Posted August 27, 2006

by Dan La Botz

A Solidarity Pamphlet

A NOTE OF INTRODUCTION

This pamphlet on the United Parcel Service strike and its significance
went to press the first week of November 1997. At this point, the
federal court overseeing the Teamsters had delayed until later in November
its decision on whether Teamsters’ General President Ron Carey would be
allowed on the ballot in the 1998 election rerun. We were therefore
unable to discuss the impact of that ruling in this edition.

What has become clear since the UPS strike ended, however, is that the
right wing and many corporate interests in this country want to see Carey
removed. No evidence has emerged—in weeks of Congressional hearings
or in open court testimony—that Ron Carey had knowledge of, or involvement
in, the sleazy and criminal financial dealings of his campaign manager
and “consultants.” Yet enormous political pressure is being brought
to bear to force Carey to be ruled off the ballot.

Let’s be clear: The right of Teamster members to vote for their leadership
is one of the greatest victories in twenty years of hard rank-and-ifie
organizing. It is central to the revitalization of the union, and
the only way to keep organized crime out of the Teamsters. The campaign
to disallow Carey from running amounts to a right-wing witchhunt, an assault
on Teamsters’ right to elect their leaders, and a threat to the future
of the entire labor movement.

A NOTE OF THANKS

The author wishes to thank Jane Slaughter for allowing her article on
health and safety issues to be reprinted here. The article first
appeared in the Metro Times. The author acknowledges the contributions
Mike Parker made through his comments on earlier drafts, particularly in
pointing to management’s attempt to introduce team concept ideas at UPS.
Additionally, thanks to Dianne Feeley for her editing. Finally, thanks
to Huck/Konopacki for permission to reprint their cartoons and to Jim West
for permission to reprint his photographs.

Rival Interpretations

As with any important social and political event, our understanding and
interpretation of the event—what we make of it—can be nearly as important
as the event itself. How we analyze this strike and the social forces
involved in it is vitally important, because it will shape our actions
in the future. The most important question without a doubt is: Who won
this strike and how did they do it?

Labor officials and politicians have rushed forward to claim the UPS
workers’ victory for themselves. “America’s labor unions are back”
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told a Labor Day rally. Clearly he
meant, labor was back, he was in charge and he would take the credit.

U.S. vice-president Al Gore told workers at that same event that
the United States has a “new unionism.” Gore linked the UPS workers victory
to the recent increase in the minimum wage. The insinuation was that
the Democrats had somehow made it all happen. Such an interpretation
keeps the union, the workers and the strike safely within a “status quo”
based on the corporate domination of our society.

We offer another interpretation. We believe that to understand
this strike one has to look not at the top, but at the bottom. The
victory belongs not to Sweeney and the AFL-CIO leaders—although they helped-nor
to Gore and the Democratic Party, but rather to the union’s rank-and-file
members. The Teamsters union and the UPS workers won in large measure because
of the existence within their union of a rank-and-file movement.

For nearly a generation, rank-and-file Teamsters—led by Teamsters
for a Democratic Union (TDU)—have been working at the grassroots, laying
the basis for the rebuilding of their union, the International Brotherhood
of Teamsters. In doing so, they have also been laying the foundation
for rebuilding the U.S. labor movement.

A grassroots movement like TDU has profoundly radical implications for
the union, the workplace, and society. The thrust of TDU’s work,
over the long haul, is to place power in the hands of ordinary working
people. As a rank-and-file group, TDU fights for democracy so workers
can make their own decisions in their union. TDU fights both to make
the ranks more powerful within the union, and the union more powerful within
the workplace, and thus to make workers more powerful within society.
TDU and other such grassroots movements in other unions (as well as in
communities) work to shift the balance of power toward working people and
away from the corporations.

In a society where corporations dominate the government, control our
culture, and shape every aspect of our lives nothing is more radical than
the demand for democracy, for people’s power in the workplace, society
and politics.

How to Make the Possible A Reality?

