November 28, 2008: In 1989, top Teamster leaders agreed to create the Independent Review Board, a body that investigates and polices corruption in our union.

In 1988, the federal government filed a racketeering lawsuit and tried to put our entire International Union under government trusteeship.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union launched a campaign to stop the trusteeship and instead give Teamster members the power to reform our own union by winning the right to vote for International Union officers.

Our campaign—No Mob Control, No Government Control, Right to Vote—won the day.

Top Teamster leaders settled the lawsuit by signing a deal with the government called the consent degree, which adopted TDU’s proposal for one-member, one-vote elections.

The International Union also agreed to the creation of the Independent Review Board to investigate and remove corruption from our union.

Here are answers to frequent questions Teamster ask about the IRB and the consent decree.

Q: What is the IRB? The Independent Review Board (IRB) is a body our union agreed to set up to investigate and remove corruption from our union.

The IRB was created after the 1989 consent decree that ended the government’s racketeering suit against the top Teamster leadership of the time.

Q: Who is on the IRB? There are three members of the IRB, one appointed by the International Union, one appointed by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and one chosen jointly.

The current three members of the IRB were chosen in 2001.

Hoffa appointed Joseph diGenova, a conservative Republican attorney and former President Reagan appointee.

The U.S. Attorney chose Benjamin Civiletti, who was the Attorney General under President Carter.

Civiletti and diGenova picked William Webster, the former director of the FBI and the CIA, for the third spot.

There is also an investigative team headed by Chief Investigator Charles Carberry, who brings matters before the board.

Q: What can the IRB do? And what can’t it do? The IRB has the power to investigate (including questioning members under oath, examining financial records, etc.) and to make recommendations to the union for charges against officials.

The most serious punishment the IRB can hand out is expulsion from the Teamsters Union; it has no power to bring criminal charges.

The IRB can also recommend that the International Union place a local union in trusteeship.

If the International Union ignores an IRB recommendation, or declines to take appropriate action, the IRB can hold hearings and hand out punishment.

The IRB has no power over running or managing our union. It cannot influence contract bargaining, grievance procedures, pension benefits, political endorsements, officers’ salaries or financial priorities.

Q: What has the IRB done, and what could it do better? IRB actions have led to discipline (suspension, returned funds, and expulsions) of over 600 Teamsters. These decisions are posted at www.irbcases.org.

In 2008, for example, IRB investigations led to the removal of two officials of the International Union. Don Hahs, the President of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLET) Teamster unit, was caught embezzling union funds via union-paid trips for his wife, season tickets to the Cleveland Cavs, and more. Hahs repaid $44,963 and was removed from office.

International Vice President Frank Gillen was kicked out for lying under oath about his association with ousted Teamster official Thomas Ryan.

IRB action in 2008 also led to the current trusteeship of Chicago Local 714, a local run by three generations of the Hogan family.

The IRB has come under fire for doing too little to protect members’ democratic rights while devoting resources on investigating Teamster officials who are in contact with persons who have been expelled from our union. Such contact is forbidden.

Q: How much does all of this cost our union? The cost for the investigations and IRB members is about $3 million per year. Teamsters pay about $800 million per year in dues.

The three members of the IRB are each paid $100,000 per year. The staff investigators are paid $84,000 per year. Charles Carberry’s law firm, which provides facilities, support and direction to the investigators, was paid $694,000 last year.

The Hoffa administration often complains about the cost of the consent decree. But these costs include the cost of holding International Union elections and elections for delegates. There is widespread concern that Hoffa’s real goal is to eliminate these elections altogether.

Protecting fair and independently supervised elections for International Union officers is a top priority of TDU.

Q: Didn’t Hoffa promise to get rid of the IRB? After Hoffa took office in 1999, he appointed Ed Stier to head up Project RISE, an internal union anti-corruption task force.

The goal of Project RISE was to take the place of the IRB. But in April 2004, Ed Stier resigned along with his staff, stating that, “My problem is with one man: Jim Hoffa.”

Stier said Hoffa was blocking their investigation into connections between organized crime and Teamster officials in Chicago—especially John Coli, the head of Local 727 and Joint Council 25. Coli is now an International Vice President.

Hoffa’s goal of ending the consent decree was put on hold.

Q: Can Hoffa get rid of the IRB? Not on his own. The International Union would have to convince federal judge Loretta Preska to do that. The only effective route would be to convince the U.S. Attorney that the union is policing itself.

