June 27, 2011: The Tuesday issue of the New York Times features Sandy Pope's campaign on the front page of the Business Section.

"The anger among the membership is at an all-time high," Sandy Pope told the newspaper. "The members are much more willing to look for change than five years ago."

Click here to read the article at The New York Times website.

Teamster Convention Updates

Hoffa Says Lets Run a Clean Election. We Agree.

Constitutional Committee Recommends Few Changes

June 17, 2011: Will Hoffa use the Teamster Convention to face the issues or duck for cover?

In a few days, thousands of elected Teamster delegates, alternates, and guests will come together in Las Vegas for the Teamster Convention.

This five-year Convention should be used to take on the tough challenges facing our union and make plans to take on Corporate America.

Instead, Hoffa is planning a tightly-scripted Vegas act. (Spoiler Alert: click here for a partial preview of Hoffa's plans.)

The Convention is our union’s highest decision-making body. It has the authority to amend the Teamster Constitution, for better or for worse.

At previous Conventions, TDU members have won important reforms like majority rule on contracts, and the right to vote on supplements to national contracts.

We’ve proposed other amendments that would increase members’ rights including the right to vote on any dues increases. We proposed the language which gave Teamster members the Right to Vote for convention delegates and IBT officers.

Hoffa has directed Convention Delegates to reject such reforms.

Hoffa prefers a union run from the top-down, and runs the Convention the same way.

A Hoffa "whip" instructs delegates how to vote at the 2006 Teamster Convention.Local union officers are warned to wear Hoffa campaign vests or risk being put on an enemies list. Hoffa floor whips tell delegates how to vote with a thumbs up or thumbs down sign.

The Hoffa Campaign calls this “Unity” and claims it builds Teamster Power. In reality, it reduces Teamsters to being bystanders in our own union.

The most important thing that will happen at the convention is the nomination of Sandy Pope to run against Hoffa for Teamster General President.

Pope has been on the road campaigning from Los Angeles to the Northeast this week, and she is getting more endorsements from Delegates every day.

Sandy mobilizes Teamsters members; she doesn’t script them. And that’s the only way we’ll rebuild Teamster power, especially in these tough times.

May 20, 2011: Members have launched a campaign to reach 100,000 Teamster voters in June. Will you do your part?

Fed Up with Hoffa

“Teamsters in Memphis are fed up with Hoffa. It’s up to you and me to go out and tell members about why Sandy Pope is the best candidate.

“Now is the time to get the campaign rolling. We’ve set a goal of reaching 100,000 Teamsters.

“I know we can do it!”

Toni Jackson, UPS, Local 667, Memphis

Atlanta Backs Sandy Pope

“When Atlanta Teamsters met with Sandy, they got to see firsthand her years of experience in the truck and at the bargaining table.

“In Atlanta, we’re pulling out all the stops to get Sandy Pope’s name and message out—wearing Sandy T-shirts, raising money for campaign videos, taking the message Teamster-to-Teamster.”

Everette Cole, ABF, Local 728, Atlanta

Join TDU

“TDU brings together members who care about our union into a national network. If you want to elect Sandy Pope, we need you in TDU.

“With TDU’s help, we swept our delegate election. Now we’re continuing to build TDU and recruit new members in Local 690. Join today and let’s win this election.”

Tim Hill, UPS, Local 690, Spokane, Wash.

May 6, 2011: Check out this evaluation of Sandy Pope’s campaign for General President and program to restore Teamster Power–and Hoffa’s refusal to discuss his record.

Click here to read Can Sandy Pope Revitalize the Teamsters? in this week’s The Nation magazine.

Click here to read Pope Vows to Revive Teamsters’ Flagging Freight Division, in the current edition of DC Velocity.

Click here to read Would These Guys Buy Jimmy Hoffa a Drink? in the May issue of New York Magazine.

May 2, 2011: Sandy Pope’s campaign for Teamster President is featured in the May issue of New York magazine.

“These days, there’s a sense of anger and betrayal among many Teamsters,” the article reports. “If elected, Pope plans to get back to basics: stop writing checks to politicians and instead use the money to recruit more new members, target workers at nonunionized competitors, and end what she sees as Hoffa’s autocratic ways.”