The Teamsters victory thus illustrates the potential for a new social
movement for economic and political change in American society. Were
such a movement to emerge, the Teamsters victory over UPS could be considered
the opening battle. What are the stakes involved? What would it take
to make that possibility a reality?

The strike against UPS was not only about full-time jobs, pensions,
subcontracting and wages. It was also a strike against the authoritarian
character of the workplace. Implicitly it was about dignity, democracy
and workers’ control.

Values such as democracy, dignity and control have radical implications
that challenge not only UPS, but all corporations. Employers want
top-down authority, hierarchy, and insecurity among the workers to keep
them hunkered down. Democracy, dignity and the idea of workers’ control
over their jobs and lives challenge the entire social system we live in,
a system which places profit as the ultimate value. Any strike, but
especially a strike with the size and scope of the UPS strike, questions
the employer and, implicitly, the corporations’ domination of our lives.

A militant labor movement—rebuilt around ideas like democracy and workers’
power in the workplace—would have a tremendously radicalizing impact upon
our society. That is why we should look closely at this strike and
its implications.

The Teamsters Prepare

UPS on the one side, and Carey and the New Teamsters on the other,
approached the negotiations with an equally aggressive posture. In
itself this tended to level the playing field. The key to the Teamsters’
success, as the New York Times explained, was a year-long effort
to mobilize its members.

Taking a cue from TDU, the Teamsters began preparing for the contract
a year before. They developed a “Countdown to the Contract” booklet
which provided tips on how to pressure the company and how to build an
effective communications network. They began with a survey of all
UPS workers, asking them what they wanted in the contract. In the
survey, 90% of the part-timers expressed their desire for full-time jobs.
Responding to the members’ views, that became the union’s central demand.
By taking up the issue of full-time jobs for part-time workers, the Teamsters
had chosen a demand that found broad support both in the organized labor
movement and among those who had never been in a union.

The union also decided to take a stand against the contracting-out of
union tractor-trailer drivers’ jobs.

Finally, the union took a strong position against company control of
the pensions. The Teamsters demanded that UPS stay in the multi-employer
plans to help provide pensions to workers whose companies had gone bankrupt
because they were driven out of business by other companies.

The pension issue was by no means simple. During the 1990s, many
UPS workers had become dissatisfied with their pensions. Rank-and-
file UPS workers had held meetings involving hundreds of workers who had
collected thousands of dollars to promote withdrawal from the multi-employer
plan, hoping to raise their own pensions in an independent plan.

The company was aware of the dissatisfaction and hoped to use it.

Once the members had been consulted, the union moved on to collect 100,000
signatures in support of the union’s demands. Eighteen full-time
field representatives were freed up to organize work sites and encourage
visible, do-able actions such as wearing “Ready to Strike” T-shirts to
work. All shop stewards received a seven-minute video about the UPS
negotiations.

Months in advance the Teamster research department put out packets explaining
to the news media the union’s demand for full-time jobs for part-time workers.
And in preparation for a series of rallies, the Teamsters distributed tens
of thousands of “It’s Our Contract. We’ll Fight for It.” stickers
and 50,000 whistles in order to “blow the whistle on UPS.” On March 7,
four days before negotiations opened, representatives from each of the
206 UPS locals attended a rally in Chicago. On March 10 there were
ten rallies at UPS workplaces; thirty more took place on March 30.

Carey also created a fifty-member UPS bargaining committee, several
members of which had been long-time TDU activists. The committee
also included four UPS rank and filers and part-timers, something virtually
unknown in union bargaining committees.

By mid-July, when negotiations were stalled, a strike vote was conducted.
UPS workers voted 95% for to 5% against authorizing a strike.

The Teamsters were also prepared to pay $55 dollars a week to each UPS
striker. Given the number of people on strike, this would have amounted
to ten million dollars a week. To meet this big cash outlay, Carey
went to John Sweeney, the new head of the AFL-CIO, and asked for a multi-million
dollar loan to sustain the Teamsters in their strike. Sweeney promised
the Teamsters $10 millon a week in loans to sustain the strike for many
weeks if necessary.

