Former Teamster Power-Broker’s Plea Deal: Billy Hogan Pays $10,000 Fine
June 3, 2010: Billy Hogan Jr, the former Teamster vice president and head of the Chicago Joint Council, has made a plea bargain to settle contempt charges in federal court. But he vows to continue to press for relief from the Independent Review Board’s ban on his involvement with Teamster members.
On May 27 Hogan appeared in federal court in New York for approval of a settlement in which he agreed to abide by the ban on any contact with Teamster members, and paid a fine of $10,000.
Sources close to Hogan say that while he cannot appeal a settlement, friends of his may pursue legal action to try to end the IRB’s ban on contact with Teamsters, which he claims is a limit on his free speech rights. The issue has been pursued previously, without success.
Hogan was the head of Chicago Local 714, a post he inherited from his father and later passed on to his son as well as the president of Joint Council 25, and Hoffa’s chosen running mate on the Hoffa-Hogan Slate in 1996.
That was derailed when the IRB charged him with making a sweetheart deal in the Las Vegas convention industry with a company in which a Hogan family member was a principal. He, along with Hoffa’s Special Assistant Dane Passo, was given a hearing and banned from the Teamsters Union.
Since that time he has held no Teamster post, but repeatedly defied the ban on contact with Teamster members, contending that it unfairly limits his personal freedom.
Fred Gegare to Run for General President
May 28, 2010: On May 25, International Vice President Fred Gegare announced his candidacy for Teamster General President. Incumbent President James Hoffa announced his candidacy earlier, and is circulating petitions to become accredited.
Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), the Teamster reform movement which backed Tom Leedham and Ron Carey in previous elections, has not yet announced a candidate or made any endorsement.
Gegare, contacted about this campaign, said that “members voices are not being heard under Hoffa.” He said he intends to campaign across the country, but not assemble a slate until the end of 2010. He said that Hoffa is listening to insiders, not to Teamster members.
Gegare is the union chair of the Central States Pension Fund, an International vice president, the head of the Dairy Division, head of the Food Processing Division and the President of Wisconsin Joint Council 39.
According to a campaign letter faxed to all locals on May 26, Hoffa has the support of the majority of the General Executive Board, all of whom ran on his slate in 2006 or have been appointed by him since that time. However, Gegare and International vice presidents Brad Slawson and Al Hobart are not supporting Hoffa.
We contacted the Hoffa campaign, but Hoffa spokesman Todd Thompson declined to comment.
Elections for IBT convention delegate will be held in all local unions. In most locals, the elections will be held in January-March, 2011. The IBT Convention, where candidates are nominated, will be June 27-July 1, 2011. The election for General President and all International officers will be in November 2011.
Gegare’s campaign letter is available here.
The Hoffa-Keegel campaign letter is available here.
An Election Timeline is available here.
Hoffa’s Surrender
April 2, 2010: Teamsters who believe in protecting our contracts and benefits are coming together for change.
If it seems like contract enforcement has never been weaker, you’re not imagining things.
The Hoffa administration has given up on standing up to the employers until the recession is over—at least.
Don’t take our word for it. International Union officials say so themselves.
Hoffa’s point man at UPS, Ken Hall, recently announced that “2009 was not the right time” to enforce the contract because of the economy.
That goes a long way toward explaining our union’s surrender at UPS, YRC, ABF, UPS Freight, carhaul and many other employers.
Hoffa Waves • Top Teamster at UPS says it's the "WRONG TIME" to enforce the contract
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It’s not easy to make gains in a recession. But that doesn’t mean we have to give up the store.
Hoffa’s only answer to corporate America is go-along, get along. That’s not a strategy. It’s surrender.
Teamster members who believe in protecting our contracts, jobs and benefits are coming together for change.
TDU is our tool to share information, enforce our rights and take back our union. Stand up for your future. Join today.
LM-2 Union Financial Reports Now Available
April 2, 2010: The 2009 financial reports for Teamster locals, joint councils, conferences and the International Union are now available.
The International Union form, which is 432 pages long, shows some big cuts made:
- Representation spending is down by 15 percent.
- Political activity is down 43 percent
- Grants to locals and strike benefit expenditures are down, too.
