August 20, 2010: A Teamster hero was honored yesterday when New York City unveiled Ron Carey Avenue.

New York City officially unveiled Ron Carey Avenue, renaming the street near the home of the Teamster militant who changed the direction of our union.

The new leadership of Teamsters Local 804 joined members of the Carey family at the ceremony.

Carey made labor history in 1991 when he teamed up with Teamsters for a Democratic Union and led a reform ticket in the first one-member, one-vote election for top Teamster officers.

Working Teamsters swept the Ron Carey Members First Slate into office. During his tenure, Carey reversed a 16-year decline in Teamster membership and led members to victory in the historic UPS strike in 1997.

Carey stepped down from office after the strike and was later barred from the union for a fund raising scandal in his reelection campaign. He was later exonerated from charges that he had any role in the fund raising scandal.

For the rest of his life, Carey remained a reform supporter and vocal critic of the Hoffa administration—including the givebacks in the recent UPS contract.

Ron Carey died on December 11, 2008.

Click here to learn more about Teamster reform history and the Ron Carey era.

Click here to watch the video, “The UPS Strike: America’s Victory.”