April 6, 2006: Corporate executive pay and perks have gotten more out of line than ever, as detailed in a lengthy report in the April 9 New York Times. "Off to the races again, leaving many behind" the feature shows that average CEO pay went from 33 times average workers' pay in 1980 to 104 times in 2004, with many CEOs of large corporations far higher than that.

The AFL-CIO is asking unionists to do something about it.

Click here for the New York Times article "Off to the races again, leaving many behind"
Click here for a chart of CEO compensation of 200 corporations
Click here for Information on CEO Watch from the AFL-CIO

That’s how Larry McDonald, president of Toronto Local 938, recommended a new six-year contract to over 1,000 UPS Teamsters in Ontario. Teamster officials repeated this threat elsewhere to sell a deal that was actually worse than what the company offered before the two-day UPS Canada strike on November 22-23.

The second vote came on a contract with a six-year term, instead of the previously offered four-and-a-half. In exchange the union got a tiny pension increase for full-timers, from $55 per year of service to $56.50, and an additional 15 cents per hour wage hike for part-timers. Was this worth giving the company an extra 18 months? There is not even retroactive pay back to the August 31 expiration date!

Bogus Threat?

After calling a 36-hour strike, Teamster officials apparently figured that workers would “vote right” the second time, after the first deal was rejected by a 2-1 margin. To make sure, they added the threat of closure to the sales pitch.

UPS might close in Canada? The company is rapidly expanding all over the world. How likely is UPS to close up in a major industrial nation that is next door to the mother-ship U.S. market?  UPS Canada gets 40% of its volume from shipments to and from the U.S.

The November 22-23 strike caught the company off guard, since they had a deal with the officials. But that deal was rejected in locals across the country.

Several important issues triggered the rejection. Full-time wages are $21 Canadian per hour, $3 behind U.S. wages. The contract (both offers) provides only 60 cents per year in wage hikes; thus Canadian Teamsters will fall even farther behind their U.S. brothers and sisters. The pension is also far below what is provided in most plans in the U.S. The settlement contains concessions, like extended progression times to reach eligibility for benefits and union wages. UPS part-timers make less than those at Purolator and FedEx in Canada and comprise some 65% of the UPS Canada workforce.

Pilots Stand Tall

The deal—announced on November 23—came just after the pilots’ union said it would honor picket lines in the United States if the Teamsters union decided to block goods coming out of Canada.

“In the last 24 hours UPS has moved management pilots from the United States into Canada,” said Captain Tom Nicholson, president of the Independent Pilots Association. He went on to say, “IPA will honor any Teamster primary picket line established in the U.S. or honor any declaration by the IBT that there are struck Teamster goods moving in the UPS system.”

In marked contrast, the U.S. Teamster leadership did nothing to extend support before or during the strike. In fact, although this was the largest Teamster strike of 2004, it was never even mentioned on the Teamster website until it was over! (Then it got five sentences, with no mention of the strike issues.) No information was issued to the 200,000 UPS Teamsters in the U.S. or even to local unions, to build solidarity across the border. There were no offers of solidarity if picket lines came to the border or to U.S. facilities or air hubs.

UPS Teamsters in Canada now have a contract, and their comments indicate they have learned a lot in the process. UPS Teamsters have not been very involved in the life of our union in Canada, but it appears that is soon to change.

January 28, 2005: The incumbents determine whether it will be a walk-in or mail-in. They set the dates. They make all the rules. They run the nominations meeting. They rule on who is eligible. They have access to all the shops. They control the printing, mailing, balloting and counting. They run the whole shebang.

Then they lose, and claim the election was stolen! 

Sounds weird, but IBT President James Hoffa buys it, whenever he feels like it. He did it in Milwaukee Local 200 (reformers won bigger the second time). He did it in Washington D.C. Local 639 (his running mate lost the second time, in a sweep). He’s done it in other cases, and will no doubt do it again, until he is stopped.

The last IBT president to use this dirty tactic was racketeer Jackie Presser. But Hoffa seems to want to outdo him.

Fortunately, reformers who take office on Jan. 1 inevitably win by a bigger margin in the “vote till you get it right” rerun. That trick has never worked when reformers were allowed to take office. Teamsters resent having their vote stolen, and react accordingly.

Will Hoffa try it once again in Georgia Local 728? (The incumbent BAs ran the show, then cry-babied after they lost.)  Will Hoffa try it in Georgia Local 528? (His appointed Trustee Doug Norris ran the election, and then whined after he lost.)

In 12,000-member Local 743 in Chicago, those who believe they “own” the union used a special trick. They stopped the count with reformer Richard Berg seven votes ahead of the incumbent, and ordered a quickie re-vote.

They then used even more dirty tricks, and spent an estimated $100,000 on their campaign to keep their $100,000 salaries, and won. The Local 743 New Leadership Slate is going to deal with the issue legally.

