The U.S. government is ushering in a new era for the Teamsters, ending its 25-year supervision of a union once infamous for its ties to organized crime.

Teamster corruption has held the federal government’s attention since the late 1950s, when Robert F. Kennedy first pursued the matter as counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, also known as the McClellan committee. Kennedy continued to investigate the Teamsters after he became attorney general in 1961, and those investigations continued in one form or another through the 1980s.

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The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the federal government said Wednesday they had reached an agreement to end 25 years of strict oversight designed to root out corruption and alleged Mafia influence in the union’s highest ranks.

The proposed deal, which was reached with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office in Manhattan, would end a 1989 consent decree stemming from a landmark racketeering lawsuit brought a year earlier by the Justice Department. Prosecutors alleged that organized crime members had seized “an interest in and control of” the 1.3 million-member union.

The agreement calls for government oversight to be phased out over five years. Eventually, the union will appoint independent officers to probe corruption allegations, a task currently handled by a three-member independent review board that includes a government appointee.

The Teamsters also agreed to maintain an election process for top officers mandated by the consent decree in which all union members can vote. At many other unions, only convention delegates cast ballots.

Union officials said they expect a federal judge to approve the agreement at a Feb. 11 hearing.

Mr. Bharara said that while the Teamsters have made significant progress in ridding its ranks of corruption, the threat of wrongdoing by organized crime still exists and the government would continue to monitor the union’s handling of disciplinary matters.

“While threats persist, the organized crime influence the government found to have reached the highest echelons of IBT leadership in 1988 has long been expunged,” Mr. Bharara and the union wrote in a joint statement to the judge.

Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, who fought the consent decree for years, said it was a historic day for the union.

“After decades of hard work and millions of dollars spent, we can finally say that corrupt elements have been driven from the Teamsters and that the government oversight can come to an end,” Mr. Hoffa said.

Ken Paff, national organizer with a rank-and-file group called Teamsters for a Democratic Union and a Hoffa critic, praised the continuation of election rules.

He said a new requirement that the union pay for one mailing of campaign materials to all members before elections would help level the playing field for challengers to Mr. Hoffa.

“We’re pleased because we have protected and even enhanced the supervised right to vote for all members,” Mr. Paff said.

The Teamsters originally agreed to government oversight to settle the broad racketeering lawsuit. At the time, then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani alleged the union had made a “devil’s pact” with the Mafia by allowing it to control officer elections.

The suit named as defendants 18 members of the union’s executive board and 26 alleged organized-crime members, 25 of whom had been convicted of crimes such as extortion, embezzlement and illegal union payoffs.

On Wednesday, Mr. Giuliani said he believed the consent decree had been a success, noting that oversight continued across Republican and Democratic administrations. He said he believed the union had cleaned up corruption, but noted that the Mafia is far weaker today.

“The Teamsters is now free to operate as a very legitimate union. There’s no burden placed on it to operate as a subsidiary of organized crime,” he said.

Before reaching the agreement under the Obama administration, union officials had lobbied unsuccessfully in the past for an end to the decree, including through negotiations with the Clinton administration.

The current deal was the result of years of settlement negotiations, the union and prosecutors said in their memorandum to the judge.

Last summer, the Teamsters asked a federal judge for the first time to end the consent decree.

At that time, prosecutors responded that they would support scaling back government control over the union but not eliminating the measures, saying that “corrupt and undemocratic practices persist at all levels of the union.”

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment Wednesday on the earlier statement.

The union wrote in a court filing last year that charges of corruption had dropped precipitously. Cases that involved alleged racketeering or other activity that prompted the consent decree fell to 33 in the past decade, from 144 in the first five years of the consent decree, the union wrote.

January 14, 2015: Teamster members’ Right to Vote will be protected under fair rules and independent supervision under a motion filed in court today on the future of government supervision in the Teamsters Union.

January 9, 2015: They’ve delivered contract givebacks, healthcare cuts, and a pension disaster in the Central States.

December 23, 2014: Contract concessions, pension cuts and attacks on our rights. The 2014 Teamster Hall of Shame tells the facts and names the names.

Ken Hall: Imposes Contract Over 94% No Vote

An incredible 94 percent of UPS Teamsters in Louisville Local 89 Voted No to reject their supplement. Thousands more Teamsters in Western Pennsylvania and Philadelphia rejected theirs, too. A real union leader would have used this leverage to bargain improvements. Instead, Ken Hall and the General Executive Board imposed the contract and UPS’s concessions.

Hoffa: Tries to Steal the Right to Vote

With a legacy of siding with employers against Teamster members and negotiating weak contracts, maybe Hoffa determined that the only way he could win re-election in 2016 is to cancel the election itself. After his lawyers petitioned the courts to throw out the consent decree (which provides for independent supervision of Teamster elections), members rallied to defend our right to vote. More than 12,000 Teamsters signed TDU’s petitions to the federal judge demanding the right to vote in fair, supervised elections be protected.