Once out on strike, the union kept members informed by faxing bulletins
to Teamster locals, setting up a toll-free hot line for strikers and updating
its World Wide Web site every few hours. In addition to pulling picket-line
duty, UPS drivers were encouraged to drive their route and introduce a
part-timer to their customers and explain the strike. Strikers also
distributed pro-Teamster score cards at baseball games.

But perhaps most impressively, just about every Teamster interviewed
by the media explained the issues of the strike in their own unique way.
A national press conference in Washington, D.C. in the middle of
the strike led off with two rank-and-file workers explaining why they felt
a strike was necessary. They were confident and articulate but obviously
not “professionals” hired to do a job.

The Teamsters had certain advantages in facing UPS which were not of
their own making. The American economy was booming, with the lowest
unemployment rate in years at 4.8%. UPS workers were not so afraid
to strike as Teamsters and other workers had been between 1979 and 1997.
In addition, a demographic change had taken place in the workforce.

The first born of the baby-boom generation (1940-50) were now beginning
to retire, opening jobs for other workers. For the first time in
decades, the working class employed in industry and services was growing
younger.

The UPS workers were among the youngest workers in the country; most
sorters, loaders and package car drivers were in their twenties and thirties.
This may also have made a difference. During the bitter strikes of
the 1980s and 1990s workers like those at the Staley sugar plant had asked
themselves, “What do I have to give up to keep this job?” Young workers
like those at UPS asked themselves different questions, like: “Do I want
to be a part-timer earning ten dollars an hour for the rest of my life?”
UPS management was shocked to find these young, part-time workers prepared
to fight.

Nevertheless it should be recognized that the backbone of the UPS Teamster
locals and of the strike were the full-time package car and feeder drivers.

Finally it should be mentioned that the UPS workforce nationally as
well as in many particular cities was extremely diverse ethnically.
Racial divisions have often undermined the struggle of American workers,
but not in this strike. Black, white, Asian and Latin workers worked
in all job categories, and while the workforce experienced the usual racial
tensions present in American society, this was a group united through its
union and in its commitment to the strike. No racial antagonisms
divided these workers. While women represented a smaller part of
the workforce, they too could be found in all job categories, and also
felt an equal stake in the struggle.

Labor’s Twenty Years in Retreat

To fully appreciate the importance of the UPS victory, we should step back
and take a look at the experience of the U.S. labor movement over
the last twenty-five years. Despite some victories, the balance sheet
shows a series of defeats.

The process began in 1979 when the leadership of the United Auto Workers
(UAW) accepted the Carter administration’s Chrysler “bailout,” and negotiated
the contract which broke the “Big Three” pattern agreement covering workers
at GM, Ford and Chrysler. Thus autoworkers lost their master contract,
setting a precedent for the steelworkers and other industrial unions which
would also soon lose theirs.

The Chrysler bailout was followed immediately by Ronald Reagan’s attack
on the Professional Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) in 1980. When
PATCO went out on strike, Reagan (following a plan developed by Jimmy Carter)
fired all 13,000 controllers, in what was a devastating and shocking defeat
for the labor movement. Although European air traffic controllers
showed tremendous solidarity in the opening days of the strike, U.S.

labor didn’t aggressively support the PATCO workers.

The Chrysler bailout and the destruction of PATCO opened an era of government
and employer attacks on labor unions.

The events of 1979 and 1980 broke what had been a forty-year labor-management
truce (like all truces interrupted from time-to-time by hostilities).
From the end of World War II generally unions won higher wages and increased
benefits with each new contract, even as they gave up control over working
conditions on the shop floor.

The Employers’ Assault

The Chrysler bailout became the model for corporations. They demanded
“takeaways” or “givebacks” from labor unions and aggressively conducted
what business schools call “concession bargaining.” Throughout the 1980s
employers demanded that workers take wage cuts, accept two-tier wage systems,
pay a larger portion of their health care costs, and accept lower pensions
as their price for having jobs.

