No Member Vote: Chicago Locals 714 & 726 Become Local 700
February 1, 2010: The Hoffa administration has revoked the charters of Chicago Locals 714 and 726, and created a new Local 700 for Chicagoland public sector Teamsters.
Members were not given a vote; they simply got a letter announcing the switch.
Rumors had circulated that a change was imminent. But members thought they would have the right to vote on any merger or change to their locals.
The Teamster Constitution requires a membership vote when one local is merged into another. By revoking the charters, Hoffa was able to subvert this membership right. The “new” local will continue under the trusteeship of Joint Council 25 President John Coli. Both locals were already under trusteeship.
Creating Local 700 with the continued trusteeship gives Hoffa and Coli another 18 months to get their people in place. If they expect to win the support of the members, the assigned trustees and union staff need to be a lot more available and accountable when it comes to enforcing our contract. Up to this point, that hasn’t been the case.
The trusteeship is no better than the board that was removed. Some of the business agent still on the payroll doing nothing as usual. Members cant even get a call back from the B/A. They kept the Hoffa people so they can try to continue the false impression of what a union stands for. Old guard, be lucky you have a job jerks.Bow to the Mayor and roll over when commanded by Hoffa.The members at the CTA havent been issued a copy of their contract since the trusteeship issued by Ron Carey. Atleast the trusteeship of Ron Carey provided members a copy of their contract then.Now the Chicago way is back to business as usual. I can say one thing good about removed sec treasuer Tom Clair is he went out with a boom, not caving in to Mayor Daley and Jimmy Hoffa's threat of removal if he didnt drop to his knees and sell the members out and convince the members to open their contract and give backs to management.
Bill Logan is now making local 700 his own Bank account! Bill $300,000 per year logan. I wonder if he was born with the name Bill or did he get it on his own? And I hope to God my fellow teamsters in local 700 give him the boot and not their vote ...