The International Union sought commitments from candidates, including President-elect Obama, that they would consider ending the consent order.

Ending the consent order, without further changes to the Teamster Constitution, would affect something much larger than the IRB: our right to have impartially supervised elections for International officers.

The future of the consent order will not be decided by President Obama, but the President appoints the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who would have such power.

Q. How do I contact the IRB regarding possible corruption? You can contact the IRB hotline at 800-225-5472, or call 212-635-0202. Be forewarned that they will not generally tell a member what or whom they are investigating.

September 19, 2008: CEOs who destroy Teamster jobs get rewarded with concessions.

Teamster officials who negotiate the concessions get rewarded with pay hikes.

What is wrong with this picture?

The CEOs who brought us the sub-prime mortgage crisis and Wall St. meltdown have been handsomely rewarded for their failures.

The press reports that Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld made $45 million last year while he drove his firm over the cliff. That’s $17,000 an hour!

But it’s not just on Wall Street where there’s a disconnect between results and compensation.

Yellow Roadway’s Bill Zollars has taken home more than $40 million as CEO while steering the company’s stock to record lows.

In carhaul, Allied management gave themselves illegal bonuses after driving that company into bankruptcy. The same pattern is at work in our union. Hoffa administration officials are enjoying record pay hikes while negotiating the most concessionary contracts in Teamster history.

President James Hoffa, who has called on members to sacrifice to boost the profits of our employers, gave himself a $77,000 raise. His total compensation is now $413,234.

Hoffa promised that concessions would deliver job security. The opposite has happened. Yellow Roadway and DHL are downsizing. Even super-profitable UPS is eliminating full-time jobs in violation of the contract. It’s time to stop giving concessions to corporations that destroy our jobs.

It’s time for Teamster members to stand up and hold our top officials accountable for failing to defend our jobs and our contracts.

September 17, 2008: In an unprecedented move, James Hoffa has imposed International Union control over the bargaining of Local 705’s freight contract.

Freight Teamsters in Local 705 are covered by their own contract which is separate from the National Master Freight Agreement. In ongoing bargaining, Local 705 has focused on protecting union jobs—including guarding against the diversion of work to YRC Logistics. The same issue is being contested in other areas where it has been deadlocked in the grievance procedure.

Local 705 is concerned that once Yellow Roadway Corporation Worldwide (YRCW) completely integrates its sales force, then Yellow, Roadway, Holland, and New Penn could be treated simply as vendors that YCRW assigns work to. As the umbrella corporation, YRCW could also assign the work to YRC Logistics or another nonunion carrier.

One goal of Local 705 is to get YRCW to be party to the freight contract, so the company cannot use a corporate shell game to divert union work. Last week, Local 705 members leafleted an event where Yellow-Roadway CEO Bill Zollars was speaking to draw attention to their job security concerns. Two days later, Hoffa assumed control of Chicago freight negotiations.

In a letter dated Sept. 10, Hoffa accuses the Local 705 Executive Board of taking too strong a stand in bargaining, of allowing talks to get “bogged down” over job security issues, and of using unacceptable bargaining tactics.

According to the letter which is now circulating among Chicago freight Teamsters, Hoffa has appointed International Vice President and Assistant Freight Director Gordon Sweeton to take over bargaining with Holland, Yellow and Roadway. Hoffa has also named Chicago Local 710 Secretary-Treasurer Pat Flynn, who is also an IBT Vice President, as his Personal Representative to Local 705.

Local 705 has long guarded its independence and its practice of bargaining separately from the International with both freight carriers and UPS. The unprecedented bargaining takeover by the International Union has shocked many rank-and-file members.

Click here to read Hoffa’s letter to Local 705.

August 14, 2008: Robert "Bobby" Hogan, secretary-treasurer and principal officer of Local 714 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, has agreed to a permanent ban from his Chicago-based local to resolve disciplinary charges brought by the body charged with ridding the union of corrupt practices, parties to the agreement told BNA Aug. 13.

Although the agreement bars Hogan from any affiliations with Local 714, he retains the right to become a member of any other Teamsters local. Bobby Hogan, whose family founded Local 714 during the depths of the Depression, could also run for office or take a paid position within another Teamsters local after two years. The agreement carves out one caveat: Hogan would have to wait five years to run for office or take a paid position with Local 727. The agreement also strips Hogan of his duties as vice president of Teamsters Joint Council 25.

