LEXIS-NEXIS® Academic Universe

Search Terms: Permanent, Normal, Trade

Document 160 of 974.

May 14, 2000, Sunday

SECTION: Editorial; Ed. Final; Pg. 5B

LENGTH: 589 words

HEADLINE: WITH HOFFA AT WHEEL, TEAMSTERS RALLY

BYLINE: By James Hansen

BODY:

Thanks to Jim Hoffa, the Teamsters have their swagger back.

In recent years, things haven't gone well for what was once the most powerful and feared labor union in the world. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters had struggled under a 30-year succession of mostly incompetent leaders before Hoffa became president of the union last year.

Today, the IBT appears on the verge of resurrection and perhaps on its way back to the glory days when Hoffa's father was organizing everyone from policemen to roulette croupiers.

Little more than a year ago, Hoffa succeeded Ron Carey, who was booted out of the union after it was discovered that $1 million in union funds had been illegally diverted from the Teamsters' treasury to Carey's re-election campaign.

More than 30 years ago, when Hoffa the elder led the Teamsters, the union had almost 2 million members. Under Hoffa's successors, membership dropped to a low of 1.1 million. Today, the union has 1.5 million members and is growing.

The latest of several recent Teamster organizing successes will bring some 20,000 new members into the union from a single company, Dobbs International, an airline catering service that employs mostly Asian and Latin American immigrants. Nearly 800 of these workers are employed at Denver International Airport and were organized by Teamsters Local 435 as part of the larger group.

When Hoffa became Teamsters president, the IBT was facing bankruptcy and a membership that was rapidly eroding. Hoffa has reversed that. The budget is balanced, the union is operating in the black and major organizing campaigns - such as the one at Dobbs - are ongoing around the country.

And the Teamsters' financial problems will be further eased if the union wins a federal lawsuit seeking more than $9 million from Carey and his pals, whom the union accuses of looting the treasury by engaging in racketeering, embezzlement, breach of fiduciary duties and legal malpractice.

In addition to the union's money woes, Hoffa was confronted with other problems that had been ignored by the Carey administration, including the negotiation of three tough labor contracts covering 31,000 workers at Northwest Airlines, Anheuser-Busch breweries - including the company's Fort Collins facility - and car-haul truck drivers. All have now been negotiated.

Under Hoffa, the Teamsters successfully opposed the Clinton administration's plan to open southern borders to Mexican trucks, which the union says are unsafe and are driven by untrained, unlicensed and grossly underpaid Mexican drivers.

Moreover - as Rep. Diana DeGette, who represents Denver in Congress, learned recently in a meeting with local Teamsters leaders - the IBT is a most vocal opponent of Clinton's plan to grant permanent normal trade relations to the Chinese government. "We will do whatever it takes to protect American workers," Hoffa says.

The peripatetic Hoffa is immersed in rebuilding the union's political program, which boasted the largest political action fund in the nation before Carey took office in 1992.

The Teamsters rank and file believe politics is a two-way street, where unions that provide politicians with money and shoe leather should be able to expect in-kind political support when bread-and-butter labor issues are debated in Congress.

With Hoffa at the wheel, the Teamsters appear committed to a tougher approach, not only with employers but also with politicians. The rank and file's response: It's about time.

NOTES:
Colorado Labor
James Hansen is active in organized labor. His e-mail address is jayhans@aol.com.

LOAD-DATE: May 17, 2000

Document 160 of 974.


Search Terms: Permanent, Normal, Trade
To narrow your search, please enter a word or phrase: