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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Teamster Reformers Score Crucial Victory in Chicago |
Current rating: 0 |
by Terry Meadows
Email: depot61844 (nospam) aol.com (unverified!) |
19 Mar 2001
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Reform slate wins seats for Teamster convention delegates in Chicago's 14,000-member Local 743. |
In a stunning upset for Teamsters\' president Jimmy Hoffa, a rank-and-file reform slate defeated Hoffa\'s in a heated race to elect Chicago Local 743 delegates to this June\'s Teamsters convention. Delegates will nominate officers -- including the union president -- and the reformers have vowed to back Hoffa\'s reform opponent, Tom Leedham. In a stunning upset for International Brotherhood of Teamsters\' Union president Jimmy Hoffa, Jr., a reform slate of rank-and-file workers defeated Hoffa\'s slate in a hotly contested Chicago Local 743 election for delegates to this June\'s Teamsters International Convention. Convention delegates will nominate candidates for regional and at-large vice presidents, international trustees, general secretary-treasurer -- and general president, the position Hoffa currently holds.
IBT Local 743\'s reform delegates, who ran under the moniker of the \'New Leadership Slate,\' have pledged to support Hoffa\'s opponent, Tom Leedham, at the convention. Leedham is being backed by a reform movement that includes the TDU -- Teamsters for a Democratic Union -- which for years has battled to overthrow corrupt, pro-management leadership in Teamsters\' locals across the country and return democratic control of the union to rank-and-file members.
\"This victory is a powerful testament to the movement to bring rank and file democracy back to one of the largest Teamsters\' locals in the country,\" said Kate Kleckner, a Local 743 member who served as the New Leadership Slate\'s campaign manager.
Local 743 represents more than 14,000 Chicago-area workers, making it one of the largest Teamsters\' locals in the country -- and because of its size, 743\'s reform slate will have a significantly weighted vote compared to other locals at the national convention. The local includes healthcare workers at the University of Chicago Hospitals, Rush/Presbyterian/St. Luke Hospital, St. Anthony\'s Hospital and Mercy Hospital; Blue Cross insurance workers; and manufacturing workers at Lakewood Engineering, Coleman Cable, Bagcraft and Sanford.
The election was a squeaker, with fewer than half a dozen votes separating many delegates on the competing Hoffa and reform slates. While counting of the mail-in ballots began on Saturday, March 3, the results weren\'t certified until March 8, when the New Leadership Slate won a coin toss to decide the outcome of one tied delegate race. The New Leadership Slate will send 11 delegates and 13 alternates -- including the top 3 alternate positions -- to the convention, compared to Hoffa\'s Take Back Slate, which will send 9 delegates and 7 alternates to the convention. A third competing slate won no delegate slots.
State Representative Julie Hamos (D-Evanston) ran the election, which was overseen by IBT election officer William Wertheimer, who was appointed by the 11th District Court as part of a consent decree to weed out organized crime influences in the Teamsters. About 2,300 workers voted in the election, and reformers have vowed to work to increase the level of membership participation in future contests. They attribute much of the low turnout to the Hoffa-allied leadership\'s long-standing practice of discouraging rank and file involvement, and note that many members have never even met the local\'s business agent or stewards.
The outcome of the delegates\' race represents a complete reversal of results in 743\'s last election for officers, held in 1998, when reformers lost a hotly contested battle for local leadership. Reformers contend that the 1998 election was tainted by employer meddling on behalf of Hoffa incumbents and vote fraud.
Local 743 has been plagued for decades by well-documented charges of pervasive corruption and collusion with management -- including signing sweetheart deals with bosses, rigging contract ratification votes and cooking elections for stewards, delegates and local officers. Hoffa\'s \'Take Back Slate\' was also bruised by charges that Local 743 president and Hoffa ally Chester Glanton, who is also a Teamsters\' International Vice President, has done a poor job of representing the interests of the rank and file membership. The local has lost thousands of members in recent years through employer-backed layoffs and privatization efforts that reformers say Glanton and his Hoffa allies have done little to prevent.
Glanton\'s ties to supporters of the local\'s previous presidents also may have hurt his slate. The Independent Review Board, which was created by court order in 1989 to root out mob influence and corruption in the Teamsters, removed Glanton\'s two predecessor, Don Peters and Robert Simpson, for allowing the Outfit to have undue influence in the local.
But management collusion remains perhaps the strongest criticism that local reformers level against Hoffa and his allies, and they note that the federal government has often used some locals\' past history of corruption as an excuse to further undercut reform efforts to build rank and file democracy and participation.
\"We are sick of Glanton and his cronies\' back room deals, and we are tired of being sold out to management,\" said Richard Berg, 743 New Leadership slate leader. \"We\'ve been battling to root out corruption and bring democracy to this local for years, and this election sends a clear message to Hoffa and his local supporters -- your thuggery cannot stop the movement to build a fighting union that truly represents the interests of its workers.\"
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See also:
http://www.igc.org/tdu/
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Good news! |
by Hammerhard MediaWorks
hammerhard (nospam) aol.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
19 Mar 2001
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Congratulations to all the rank and file delegates who won this critical election in Teamster Local 743. This is a giant step foward for the movement for union democracy in the the IBT.
Incidentally, the article posted above was actually written by Chris Geovanis of the Chicago IMC and appears as a feature story (including a group photo of the rank and file delegates slate)-in that site's center column.
Check it out at chicago.indymedia.org |
