April 5, 2005: With members facing pension and health care cuts, RISE investigators uncovered multiple benefit funds in Chicago that contract to service providers with apparent connections to organized crime. RISE investigators discovered that several funds are giving business to the notorious Group Administrators (GA), an outfit run by David Dorfman. Dorfman’s father Allen is an organized crime figure who was indicted for bilking the Central States Pension Fund out of millions. Dorfman and GA...

April 5, 2005: “My problem is with one man: Jim Hoffa.” That’s what Ed Stier said when he resigned last year as the head of Project RISE, the internal Teamster anti-corruption program. Now we know why. TDU has obtained a confidential report that Stier issued to Hoffa. It warned of intelligence reports that Chicago mafia figures were exerting influence in the General President’s office to block investigations into their organized crime interests. The report charges...

April 5, 2005: How many times have you seen Hoffa and Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel brag that they have put the International Union into the black financially? And that it was “bankrupt” when they took office six years ago? The truth is that the International Union is millions of dollars in the red. Don’t take our word for it. This data comes from the IBT’s own audited reports and financial reports filed with the U.S. Department...

February 5, 2005: The contracts that cover about 8,000 Teamster drivers, warehouse workers and office clerks in the Southern California grocery industry are set to expire Sept. 15, 2005. Coming on the heels of last year’s grueling four-and-a-half month strike and lockout of the UFCW store clerks, these negotiations are sure to be some of the toughest and most demanding in recent history. Are the employers in a position to take us on like they...

February 17, 2005: Boston Local 25 President Ritchie Reardon told Joint Council 10 that the IBT Parcel Division approved a mid-contract giveback to UPS that violates language in the New England supplement. Reardon’s statement was part of his testimony in a hearing on internal union charges over the concession. The testimony marks the first time that anyone has put on the record that the IBT approved the contract concession. Reardon said the approval was not...

February 1, 2005: The Tom Leedham Campaign is off to a fast start and the Tom Leedham Strong Contracts, Good Pensions Slate members are poised to become officially accredited candidates. Teamsters have been petitioning across North America to make the Leedham slate the officially accredited team to put forward new leadership for the Teamsters Union. It will also give all Teamsters the right to hear from the candidates in the Teamster Magazine. (The Leedham campaign...

January 28, 2005:Members in two local unions representing over 10,000 Georgia Teamsters have voted this fall for new leadership. In November Local 728 members elected the Members First Slate. And on Dec. 15 Local 528 members elected a slate that successfully challenged Hoffa’s hand-picked successor in that local. Georgia has a long tradition in the history of Teamster reform. Teamsters here have also been deeply involved in the effort to stop pension and health benefit...

January 28, 2005: New York Local 805 members elected the Sandy Pope Leadership Action Team in balloting on Dec. 7. Pope, a long-time leader in the Teamster reform movement and a member of the TDU International Steering Committee, defeated the incumbent president by a wide margin. All seven members of her slate were elected. Cuts to the Local 805 pension were a major issue in the campaign. Pope opposed them and said the union should...

January 28, 2005: On December 9 Judge James B Moran directed the trustees of the Teamster Central States Pension Fund to turn more documents over to participants in the fund. The decision expands an October 21 victory won by Teamster members in Locals 638, 391 and 20. Central States has now been ordered to reveal quarterly reports, along with financial and actuarial supplementary attachments, from August of 2000 up till the present, and into the...

January 5, 2005: Some Teamster contracts address the issue of excessive overtime. Here are two examples. Forced overtime is a huge problem in grocery warehousing. Oregon Local 206 has fought for strong contract language limiting overtime in their grocery contracts. Local 206 Secretary-Treasurer Tom Leedham knows about forced overtime from back when he was a rank-and-file member working at United Grocers (now Unified Western Grocers) in the 1970s. “They would work us from 5 p.m....