A few employers went so far as to bring in union-busting law firms to
eliminate labor unions altogether or got “loyal” employees to call for
representation elections and vote out the union. Some employers,
especially in the trucking industry, opened parallel non-union lines, a
practice called double-breasting. Other employers entering the market,
simply fought to keep labor unions out. Thus labor union representation
fell from its high of 35% in 1955 to 14.5% in 1996.

At the same time Presidents Carter and Reagan, and later Bush and Clinton-that
is both Democrats and Republicans-supported legislation that gave big tax
breaks to corporations and the very wealthy, while putting the tax burden
on working-class people. Social programs that protected workers and
the poor: workers’ compensation, unemployment benefits, public welfare,
public health programs, and public education were cut. The combined
result of all of these policies was a redistribution of power and wealth
away from working people towards the corporations and the wealthy.

The Employers’ Partner

What was the response of the labor union leaders to the employers’ attack
and the government’s policies? In general-though there were some important
exceptions-most national labor union officials provided little or no leadership
in dealing with this government and employer onslaught. Few labor
unions had any political, contract or shop floor strategy for fighting
back in self-defense. Doug Fraser, when he was head of the UAW, complained
that the corporations were conducting a one-sided class war, but he certainly
never developed a strategy of fighting back.

Why didn’t the labor movement fight back? What had happened to the unions?
During the 1930s workers had organized sit-down strikes, seized factories,
put up massive picket lines and faced down the police and the national
guard. Out of that experience had come the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO), a new industrial union movement led by people with
a broad social vision. Many of those who were pivotal in the CIO
had been activated in the unemployed movement. What had happened
to that radical union movement?

The fact is that the government played a significant role in taming
the unions. During World War II (1941-1945), the government, employers
and the unions cooperated to increase production and prevent strikes.
Government agencies and the employers convinced union officials that they
should help maintain discipline over workers in order to win the war.
Soon union officials began to see their job as policing the working class,
for example, by preventing strikes during the war.

After the war a wave of strikes broke out. Workers were no longer
willing to delay their demands, while it was clear that corporate profits
were going through the roof. By 1947 Congress reacted to the growth
in the unions’ power by passing the Taft-Hartley Act, which prevented solidarity
strikes, limited boycotts and outlawed Communists in the labor unions.
During the Cold War that followed Senator Joseph McCarthy launched an anti-Communist
witch hunt that successfully drove radicals out of workplaces. Generally
their unions did not defend them; the CIO itself aggressively purged alleged
or actual Communists from the unions.

Prosperity also acted as a conservatizing force. During this period,
when the United States dominated the world markets and the U.S. economy
was powerful and prosperous, employers were generally and grudgingly prepared
to give pay increases with every new union contract in order to prevent
strikes, or—in the cases where there were strikes—to get production rolling
again.

During the 1950s there were plenty of strikes but they were more often
situations in which the union threw up a token picket line. The total
work force and the surrounding community were not mobilized to defend the
union and win the battle for the hearts and minds of the larger public.
These strikes were more limited and more self-contained than the post-World
War II battles.

During this period too, most unions leaders could claim that they could
“deliver the goods” to their members. In turn, national union officials
demanded and got higher salaries, luxurious automobiles, expense accounts,
golden parachutes, multiple salaries and pension funds.

With this new life style labor union leaders, especially the national
leaders and the professional staff, became a bureaucracy, a social caste
within the unions. With secure, well-paid positions, these leaders
no longer shared the experience of the workers they represented.
They became incapable of effectively representing people with whom they
had little in common.

The Concept of Partnership

The company and the union officials had a kind of partnership, as they
saw it. Union leaders tried to convince the employers that the union
was good for business. The company and the union undertook the joint
enforcement of the contract, working together to prevent or suppress strikes
or to eliminate absenteeism (and thus increase production and profit).