But Hoffa took a raise. Last year his total compensation was $362,869. With members hit by wage cuts or freezes, pension cuts, and layoffs, do you think Hoffa could have at least frozen his salary?
To find out how to get a copies of the LM-2 forms, call TDU at (313) 842-2600, or go to www.TDU.org/lm2
Teamster Political Efforts: Where the Money Goes
April 2, 2010: The Teamsters Union, like all major unions, raises voluntary political donations from members (the DRIVE program), and uses the resources to inform voters and influence legislative and regulatory measures affecting Teamster members.
Unions can never match corporate money, but do spend a fair amount. The best bang for our buck is when our union mobilizes members to join in campaigns to protect our pensions and pass laws to protect workers’ rights.
Do you want to know where the Teamster money goes?
You can look-up which candidates got DRIVE funds in each election cycle here.
You can learn a little about Teamster lobbying efforts here.
This same website can help you learn about corporate money and its vast influence, and the “revolving door” between key government officers and the lobbyists and consultants.
This information is compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), which is a nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics and the effect of money and lobbying activity on elections and public policy.
Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) is the reform movement of Teamsters working to make our union stronger and more democratic. TDU does not endorse political candidates office in federal, state or local elections.
Southern Locals Paying $1.7 Million for Multiple Pensions
March 25, 2010: Every local in the South is being forced to pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to bankroll big extra pensions for Teamster officials.
It’s a case of misusing union members’ money to provide outsized perks to officials, instead of to build our Teamsters Union.
The locals are paying about $1.7 million this year to the Southern Region of Teamsters Pension Fund, which covers only the full-time officers and staff of local unions in the Southern Region. All of them already are covered by other pension plans.
Tyson Johnson is one of the trustees of the Southern Region Teamsters Pension Fund.The new fee went into effect three months ago, on January 1, and is 14 percent of the total local union payroll. Here’s how it is affecting some locals:
- A small local of about 1,000, on a tight budget, is hit for about $25,000 a year.
- A large local is hit for up to $150,000 a year, enough to hire two organizers.
- Some locals, such as Georgia Local 528, had to lay off a business agent, so members get less representation.
The local unions apparently have no choice about paying the fee.
In 2004 this fund cut benefits going forward, so the big pay-outs are going to long-time officials who retire and collect a huge extra pension, on top of their other pensions.
T.C. Stone, the former head of Dallas Local 745, got a check for over $1 million from this fund, after he was kicked out of our union in 1997 for signing a sham contract and advancing union funds to himself.
The three Trustees who head this fund are Tyson Johnson, Ken Wood, and Willie Smith, who will each draw a third lucrative pension in retirement.
Due to the 2004 cuts, newer officers and union employees are not going to collect anywhere near as much, and are forced to contribute six percent of their own salary, up to $60,000 per year, to the Fund. So most full-time officials must contribute $3,600 per year and will not receive a fat pension from this fund.
In 1993, Teamster president Ron Carey stopped any further benefit accruals in yet another officers-only pension fund, the Affiliates Plan. He also abolished the wasteful Area Conferences, and their officers-only pension boondoggles. These reforms saved our union some $30 million per year. This Southern Fund was then so well funded—over 200 percent funded—that no contributions were required. Later, under the Hoffa administration, it was depleted.
Our union’s precious financial resources should go toward winning better contracts and organizing to build a stronger Teamsters Union. This kind of waste of dues to buy a rich lifestyle for a few officials has no place in our union.
What do you think? Click here to send your comments to Teamsters for a Democratic Union.
Local 82 Members Will Clean Up Their Union
February 26, 2010: On trial for assaulting a member. Caught using thugs to dole out jobs under a sham contract. Under grand jury investigation.
IBT Trade Show Director John Perry is out of control. But Hoffa tells members there’s nothing he can do.
John Perry and JoJo BurhoeThe International Union’s Trade Show Division Director is on trial for assaulting a member after he filed a grievance. So is his number one enforcer, a violent criminal named JoJo Burhoe who is on trial for beating a union member unconscious and sending him to the hospital.
Now, a grand jury is investigating them for intimidating witnesses to try to get the assault charges dismissed.
And an embarrassing affidavit has been leaked in which Perry, the Secretary-Treasurer of Boston Local 82, details how he put Burhoe and other thugs in charge of doling out trade show jobs under a sham contract.