All Teamsters believe in democracy. We respect the fact that Hoffa was elected our Teamster president, and that our local union officers were elected—not in stolen elections, but in fair elections; not “vote till you get it right,” but “respect the right of members to decide.”

All Teamsters, regardless of viewpoint, need to unite to protect our right to vote. We fought too hard to win that right to let anyone undermine it.

TDU welcomes our new brothers and sisters across North America into the Teamsters. GCIU will now be an autonomous printing trades conference within our union.

Those in favor of the merger have expressed hope that the Teamsters will help them in their fight against the giant antiunion corporation Quebecor World, and will provide political clout. Support came especially from GCIU members who work alongside Teamsters at newspapers. In addition, one large California district council voted heavily for the merger.  In the other regions of the country, the vote was fairly evenly split. Overall, 35,000 members voted, with 52% voting yes.

Throughout the process many leaders at all levels of the GCIU voiced strong opposition to the merger, citing concerns about the Teamsters’ ability to protect pensions or help the GCIU stabilize its membership.  The Committee to Save GCIU, a union-wide group of members and leaders, also noted that the Teamster structure is more centralized and “top-down” than what they have now in the GCIU.

The GCIU carries a proud tradition of standing up to employers. Moreover, the members traditionally have a distaste for closed-door meetings and backroom deals.  We invite all GCIU members to meet like-minded Teamsters by joining TDU to work for democracy and the very highest trade union principles within the IBT. 

January 30,2005: As an employee of Allied Systems in Windsor, Ont., and a member of Teamsters Local 938, I would like to address the issue of the fast card program [for crossing the U.S./Canada border]. I, like many others, am in the process of obtaining a fast card to hold my job. At this point I do not have my fast card and therefore I am unable to work until I obtain one. 

I have applied for this card twice now, but due to the fact that the Canadian government is 12 weeks behind in issuing these cards I am unemployed by Allied until I receive the card.  There are some employees that will never be able to obtain a fast card, therefore they will never be able to cross the border hauling cars. I have contacted the Teamsters and to no avail. They do not seem to show any interest in the issue that their fellow brother is out of work and some could possibly lose everything without the backing of the Teamsters. 

I myself will eventually receive my card, but what I question is what about the guy who cannot obtain his card? When we were hired on at Allied the only stipulation for employment was to be bondable. How can the union just sit back and allow the company and big three [auto makers] to dictate our future employment. What am I paying union dues for? I thought it was to protect us from unfair labor practice. Far too many Teamsters are looking outside of the union for representation, some by hiring private lawyers.

Troy Bernhardt
Local 938, Allied
Windsor, Ont.

“Herman Benson launched the union democracy movement almost single-handedly, nearly 50 years ago,” says Ken Paff, TDU national organizer. Now Benson has written a book about the history of the union reform movement he  took part in: Rebels, Reformers and Racketeers: How Insurgents Transformed the Labor Movement.

Benson writes the account of union reformers in the United Mine Workers, the Laborers, the Longshore Workers, the Teamsters, and other unions—all “independent-minded unionists who are loyal to unions because they cherish the values of decency, democracy and dignity, and who resent injustice.”

Benson has been a toolmaker and machinist, and a member of the UAW, the Rubber Workers, the United Electrical Workers, and the International Union of Electrical Workers. He is a cofounder of the Association for Union Democracy, and Rebels, Reformers and Racketeers is also the story of AUD.

One of the first reformers with whom Benson worked closely was Frank Schonfeld. In the early 1960s Schonfeld took on corrupt officials in New York Painters District Council 9. At that time almost no one inside or outside the union was willing to say out loud that its officers were corrupt.

Using New Rights
When those officials tried to silence Schonfeld with internal union charges, Benson found attorneys who successfully defended the reformer using the newly enacted Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. To forestall an election, the Painters International imposed a trusteeship. But the reformers won a court order lifting the trusteeship and mandating independently supervised elections. Schonfeld proceeded to win two terms as Painters DC 9 secretary-treasurer, and won wage and benefit gains unheard of under the old regime. (Schonfeld also hired Benson as part-time newsletter editor for the District Council.)

Benson writes that it was us, the Teamsters, who took reform to a higher level in 1991:
“It was the proliferation of these insurgent movements that validated dissent in unions. It was the 1991 Teamster reform victory that tipped the balance in the AFL-CIO. Forty years of broad rank and file reform activity provided both the moral legitimacy and the power that made possible Sweeney’s insurgent quest for the AFL-CIO presidency in 1995.”

Benson paints a sweeping picture of changes in the labor movement, but some of his most interesting material is from the trenches in unions that didn’t see major national reform. In many of those struggles, AUD has acted as reformers’ attorneys. So be prepared to read plenty of everyday-English descriptions of legal battles won and lost.

Herman Benson’s Rebels, Reformers and Racketeers is available from the Association for Union Democracy. Paperback, 200 pages, $18. Phone 718-564-1114 or visit www.uniondemocracy.org.