June 17, 2008: International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa has placed Chicago-based Local 714 under the control of a trustee, alleging that local leaders maintain contact with barred individuals and operate nepotistic work assignment systems, IBT officials said June 16. Hoffa's action comes nearly 10 months after the Independent Review Board, the court-supervised panel charged with drumming corruption out of the Teamsters, suggested similar action with respect to Local 714 (211 DLR...

June 12, 2008: On June 9 the International Union finally followed the recommendation of the Independent Review Board (IRB) and placed Chicago Local 714 into trusteeship. The letter from James Hoffa lists a number of reasons, including job favoritism for the Hogan family, refusal to transfer assets that belong to trade show members to their new local, continued contact with banned members Billy and Robert Hogan, and refusing to cooperate in the monitoring of the...

May 6th, 2008: The focus of yesterday’s Teamster flap—it hasn’t quite reached ’gatehood yet—centered on whether or not Obama wants to reduce federal oversight of the country’s fourth-largest union. Obama said that the union had done a “terrific job cleaning itself in-house” with regard to corruption but denied giving a “blanket commitment” to cutting back oversight. Hillary Clinton, too, has that it’s time to “turn the page” on the consent decree, but her campaign says...