Click here to read Would These Guys Buy Jimmy Hoffa a Drink? in the May issue of New York Magazine.

April 22, 2011: Sandy Pope appeared on national TV on April 21 to stand up for good union jobs and against corporate union busting by Boeing.

The interview came on the heels of a charge by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that Boeing illegally moved production of its new 787 airliner in retaliation for a strike by the machinists’ union.

Click here to view.

April 5, 2011: After six months of investigation and three months of appeals, court-appointed election overseers have ordered Teamster President James Hoffa to acknowledge that he attempted to buy election support by offering jobs and pensions.

Hoffa must pay for a mailing to all Teamster locals publicizing the attempt, and place a notice on the union’s website and magazine.

Click here to read more at Labor Notes.

March 28, 2011: Would you like to attend the Teamster Convention as a guest? The Convention – the Teamsters Union’s highest body -- will be held June 27 – July 1 in Las Vegas.

Members and retirees are invited to attend. Some information, including a Guest Registration form, is available here.

If you need to use union leave to get unpaid leave of absence time from your employer, you can request that through your local union. Contact TDU regarding this issue, along with suggestions on where to stay, when to arrive, and any other questions you may have.

March 30, 2011: Judge Kenneth Conboy held a third hearing on March 24 to consider the appropriate punishment for a scheme in which James Hoffa and three International vice presidents were caught using union funds to try to buy-off political rivals.

The hearing was the result of appeals filed by TDU co-chair Frank Halstead and by Fred Gegare that the Election Supervisor’s remedy was inadequate given the seriousness of the violations.

Hoffa Offered Extra Salaries, Pensions

Election Supervisor Richard Mark in late 2010 conducted a six-month investigation in this matter.

It found that Hoffa and International Vice Presidents Ken Hall, Rome Aloise and Tyson Johnson offered no-show jobs, and in one case an extra pension, to try to patch up a split in the Hoffa camp. The split led to the formation of a slate headed by Fred Gegare.

According to Mark, the investigation revealed “a culture, or mind-set where elected union officials do not clearly distinguish between their fiduciary responsibility to the union and their separate political objective of getting elected.”

Judge Conboy has twice ruled that the Election Supervisor took insufficient action in response to the Hoffa bribery scandal.

After the first hearing, Judge Conboy ordered the Election Supervisor to conduct a complete investigation. The Election Supervisor conducted the investigation but ruled that no remedy was called for because the bribes had been turned down.

Conboy reversed the Election Supervisor on appeal and ordered him to devise a remedy.

Weak Remedy Appealed

In response, the Election Supervisor ordered that a notice informing members of Hoffa’s violations appear in the April issue of the Teamster magazine and on the Teamster website and that the notice be posted inside local union halls.

Halstead and Gegare are appealing the remedy as inadequate.

Hoffa’s campaign attorney, his son David Hoffa, submitted a brief applauding the Election Supervisor’s remedy, while still claiming his dad’s innocence.

“When the guilty party is happy with the judge’s sentence, that’s a sign that the sentence is too light,” Halstead said.

TDU attorney Barbara Harvey, representing Halstead, has submitted briefs outlining why this remedy is inadequate to deal with such a serious violation.

Harvey argued that a candidate debate, with DVD distribution to all members, would force Hoffa to answer directly to the members for the scheme and to explain what action his administration would take to insure that members’ dues are never again used to try to buy political support for an incumbent General President.

Judge Conboy, who serves as the Election Appeals Master, rarely overturns the remedies chosen by the Election Supervisor.

You can find updated information on this issue at www.TDU.org as well as a link to the Election Supervisor’s 30-page report on the attempted bribery scheme.

March 25, 2011: Teamster members are building local campaign committees to spread the word and unite Teamsters to vote for new leadership and a new direction for our union.

Sandy Pope has been on the road winning Teamsters over.

“Some of the members who came to our event were coming in with an open mind,” said Bob Slezak, who helped pull together a meet-the-candidate event in Eastern Mass. “But they left Sandy supporters.”