Local 82 members have repeatedly contacted the International Union for help. Hoffa’s response? A signed letter saying the International Union can’t investigate members’ complaints or protect them from violent threats made by union officials.
In fact, Perry remains on Hoffa’s payroll to the tune of sixty grand a year.
Sham Contract
TDU has obtained a confidential NLRB affidavit signed by Perry that reveals a scheme that puts Burhoe and other Local 82 enforcers in charge of doling out trade show jobs from nonunion employers.
According to Perry’s own testimony, a nonunion trade show employer contacts Perry about doing work in the local’s jurisdiction. Perry instructs the company to contact Burhoe who lines up the workforce. Burhoe’s friends are then put to work paid by “Union Payroll” which advertises itself as providing weekly “payroll processing and timely payroll delivery” in keeping with union contracts.
Under the scheme, Local 82 members who work or shape for legitimate trade show employers have no chance of performing this work. Union Payroll is, in fact, signatory to a collective bargaining agreement with Local 82. But the hiring procedure outlined in Perry’s affidavit makes a mockery of that agreement.
Local 82 members cannot shape for Union Payroll. Their only chance at employment is being on the private list of JoJo Burhoe or another of Perry’s enforcer pals.
Thugs, Assaults & Threats
The Union Payroll scam is just the latest example of what members say is a devil’s pact that Perry has made with a Boston goon squad. They provide Perry with muscle to control Local 82, in exchange for their control over who gets to work lucrative trade show jobs.
Burhoe’s rap sheet includes a conviction for armed bank robbery. Court documents reveal he has served as an FBI informant since his release from prison. He is currently on trial for violently beating Local 82 member Eddie Flaherty, who criticized Perry.
Perry himself is also on trial on charges he assaulted a Local 82 member.
A grand jury convened on Feb. 23 is investigating allegations that Perry and Burhoe threatened and intimidated witnesses to try to get the assault charges against them dropped.
The intimidation of witnesses included threats from Burhoe that he would “put them in a trunk of a car” or otherwise cause them severe bodily harm.
In January, Perry used the same threats in a letter to Local 82 Teamster Dave Corbitt who wrote to Perry that he was facing intimidation and retaliation for testifying before the Independent Review Board.
“To help clear up your stated confusion,” Perry wrote, “what would actually constitute intimidation or retaliation would, for example, be, someone threatening to put someone in a trunk of a car, intimating severe bodily harm; being followed and battered and punched for engaging in protected activity; having your ribs broken and being hospitalized for freedom of speech.”
Hoffa Turns a Blind Eye
Coming in the context of the legal proceedings against Burhoe for his threats against witnesses and his brutal assault of a Local 82 member for criticizing Local 82 officials, Corbitt took Perry’s letter as a threat and contacted the International Union.
In response, Hoffa sent Corbitt a signed letter saying, “the International Union does not have agents in the Boston area to provide protection to you or your family” and “does not have the capacity to investigate all of your numerous complaints.”
The Independent Review Board (IRB), the independent panel set up to investigate corruption in the Teamsters, is interviewing Local 82 members.
Local 82 Teamsters have shown they will take action to straighten out their local and build a strong union. They need protection to make it happen. They’ve asked Hoffa for help and been turned down flat.
Local 82 members will clean up their union.
More Shake-Ups at the International
February 2, 2010: The IBT has added one new International Vice President and is preparing to lose another, Central Region VP Pat Flynn.
Rick Middleton was sworn in as the new Western Region Vice President on Jan. 27. Middleton was appointed to replace Jim Santangelo, of Los Angeles, who retired in disgrace after TDU revealed that the union paid $500,000 to secretly settle a sexual harassment lawsuit involving him.
Middleton is the Secretary-Treasurer of Local 572 in Los Angeles.
Pat Flynn will reportedly be resigning as Central Region Vice President effective Feb. 28. His resignation will create a second vacancy in the Central Region. Walt Lytle, of Ft. Wayne, Ind. retired on Dec. 31, 2009. Flynn is reportedly retaining his position as President of Chicago Local 710.
Including Flynn, there have been six openings on the General Executive Board in the past year. Thus far, the Hoffa administration has passed on this opportunity to make the union’s top leadership look more like the membership.