In the worst of cases, unions—which had started by protecting the workers—gradually
began protecting the employers from the workers. But more typically
union officials saw their role as mediating between workers and management,
arbitrating their differences. In any case, they no longer saw their
job as fighting for the workers and against the employers-and even against
the government when necessary.

During the prosperous years in fact the union bureaucracy developed
a rather comfortable and cozy relationship with management. Few union
leaders—outside of farmworkers, teachers and public employees unions which
had fought for their rights in the 1960s and `70s—had much experience leading
major strikes or mobilizing the membership. Rank-and-file movements
among miners, teamsters, postal workers, and autoworkers radicalized sections
of the union members-but, with the exception of the miners, the movements
were not able to obtain their objectives.

The vision of a union as a social movement fighting for its members
and working people in general was replaced by the union as a kind of insurance
company.

So when in the mid-70s management began to turn on the unions, the labor
bureaucracy was completely surprised and utterly unprepared.

The Re-Engineering of America

Why did management suddenly change its policies? By the 1970s, the U.S.
economy no longer dominated the world. The economies of Germany and
Japan had begun to rival that of the United States. To meet the challenge,
U.S. corporations had to become more competitive. One of their strategies
was to invest in new technologies. But the other, and equally important,
tactic was to lower their labor costs through a concerted attack on their
workers.

The attack on labor during the `70s and `80s was multifaceted.
Corporations closed their old steel mills and factories, throwing hundreds
of thousands of union workers out of jobs. Companies ended
pattern bargaining and began concession bargaining, taking away wages,
benefits, and conditions won by unions over decades of struggle and pitting
workers in one plant against workers organized by the same national union
in another. Management spent millions on new technologies, completely
altering the organization of the workplace and disrupting union rules and
past practice. The pace of change was dizzying.

By the 1980s personnel departments adopted new methods intended to undermine
the unions and win over the workers. These practices included Quality
Circles, Team Concept and Total Quality Management. Within a decade
American society and the workplace had been transformed-and the losers
were working people. With unions in retreat, between 1973-97 real wages
fell by 18%. In most working-class families husbands and wives both
had to work to pay the bills.

Before 1980 the number of strikes had never fallen below 200 in any
given year. In 1980 the number fell to 187 and by 1982 it tumbled
below 100. During the ’90s, in fact, the annual number of strikes
plunged below 50. For example, in 1994 there were 45 strikes involving
322,000 workers and in 1995 192,000 workers participated in 31 separate
strikes.

The media questioned whether strikes were outdated, but the real issue
was that the days of the routine strike were past. With injunctions
and the right to use “replacement” workers, the corporations were more
combative than ever. Any union voting to go out on strike had to
be prepared with a strategy to win, including a willingness to defy court
injunctions and a capacity to unify and mobilize its members and supporters.

Supporting Democrats as an Alternative

The union leadership was baffled, bewildered, and battered at the bargaining
table. Unable and unwilling to resist the employers in the workplace
or in the collective bargaining arena, many union officials put their hopes
in the Democratic Party.

Despite a long tradition of voting for working-class candidates in local
labor parties—or for socialist candidates—by the end of the 1930s the CIO
entered into partnership with the Democrats. After the CIO’s merger
with the American Federation of Labor in 1955, the AFL-CIO became an important
part of the Democratic Party. If labor unions could “deliver” the
votes of its membership to the party, then presumably the candidates would
“take care” of labor once elected. But it didn’t work out that way,
particularly not since the crunch of concessions in the 1970s.

Carter, Clinton and the Democratic Congress proved nearly as conservative
as the Republicans, and the union bureaucracy’s political strategy proved
to be a failure. For example, the most important piece of legislation
Clinton and a Democratic-led Congress passed is NAFTA-a piece of legislation
every trade union and grassroots community group opposed. That, not
outlawing the use of scabs in strikes, was the Democratic Party’s priority.