Congress: Guts Retirees’ Pensions

In a sneak attack, Congress attached pension cut legislation to a budget bill. Hoffa waited until the bill’s passage was assured and then issued a series of press releases and statements to cover his tracks. While Hoffa was MIA, TDU built a grassroots campaign to protect Teamster pensions. We will continue to partner with the Pension Rights Center and AARP to fight for members’ pensions, from Capitol Hill to the Central States Fund.

George Miranda and Demos Demopoulos: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Merge ‘Em

In early 2014, Local 584 Members First campaigned to reform their by-laws and built a network of stewards and members ready for change in the New York City dairy local. Members First activists had organized against illegal firings and threats to dairy jobs for years. They were prepared to win the local election this Fall. That is, until Hoffa’s New York lieutenants George Miranda and Demos Demopolous stepped in, imposed emergency trusteeship, and then secretly merged Local 584 into the Demopolous-led Local 553 without vote of the membership. They claimed the local had hit hard financial times and emergency measures were warranted. But the real “emergency” to them was another group of rank-and-file reformers poised to take back their local.

Rome Aloise: Living Wages are “Crazy”, Tells Teamsters to Cross Picket Lines

When ILWU-represented Waste Management recycle workers went on strike in Oakland, International vice president Rome Aloise called their demands for a raise “crazy”, refused to extend solidarity to the strike, and had Local 70 Teamster officials instruct members to cross the picket lines. No thanks to Aloise, the “crazy” strikers won raises from $12.50 to over $20 an hour for 130 workers. Aloise said the workers were “pawns” of their union leadership—Aloise exposed himself as a pawn of corporate greed.

December 13, 2014: Congress has officially passed the spending bill that includes pension cut legislation that was attached as an amendment to the budget bill.

The legislation guts federal pension protections and will pave the way for pension cuts in the Central States Pension Fund.

Teamsters have questions and deserve answers. TDU lays out what the bill means for Teamsters in our Frequently Asked Questions. 

The biggest question of all may be: how did Hoffa let this happen in the first place?

While Hoffa was MIA or worse, TDU fought a grassroots campaign to protect Teamster pensions.

We partnered with the Pension Rights Center and AARP and launched a coalition for pension protections, not cuts.

We sounded the alarm when a Congressional sneak attack attached the pension cut deal to the end-of-year spending bill. Growing number of unions spoke out in opposition. We even forced the Hoffa administration to make a show of opposition.

The Hoffa administration was worse than MIA. His allies at the Central States Pension Fund were leading proponents of the pension cut deal. Central States Executive Director

Thomas Nyhan was a leading proponent of the pension cut deal. He was paid $662,060 by our pension fund last year. How big of a cut will he take?

Hoffa waited until the day before the legislation passed, Hoffa issued a last-minute letter opposing the pension rip-off. The IBT emailed members calling on them to make phone calls. This wasn't even a matter of too-little-too-late. It was a cover-up.

Hoffa stayed quiet to signal politicians that he backed the pension cut bill; then when the bill's passage was secured, he put on a show of opposition to the membership to cover himself politically.

Teamsters expect Congress to play politics. But they deserve more from their own union leadership. 

The Hoffa administration has spent the last year imposing contract concessions, healthcare cuts and pension cuts. It's time for change.

If you agree, get involved in the movement for change in our union.

Sign up for email updates at www.tdu.org and like us on facebook.

Send us a message and tell us what TDU should do next to fight for our union.

Join with Teamsters working to defend pensions, and change the leadership of the Teamster Union. Together, we can rebuild the Teamsters!

A review of the IBT’s financial report – or the $150,000 Club Report posted on this website – shows that an International Organizer made a salary of $250,000 last year. Could this possibly be true?

Some members have asked that question, and the answer is No, it’s not true. But that’s what’s reported on the IBT financial report.

Former Teamster organizer Tim Lewis was fired by the Hoffa administration in 2010.  He went to court against his unlawful termination and the IBT had to pay over $1 million to Lewis and his attorney’s fees and costs.

That was paid from members’ treasury, not by the officials who did the deed.

Apparently, the International union was still paying for this fiasco in 2013 and chose to list Lewis as an “employee” on the 2013 LM-2 financial report, three years after he was terminated.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) listed Lewis in our report, to conform with data on the LM-2 form filed by the IBT with the Department of Labor. But no, he was not an organizer in 2013 and certainly was not paid an annual salary of $250,000. 

Each year the Teamster Rank and File Education and Legal Defense Foundation (TRF) analyzes hundreds of LM-2 financial reports and IRS 990 tax forms, which have been filed by locals, joint councils, conferences, and the IBT.

Then we publish the 150,000 Club Report, an annual report of Teamster officers who make more than $150,000. This information is factual and nonpartisan, and includes complete listing of every officer we have salary data for.

Hoffa, Hall and top Teamster officials delivered concessions to members—but provided raises and multiple salaries for themselves.

Click here to get the most recent report.

Click here to get your Local's financial report.

James Hoffa and Ken Hall spent their time this year telling Teamsters to take concessions-wage cuts, longer wage progressions, healthcare, and pension cuts.

Click here to get the 2012 Report.

Click here to get the 2011 Report.