John J. Cronin Jr., chief administrator of the Independent Review Board (IRB), approved the agreement July 31 on behalf of the three-person review board. Cronin told BNA the agreement still requires the endorsement of Judge Loretta A. Preska of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, who oversees the consent decree governing reform efforts within the Teamsters.

With more than 10,000 members, Local 714 represents workers in the metal industry, pharmacists, and deputies in the Office of the Cook County Sheriff. Until recently, the local also represented workers in the movie and trade show industries. Those workers recently saw their representation shifted to Local 727.

Hogan signed the disciplinary agreement one month after Teamsters General President James Hoffa placed Local 714 in trusteeship (116 DLR A-7, 6/17/08) and just days after Hogan castigated Hoffa for his "cowardly" decision to impose the trusteeship. In a letter, Hogan accused Hoffa of complicity with the IRB's "vendetta" against the Hogan family and union democracy.

"It's a shame you never really stood up to the IRB when it was clear this power hungry overreaching organization consistently exceeded its authority, trampled on due process, curbed free speech and overturned union democracy," Hogan told Hoffa in the July 17 letter.

Teamsters spokeswoman Leigh Strope rejected Hogan's suggestions that he or Local 714 had been mistreated.

"Bobby Hogan is a long time supporter of Jim Hoffa, but when it comes to corruption the general president doesn't play politics," Strope told BNA. "He's committed to rooting out corruption and protecting the interests of Teamsters regardless of the official. This trusteeship was implemented based on facts uncovered not only by Jim Hoffa, but also the IRB."

IRB Recommended Trusteeship in 2007

Hogan's disciplinary problems began heating up on Aug. 30, 2007, when the IRB initially recommended a trusteeship for Local 714 (174 DLR A-12, 9/10/07). At that time, the board pointed to continued local contacts with Hogan's father William Hogan, who served as the principal officer of the local in the early 1990s, but was removed during a trusteeship imposed by former general president Ron Carey in 1996. William Hogan, who at one time ran for secretary-treasurer of the international union on the same ticket as Hoffa, eventually was banned from the union entirely by the IRB. That ban was upheld in federal court five years ago (167 DLR A-6, 8/28/03).

The IRB expressed concerns that Bobby Hogan and James Hogan, Local 714's president and William Hogan's brother, had jeopardized the interests of the local by hiring Robert Riley as business agent and director of organizing. The IRB faulted Bobby Hogan for failing to monitor and discipline Riley, who had continuous business contact with William Hogan. Riley has been a close personal friend of William Hogan for more than 50 years.

Hoffa initially declined to place Local 714 under the control of a trustee, choosing instead to appoint a "personal representative" to address problems highlighted by the IRB. But on June 9 Hoffa imposed an immediate trusteeship, noting that his personal representative had been unable to implement several critical reforms.

The IRB expressed frustration with Hoffa's treatment of Bobby Hogan following its trusteeship recommendation. Hoffa had responded by imposing a six-month suspension on Bobby Hogan on Dec. 13, 2007. The IRB rejected the suspension as "inadequate" and took up its own review of Bobby Hogan (16 DLR A-11, 1/25/08).

Attorney Approaches IRB

Cronin said Bobby Hogan's disciplinary case was pending when the union leader's attorney approached the IRB and suggested some form of settlement. The parties ultimately crafted an agreement banning Hogan from Local 714, but permitting his membership in other Teamsters locals, including Local 727.

"We think it is a good agreement," Cronin said, "otherwise the board wouldn't have accepted it."

Robert Harrison, Bobby Hogan's attorney, told BNA the agreement is a good result for his client.

"This is not an admission of guilt of any kind," said Harrison, who practices in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. "It is a way of resolving the case. One of his major motivations in resolving this was that he felt the pending charges and hearings were a distraction that was detrimental to the membership of 714."

Harrison said the Local 727 language was critical to his client because the local now represents Local 714 members in the movie and trade show industries.

Members of the Hogan family have taken a keen interest in movie and trade show activities for several decades. Such jobs are among the most lucrative employing Teamsters in Chicago. Leaders of Local 714 have frequently been criticized for fostering nepotism and cronyism involving such duties.

Bob Bruno, a professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois and the author of a book on Teamsters reform efforts in Chicago, characterized the agreement as an interesting result for Bobby Hogan. While the IRB might have imposed a broader ban, it agreed to a structure that leaves the door open for Bobby Hogan's return.