During these years, regional and local leaders, and rank-and-file workers
in many areas resisted the government and employer attack. The P-9
United Food and Commercial Workers at the Hormel plants, United Auto Workers
at Caterpillar, the workers at the Staley sugar processor, the Detroit
newspaper workers, and many others fought long, difficult strikes against
the employers.

But without the backing of a national union, and without an organized
rank and file within the union, it was almost impossible to win.
In fact, most of these strikes—despite the workers’ often heroic efforts—were
defeated. In the case of P-9, the UFCW International leadership itself
actively worked to break the strike. With national union leaders
who failed to defend the union, to negotiate decent contracts, and to ensure
passage of pro-worker legislation, many workers had lost faith in unions.

The Mafia and Sweetheart Contracts

But if the 1980s were difficult for most unions, for the Teamsters they
were tragic. A combination of politicians, Mafia-connected union
officials, and trucking employers came to dominate the highest levels of
the Teamsters. Under the control of these outsiders, during the worst years
of the employers’ attack on the unions in the 1980s, the Teamsters negotiated
a series of sweetheart contracts. These contracts sold out the interests
of the union members and weakened the labor movement as a whole.

How had such a situation come about? The Teamsters had been founded
back in the 1890s as a craft union-like the carpenters or plumbers-made
up of local cartage drivers. Under the leadership of Dan Tobin, the
Teamsters formed an important part of the American Federation of Labor
(AFL). But Tobin was a conservative leader, dedicated to the AFL’s
craft union model, uninterested in organizing immigrants, African Americans,
or industrial workers whom he called riff-raff.

The Teamsters’ heroic years began in 1934 when rank-and-file truck drivers
and warehouse workers from Minneapolis, Minnesota led a series of strikes,
culminating in a city-wide truck-drivers’ strike. The leader of that
strike was Farrell Dobbs, a socialist and a brilliant strategist, who went
on to organize over-the-road freight drivers and other dock workers and
warehousemen throughout the Midwest.

In this way Teamsters underwent a transformation from a craft union
to a kind of industrial union of the transportation industry, a development
which paralleled the rise of the auto, rubber, and electrical workers’
unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Dobbs trained
other Teamsters in his strategy of organizing the rank and file to hit
the economic weak points of the companies. One of his students was
Jimmy Hoffa.

Dobbs and the team around him provided political leadership within the
Teamsters from 1934 until the eve of World War II. They played a
decisive role in organizing Teamsters throughout the Midwest and in making
Minneapolis a union town. They also forged ties with the unemployed
movement, helping Minneapolis-area workers in government programs to win
the highest wages in the country.

But the government, in concert with Tobin, orchestrated a witch hunt
with the approach of World War II. Dobbs and more than two dozen
militant trade unionists and socialists were the first to be indicted under
the newly passed Smith Act. Eighteen were eventually convicted and
sentenced. With the leadership core of the Minneapolis Teamsters out of
the way, the door was open for other elements to come to the foreground.

Jimmy Hoffa-and the Mafia

Jimmy Hoffa rejected Dobbs’ socialism and his rank-and-file approach, but
adopted the strategy of analyzing the economic linkages between companies.
Hoffa extended Dobbs’ organizational work throughout the Midwest and the
South, and also won the Teamsters first health, welfare and pension funds.
On the basis of these achievements-and with the support of some of the
mob’s “paper” locals (so called because they had no members)-Hoffa was
elected Teamster president in 1957.

In addition to being an aggressive organizer, Hoffa also established
close ties to Mafia figures, like Allen Dorfman, whom he brought in to
manage the Teamsters’ Central States Pension, Health and Welfare plans.
Hoffa’s lieutenants included Mafia-connected union officials such as Roy
Williams in Kansas City and William Presser in Cleveland.

Hoffa and the corrupt union officials he supported or put into power
cut dirty deals with employers, including payoffs for labor peace.
Hoffa also bought trucking companies in his wife’s name and became an employer.

