Business as usual for those wild and crazy Teamsters? Not quite. The election, which concludes this week, marks the first time rank-and-file members have been able to directly elect their international officers in the union’s 88-year existence. It’s a long way from the days when America’s most powerful union befriended U.S. presidents, bullied prosecutors and decided elections. In the early 1960s, Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa felt strong enough to go head to head in a heated grudge match with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and a decade later Frank Fitzsimmons was labor’s Mr. Inside in the Nixon administration. What other union could make the claim that four of its last six presidents were indicted and three served prison time, including Hoffa?
Two years ago, after more than three decades of federal attack on its alleged ties with organized crime, the union settled a massive racketeering suit by agreeing to major reforms, including close monitoring of its elections. Court-appointed officials will begin counting the secret ballots this week. While some labor experts worry that the union hierarchy will continue to resist change, federal officials are hoping the election will root out the remnants of alleged mob influence in America’s second largest union and bring even greater reform. Its shock waves could put pressure on other unions to democratize. “This is the most important labor event since the formation of the CIO, " says Benson Herman of the Association for Union Democracy, a trade-union reform group.
Using that theme, all three candidates for president have portrayed themselves as reformers. But each carries some baggage that has skeptics wondering. Durham, considered the front runner with the broadest name recognition within the union, is a 60-year-old Teamster official from Greensboro, N.C. Three members of his slate have been charged with breaking union rules by the court-appointed investigations officer. The 62-year-old Shea, an aide to tainted past presidents, is regarded as a dark horse. As a longtime union dissident, Carey can more rightly claim the reformer label, though he, too, is somewhat tarnished. One of his former lieutenants was convicted in 1986 of taking kickbacks. Carey, 55, is president of a UPS local in Long Island City, N.Y.
For employers, a more democratic Teamsters union could end cozy relationships with certain union leaders. In the past the union has been plagued by sweetheart contracts signed by leaders overly friendly with employers. Many employers seem to favor Shea since they know him best, with Durham next. As for Carey, a trucking-industry negotiator told The Wall Street Journal, “He’s likely to be a rather unpredictable fellow to deal with.”
Greater democracy has already borne some fruits for the Teamsters. This summer the dissident Carey took 10 percent of the delegate votes at the convention, something unimaginable at previous elections. And last month McCarthy lost his re-election bid at his 7,000-member Boston local to a reformer. “Clearly the members are more aware than they used to be,” says Ray Maria, who once headed the Department of Labor’s antiracketeering office. Still, skeptics wonder whether even a secret election can alter the Teamsters’ entrenched style. Says Durham campaign manager Chris Scott: “It’s a question of restoring people’s faith and getting them to think we can be a labor movement and not just trade-union bureaucrats.”
Despite the mudslinging campaign–or perhaps because of it–Teamster members don’t seem particularly excited about their choice. Observers expect less than 30 percent of the union’s 1.6 million members to vote. Nevertheless, experts say that the move to more democracy will continue its spread across the nation’s unions. The most enthusiastic suggest further that the Teamster revolution will help rejuvenate organized labor’s sorry record; its membership stands at just 16 percent of the work force. That’s probably wishful thinking, since labor’s problems have little to do with the lack of democracy. But if nothing else, all of organized labor is tuned in to an election that Jimmy Hoffa never could have imagined.