"To the extent Hogan's attorney approached the board, he was seeking the best deal he could get. And this is not the worst possible punishment that could have happened," Bruno said. "But it's good for the IRB and it's good for Hoffa because it gets rid of a problem. Hogan was seen as the problem and now it appears he's gone for a while."

By Michael Bologna

Without admitting wrongdoing, Mr. Hogan recently signed an agreement with the Independent Review Board saying he’ll leave Teamsters Local 714 and never again serve as an officer, employee or member there, Crain’s has learned. A New York federal judge must approve the settlement.

Click here to read more at Crain's Chicago Business.

August 5, 2008: Over the past year, the International Union has signed four national contracts in the trucking industry, covering nearly 350,000 Teamsters—setting the pattern for many more.

In each case, the Hoffa administration gave our largest Teamster employers record givebacks. The 2008 contracts are the most concessionary master agreements in the history of the Teamsters Union.

We need to understand why this happened, and what we can do to stop future concessions and build a stronger Teamsters Union.

No one will deny that times are tough. But the 2008 concessionary contracts were not caused by the weak economy or industry problems.

If failing companies were the reason our negotiators agreed to concessions, our union would not have given billions in givebacks to UPS when the company was making record after-tax profits of more than $4 billion a year.

Jim Hoffa, Ken Hall, and other top Teamster negotiators did not turn to concessions as a last resort. They adopted concessions as a strategy—one that they implemented at UPS, freight, DHL and in carhaul.

In each case, our union agreed to trade away bedrock contract standards in exchange for the union getting new members—or just maintaining membership—under declining standards.

Concessions at UPS

Our International Union negotiated the UPS contract—telling members that early talks were needed to protect members’ benefits. In reality, chief negotiators Jim Hoffa and Ken Hall had a different goal in mind: trading away the historic gains of the 1997 UPS strike in exchange for the right to organize UPS Freight.

Hoffa and Hall negotiated a deal that let the company take 44,000 Teamsters in 25 states out of the Central States Pension Fund. That concession saved the company billions by sticking those Teamsters with a pension that will be far below Teamster plans by the end of the contract.

Hoffa and Hall also gave away the contract language that requires the company to eliminate low-wage part-time jobs and create full-time jobs in their place.

In exchange for these and other givebacks, UPS agreed to allow unionization of UPS Freight. That’s a positive gain. But working Teamsters even got the short end of this deal. Our union agreed to put UPS Freight under a substandard contract that undermines our National Master Freight Agreement.

Through UPS Freight, UPS is now in position to take work from Teamster freight carriers.

The IBT Freight Division wasn’t happy with splitting the pension fund, or with giving UPS Freight a sub-par contract. Their concerns were brushed aside.

Have Concessions Worked?

Once the mighty UPS cleaned up at the concession stand, the other employers were ready to do the same business with the Hoffa administration.

At DHL, our union gave the corporation its number one goal: part-time labor.

The union’s pitch was that now the company would grow. But, just two months after the contract was approved, management started laying-off full-time Teamsters, and offering them to come back as part-timers!

DHL also agreed to allow unionization at gateways and hubs. But now they are cutting back or closing those facilities. So the concession strategy here has been a terrible failure in short order.

In the freight contract, the corporations got total control over working conditions and a new “utility” classification. And they got the ability to hire low-wage part-time labor. Due to the recession, not many have been hired yet.

Teamster members are voting on the most concessionary contract of all, the carhaul agreement, as we go to press. Our negotiators did not swap concessions for more dues-paying members. They surrendered decades of union gains without securing anything that will position our union to organize the nonunion competition in the industry.

The Foundation of Union Power

Strong national contracts and Teamster pensions are the foundation of our union’s power.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), along with other Teamster leaders and members, have opposed Hoffa’s concessionary contracts because they hurt working Teamsters in the short term and make it harder to preserve industry standards and organize the nonunion competition over the long haul.

Our union is at its best when we inform, involve and unite Teamster members to put some muscle behind our bargaining demands—and when we take on corporate greed in a way that not only protects members, but inspires nonunion workers to support the labor movement—and want to become a part of it.

The 1997 UPS contract is a classic example of this strategy.

Get Involved

The 2008 bargaining round will be remembered as the year that top Teamster officials officially adopted concessions as a bargaining strategy.

Teamster members who don’t like the direction our union took in 2008 can either complain about it—or get involved in pushing for a new direction.

