service organisation that mobilised its membership when that proved tactically necessary
During Carey's first campaign, his UPS local and TDU were the backbone of his race. But shortly after his election, Carey brought into the union several political consultants with close ties to the Democratic Party. These would be placed in charge of his 1996 campaign-and prove to be his undoing. The charges
To date three Carey . staffers—including Jere Nash, Carey's campaign manager-have pled guilty and face possible jail sentences for mail fraud, conspiracy and embezzling union funds. While Carey has disavowed any knowledge of their illegal activity, the sums of money involved are staggering—nearly three-quarters of a million dollars diverted members' dues to the Carey campaign! Whether or not Carey "knew, he is nonetheless politically responsible for the actions of his campaign staffers.
Conboy's ruling, disqualifying Carey from the ballot said he found it impossible to believe Carey had been unaware of the illegal activity. However the election rerun process is not going forward because Carey's opponent—James Hoffa, Jr. (son of the long-time, mob-connected Teamster leader, James Hoffa)-has also been accused of engaging in illegal campaign activity. His campaign is under investigation because $1.8 million remains unaccounted for. (Earlier in the campaign cycle the
UNFAIR
TEAMSTERS
election officer had ruled $200,000 in the
Hoffa war chest was in violation of the law, and had to be returned.)
As we go to press, everything is in flux: Who will be allowed to run? What's the process by which candidates can declare their candidacy? What is the time table for the election? What are the election rules? Nobody knows.
Carey is appealing the jude's decision, but most observers believe he will not be successful. Meanwhile, the Independent Review Board (a governmental body set up as part of the oversight process) has charged Carey with misuse of union funds and on November 25 he took an unpaid leave of absence. Teamsters Secretary-Treasurer Tom Sever is now acting president.
On the other hand, it is a long shot that Hoffa will be disqualified. After all, his backers are professionals at money laundering. Hoffa is a mob-connected lawyer with ties to right-wing, and even mainstream, politicians. Although he has never been a working Teamster, Hoffa initially projected an attractive image of a "strong leader" who would return the union to the powerful role it played in the 1950s. when his father was president. Now that Hoffa sees Carey out of the picture, he has
Throughout this period the Wall Street Journal has continually and viciously attacked Carey. The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, presided over by Peter Hoekstra, a anti-union Republican representative from Michigan, conducted Congressional hearings that provided a platform for Congressmen to object to financially underwriting the election and Hoffa supporters to call for a park
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18 International Viewpoint #296
Tony Smith
government trusteeship. While the right wing did not orchestrate the investigation of the Teamster election, it is obviously using the incident to discredit the idea of union reform, and attempting to undercut the tremendous solidarity generated by the Teamsters' strike against UPS. What do TDU do?
Just days following Judge Conboy's decision to run Carey ineligible, TDU held its annual convention. These yearly events serve to bring new individuals into TDU, outline a realistic strategy for the coming year, consolidate a leadership team and celebrate recent victories. A record 600 turned out, making it the largest ever TDU convention. TDUers worked through their shock over the latest charges, heard Carey speak of the possibility that there might be a reform slate without him, and began to construct a plan for the coming year.
Some reporters were surprised at the depth of positive feelings among TDUers toward Carey. But it isn't so
Since the Teamsters is an industrial union that organises all workers, its work sites are various: drivers, warehouse and cannery workers, flight attendants. This means that the union has fairly well-paid workers as well as those working close to the minimum wage. At each TDU convention, workers meet by sector to discuss their problems and campaigns. The 1997 conference hosted the first ever meeting of Teamster rental car agents-low-paid, workers covered by 'sweetheart" contracts ("deals" worked out between union officials and the company, determined to fight for decent wages and working conditions.
The convention passed two resolutions. One expresses solidarity with Carey and supports the direction in which he led the union over the past six years. The second resolves that, in the event that Carey steps aside as candidate, the convention directs the TDU leadership to work with other reformers to support another reformer. It specifically opposes the creation of a "reconciliation"
At the convention some leftists proposed organising a defence committee for Carey and picketing in front of the courthouse. They pointed to the right-wing attacks against Carey as proof of a rulingclass offensive and called for opposition to "government intervention" in the union, ignoring the reality that, without this intervention, there would have been no election of top officers in the first place.
But the reality of organising, and the weight of the charges, suggest another course. TDU has begun to outline the framework for supporting a reform slate and is considering possible candidates for the presidency. The convention heard from
• Tom Leedham (46) is based in Portland, Oregon. He directs the union's 400,000 member warehouse division, and is a pioneer of member-to-
USA * like there will be new, tighter financial rules for the election, the reformers will have at least the natural advantage of knowing how to put together an effective grassroots campaign.
Teamsters for a Democratic Union is now 22 years old. It has shown itself to be a tough little organisation that knows how to wage a good fight and it isn't afraid to loose. But one of TDU's biggest problems is that there are no similar rank-and-file movements in other major US unions. * Transformation and regroupment The collapse of Stalinism and the continuing capitalist crisis has contradictory effects. Myths and illusions connected to the restoration of capitalism in the postStalinist societies have dissipated, faced with the actually existing market economy. But reactions to the socio-economic crisis all too often take the form of reactionary tendencies of an ethnic, nationalist, racial or religious character. Hence the urgent need to rebuild a world-wide movement of anti-capitalist struggle, taking account of
TEAMSTERS surprising. These are people who campaigned with Carey from the beginning. They know what his militant leadership has meant, and they gave him the benefit of the doubt. Unlike the reporters, they hadn't read the judge's 70-page decision or carefully considered the now-available evidence.
In a sense Carey freed TDU when he stated that his fate is in the hands of judges, while the future was up to them. In the course of the weekend, TDUers discussed the problems the union faces in the upcoming national
Master Freight Agreement, which expires in March. It covers 120.000 Teamstersbut unlike UPS, where the employer is making super profits, the freight industry is economically precarious. Despite the differences between UPS and freight,
TDUers saw the UPS organising model as the effective example to follow.
member organising.
• Ken Hall (40) is president of a West Virginia local. He leads the union's parcel division and was key to the
UPS negotiations.
• Richard Nelson (61) leads the freight division, and is central to the upcoming
Neither Hall or Nelson supported Carey in 1991. The fact that they have become genuine reform candidates show the change that has occurred within the Teamsters union over the last several years. Leedham is a veteran reformer who did support both of Carey's election bids.
None is nationally well known and obviously any one would face an uphill battle against Hoffa, who has instant name recognition. But TDU has always faced an uphill battle. It began its existence by physically having to defend its right to meet against paid thugs. Now that it looks the recomposition of the workers' movement which is underway as a result of the double failure of social democracy and Stalinism. Regroupments of forces determined to learn the lessons of the historical abomination that was Stalinism and to continue, against the winds and the tides, to fight against capitalism are being realised in a number of countries. In all the countries where such possibilities exist, the organisations of the Fourth International are ready to be part of the re-groupment process. We consider this as an important step towards the recomposition of the anti-capitalist left on a world scale. At the international level. the Fourth International is an active participant in re-groupment, bringing with it the advantages of a long tradition of combat against capitalism and Stalinism. Price: £5/$10/60FF plus 10% postage charge for orders of 1-4 copies. Order from your local
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