The General Executive Board has 26 voting positions. None of those positions are currently filled by women. (Cheryl Johnson was replaced by Brad Slawson of Minneapolis when she retired.) None of these positions are filled by Latinos either.
Only one voting position on the General Executive Board is filled by an African-American—the recently appointed Al Mixon, of Cleveland, who recently replaced Carroll Haynes.
Appointments to the GEB Change Faces But Not Much Else
January 18, 2010: The newest appointee to the General Executive Board (GEB) of the Teamsters Union is Al Mixon, of Cleveland. There have been five vacancies in the union’s top body in the past year, providing an opportunity to add some innovative and diverse leadership, but Hoffa has for the most part appointed more of the in-crowd.
Mixon replaces Carroll Haynes of New York, who retired as head of Local 237 in 2007, but held on to his top post until recently. Mixon was first hired in Cleveland by Jackie Presser, who later became IBT president and was indicted for racketeering in Local 507. Mixon became the principal officer of Local 507 in 2003 and serves as the chairman of the Teamster National Black Caucus; he is presently the only African American on the 26-member GEB.
Other 2009 GEB appointees were Rome Aloise of Oakland Calif., who assumed the positions of his retiring brother in law, Chuck Mack, and Brad Slawson of Minneapolis, who replaced the retiring Cheryl Johnson. With Johnson’s retirement, there are no women as voting members of the GEB.
Two other 2009 GEB vacancies remain unfilled. Walt Lytle, of Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Jim Santangelo, of Los Angeles, recently retired. Santangelo departed after TDU revealed that the union paid $500,000 to secretly settle a sexual harassment lawsuit involving him.
“It’s Up to Us to Turn Our Union Around”
December 7, 2009: In a speech at the TDU Convention, Butch Lewis talked about what it will take to get our union on the right track.
We all know times are tough. The country faces the worst recession any of us has seen. Members are angry and frustrated. Over the past year we’ve seen our wages cut by 15 percent. YRC is no longer paying towards our pension. Members are anxious to know what’s next. That’s not a great situation to be working under. And it’s not something we can live with over the long haul.
So what do we do? How can things be turned around? Hoffa talks about Teamster power and pride but those are just empty words coming from him. The membership isn’t experiencing any sense of power or pride. Real power and pride have to be earned—and that takes a tremendous amount of hard work and commitment.
Hoffa and many of our officers like to strut around and act big but they’re really just a bunch of blow hards and stiff suits. We’ve had ten years of their so-called leadership and I’m not sure if we can survive another two. We need change badly.
Start at the Grassroots
Now whether or not you voted for Obama, and we can discuss how that’s going over dinner or beers this evening, you have to recognize that he and his team organized a grassroots effort during the primaries that gave people a sense of movement and hope. People responded because they wanted change and they saw somebody giving direction.
We need to learn from that experience and bring it into the Teamsters. Regular folks can make a difference if they can organize a grassroots effort that makes sense.
A couple months back, I said to myself, if not TDU, who? And that’s the question and challenge I pose to other Teamsters. Who is going to help us turn this dire situation around? We need to challenge our brothers and sisters to get off the sidelines and into the game. TDU gives us the best odds for winning.
TDU has the track record of getting the information and the know-how out to Teamsters that want to make a difference. Many, many Teamsters read the website and count on TDU for what little information and perspective we can get. That knowledge is crucial as the basis for forging our campaign to change this union.
Build an Army
We need to take those readers and turn them into an army of thousands of Teamsters who are a galvanized force in our union. Those thousands can reach out to thousands more. We need to focus all the discontent out there into a positive movement to retake our union.
Hoffa Junior play acts at leadership. We’re serious about how necessary and important real leaders need to be. It starts with a commitment and then a plan. Our message to all those frustrated and angry Teamsters is, YOU and WE—the membership—are the leaders we’re looking for.
In these tough times, it’s up to us to make it happen in our workplaces and our locals. It’s now or never as far as I’m concerned and I’m heartened and gratified I’m in this fight with all of you.
“We need to challenge our brothers and sisters to get off the sidelines and into the game. TDU gives us the best odds for winning.”
By Butch Lewis, Holland Local 100, Cincinnati