At Teamsters for a Democratic Union, we are already preparing for the next bargaining round. We are building national networks of Teamsters at UPS, freight, DHL, carhaul and in other jurisdictions to share strategies for enforcing our contracts, defeating future concessions, and winning stronger agreements in the future.

If you’re a concerned Teamster, we want to hear your ideas and we want you to get involved. Join TDU.

Attend a local meeting or our upcoming TDU Convention.

Isolated, we are weak. But united, we can protect what we’ve got and rebuild union power.

July 29, 2008: Bobby Hogan, the former secretary-treasurer of Chicago Local 714, has lashed out at IBT President James Hoffa.

Hogan has called out Hoffa for his “cowardly abdication of leadership, a betrayal of basic union democracy and of long-time supporters.”

In a July 17 letter, Hogan accuses Hoffa of becoming a tool of the Independent Review Board (IRB).

The letter is noteworthy because the Hogan family members have been major political supporters of Hoffa. Billy Hogan, Bobby’s father, was Hoffa’s original running mate in 1996 on the Hoffa-Hogan ticket. Hogan was later dropped from the slate when the IRB, the anti-corruption body which makes recommendations to the union, started investigating Hogan and Local 714.

Hogan also criticizes the IRB's filing of charges against Teamsters for having personal associations with former Teamsters who have been expelled from the union.

In June, Hoffa placed Local 714 in trusteeship, following a recommendation of the IRB to do so. Hoffa’s statement of reasons for the trusteeship included serious charges that the union was run for the benefit of the Hogan family.

Click here to see a copy of Hogan’s letter to Hoffa.

July 2, 2008: A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that a Teamster official who stole a union election must repay his salary and benefits.

Chuck Crawley, then the incumbent president of Houston Local 988, faced a stiff challenge by reform members in 2002. He won the election after he added hundreds of fraudulent ballots.

A jury found him guilty of stealing the election as well as embezzling union funds, and ordered him to pay restitution to the local union of $1.01 million—including his full salary and benefit costs for the term.

Crawley appealed, claiming that the local received his services as president so he should not have to repay his full salary and benefit costs.

But in a victory for union democracy and against corruption, the court ruled that he had in effect stolen the salary and deprived the members of their right to honest services.

Prior to his removal from office, he was an International Representative as well as local president. The former head of the RISE anti-corruption program, Ed Stier, charged that James Hoffa was protecting Crawley despite extensive corruption found by Stier's investigation in Houston.

Crawley is currently residing in the Oakdale Federal Prison in Louisiana, and is expected to be released in August 2012.

Precedent for Chicago Local 743

Currently five former officers and business agents of Chicago Local 743, including former president Richard Lopez, are under indictment for stealing the 2004 election by redirecting hundreds of ballots to friends and employers.

If they are convicted in federal court, this restitution verdict in Houston provides an appropriate guideline for restitution that is owed to the local union and its 12,000 working members.

Click here to read more about the verdict in the BNA Daily Labor Report.

June 20, 2008: The Hoffa administration has targeted Santa Rosa, Calif. Local 624 for a potential trusteeship. A trusteeship hearing was held on June 3 on charges of financial misconduct. But some Teamsters are asking if the real goal of a trusteeship is a forced merger of Local 624.

Former Secretary-Treasurer Bob Carr resigned after it came to light that his daughter, a clerical employee at the local, embezzled more than $8,000 in union funds to pay off personal credit card debt. The misappropriated funds were paid back to the local.

The trusteeship hearing focused on this issue as well as allegations that local union officials regularly used the union credit card to pay for lunches that were unrelated to union business and that clerical employees claimed excessive overtime.

Local 624 officers say that the meal expenses were for union business and the current Executive Board played no role in misuse of the union’s funds.

Merger Target

Local 624 has been the target of a proposed merger with Local 315 in Martinez, Calif. and Local 490 in Vallejo, Calif.

Local 624 officers rejected the proposal. That’s when International Rep Steve Mack threatened Local 624 with trusteeship.

The three-way merger between locals 624, 315, and 490 is one of several mergers that have been promoted in Northern California by Mack and other Hoffa administration regional power brokers.

Mack’s own local recently merged with Local 853 which is headed by his brother-in-law Rome Aloise. The locals had already been through a combined 15 mergers! The new Local 853 now has 12,000 members spread out over a large stretch of Northern California.

Many members and officers have expressed concern over this trend toward mega-mergers and what they mean for local union autonomy and the ability of working Teamsters to meaningfully participate in their locals.

Fighting Corruption, Protecting Democracy

Teamsters for a Democratic Union championed the right of members to vote on local union mergers—and we won that right at the 2001 Teamster Convention.

The Teamster Constitution states that before a local union can be merged, the merger must be approved by a vote of both the local union executive board and the membership of the local union to be merged (Article IX, Section 11).

The Hoffa administration needs to respect this right at Local 624—and beyond.

The financial improprieties at Local 624 need to be cleaned up and prevented from ever reoccurring. The local’s treasury belongs to the membership. It’s not a piggy bank for local officials or union staff.

But a corruption clean-up will not have credibility if it is seen as a cover for forcing through an unpopular local union merger.

Local 624 members need to hold Hoffa accountable to the Teamster Constitution and make sure that with or without trusteeship, there will be no merger of their local union without a vote of the membership.

June 30, 2008: Hundreds of thousands of Teamsters are African American, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the Teamsters General Executive Board. Out of 26 voting members, only one is Black.

“We need a union leadership that looks like our membership,” says Willie Hardy, a retiree and long-time Teamster and community leader in Memphis Local 667.

“Our top leadership is less diverse than the boards of many of the companies we fight against.”

Black Teamsters have been working for decades to win more representation for African Americans in leadership at all levels of our union. Their work has built our union’s power for everyone.

More progress needs to be made if we’re going to build a union that taps the leadership skills of all of our members.

Teamsters National Black Caucus

At the 1971 Teamster Convention in Miami, Black officers and union representatives decided to do something about the lack of representation in the union’s top spots. Back then, there were no African Americans on the General Executive Board.

Black Teamsters were also angry that organizer jobs at the International were off-limits to African-Americans.

This group of local officers and representatives gave birth to the Teamster National Black Caucus.

In 1976, Black Teamsters won a victory at the next convention, when John Cleveland, the head of Washington, D.C. Local 730, became the first African American added to the union’s executive board.

But even that victory was bittersweet, recalled Ed Kornegay, the late head of Local 922 in D.C.

Frank Fitzsimmons, Teamster General President at the time, kept the appointment secret from Cleveland until he announced it on the floor of the convention. “Otherwise,” Kornegay remembered, “we would have had time to make sure family and supporters were in the hall and could celebrate this historic moment.”

The National Black Caucus will hold its next meeting on Aug. 18-24 in St. Louis.

More Progress Needed

Cleveland and other TNBC pioneers helped make our union stronger and more inclusive. But there’s more work needed.

Latinos and women make up a growing section of our union. But there’s only one woman with a vote on the GEB—and no Latinos. (One other woman and a Latino hold non-voting trustee positions).

Our International Union created a Human Rights Commission under the slogan, “A Strong Union Involves Everyone.” But actions speak louder than words.

Last year, our union had an opportunity to increase representation on the GEB, when Frank Gillen was removed as an International Vice President.

The General Executive Board filled the vacancy with Bill Hamilton—ignoring the many qualified Black, Latino and women leaders in our union. Out of 26 voting members on the General Executive Board, 24 are white men.

“The lack of representation sends a message to employers that they can treat members as second-class citizens,” says Michael Savwoir, a UPS feeder driver in Kansas City Local 41. “We’ve got to send a different message.”

New Leaders

“We need change in our union at all levels,” says Toni Jackson, a UPS Teamster in Memphis Local 667. “It starts with educating members to enforce our contracts and recruiting members to run for steward. That’s what I try to do in my local.”

In 2006, Jackson took her long experience as a steward to the next level, when she ran for Southern Region Vice President on the Tom Leedham Strong Contracts, Good Pensions Slate. She narrowly lost.

More Black Teamsters are taking up the challenge by becoming leaders at the local level—as officers, stewards, and active members.

“The fact that only one African American is on this board is sad. We have hundreds of thousands of African Americans who pay dues,” says Nichele Fulmore, a steward in North Carolina Local 391. “It’s up to us to change our union. Those of us who are active in the union have to motivate other members to get involved.”

“TDU has been training Teamster members for 32 years on how to get more involved in our union,” says Willie Hardy. “We give members the tools they need to deal with grievances, win strong contracts, or run for local union office.”

A strong union involves everyone. And it’s up to all of us to make it happen.

Black Teamsters will have a special meeting at the upcoming Teamsters for a Democratic Union Convention, Oct. 24-26 in Cleveland.