To keep his control of the union, Hoffa established a kind of dictatorship,
where the General President held all the power. He could put locals
into trusteeship, he effectively controlled the pension plan—using it to
build his image as a labor leader who could produce for the membership
but also through his access to the money, could corrupt union officials
at the local or regional level. Even the master contracts—which take
labor in one area out of competition with another, and are therefore an
important step forward for worker—were used by Hoffa to build his base
of power. Through these various carrot and stick mechanisms local
unions found it impossible to resist Hoffa’s machine; democracy disappeared
from the Teamsters.

By the 1950s a series of Congressional investigations brought the Teamsters’
corruption before the public. The public outcry forced the AFL-CIO
to expel the Teamsters for corruption in 1957. By the early `60s
President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy decided
to go after Hoffa.

While Hoffa was guilty of corruption, the politicians’ interests were
not entirely altruistic. Employers and the government both saw the
prosecution of Hoffa as a way to weaken the Teamsters and the labor movement.

After several indictments and trials, Hoffa was finally convicted of
jury tampering and stealing Teamster members’ pension funds in 1964.
He remained out on appeal until 1967 when he was finally imprisoned.

During the decade that Hoffa had headed the union, the Mafia had first
cast a shadow, and then cast a net over the organization. Ensnared
by the mob, first the union stumbled and then it fell.

Fitzsimmons and Nixon Make a Deal

Hoffa went off to prison, leaving the union in the hands of Frank Fitzsimmons.
Hoffa believed Fitzsimmons a loyal flunkey who would give the union back
when he got out of jail. But Fitzsimmons proved more ambitious than
Hoffa had imagined.

Fitzsimmons made a deal with President Richard Nixon to let Hoffa out
of jail on the condition that Hoffa be banned from all union activities
for ten years. With Hoffa thus ineligible to run for union office,
Fitzsimmons would continue to head the union. In return for keeping
Hoffa out of the union, Fitzsimmons and the Teamsters supported President
Richard Nixon and the Republican Party. Even after the Watergate
revelations which exposed Nixon’s illegal wire-tapping activities, the
Teamsters stuck with Tricky Dick.

When Hoffa got out of prison in 1970 he began a campaign to take back
control of the union, appealing both to his corrupt Teamster official friends
and the Mafia. Perhaps Hoffa threatened to blow the whistle on somebody,
or maybe his return just created unwanted problems. In any case,
in July of 1975 Hoffa disappeared, and is presumed to have been murdered
by the mob.

The Dictators, the Mob and the FBI

As head of the Teamsters, Fitzsimmons let union officials with ties to
the Mafia, such as Roy Williams in Kansas City and William Presser’s son
Jackie Presser in Cleveland, dominate union affairs. As the employers
turned up the pressure in the 1980s, Fitzsimmons, Williams and Presser
negotiated a series of sweetheart deals permitting the trucking companies
to rewrite the contracts in their own interests.

Fitzsimmons died in 1981 and was succeeded in office by Williams and
then by Presser. In this manner the Mafia thus came to control the
presidency and the highest councils and the coffers of the union.
Williams was indicted and convicted of corruption, while Presser, to save
his skin, became an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Presser and Harold Friedman were indicted for racketeering, but Presser
died before the trial, while his co-conspirator Friedman was convicted.

During the `70s and `80s, the people with the most influence over Teamsters’
national policy were Presidents Richard Nixon and, later, Ronald Reagan,
Mafia bosses Williams and Presser, the FBI, and the trucking employers
to whom the union was rapidly selling out. Everybody was involved
in the Teamsters leadership-politicians, bosses, and the Mafia -everybody
but the workers.

The Beginnings of Rank-and-File Rebellion

Faced with such corruption and seeing their union fail to represent the
needs of its membership, rank-and-file Teamsters began to organize.
Local unions had resisted Jimmy Hoffa in the 1950s and `60s as he extended
his dictatorial control over the union and in 1970 freight workers organized
wildcat strikes in several states against Frank Fitzsimmons’ attempt to
sell them a sweetheart contract. That same year workers came together
to found Teamsters United Rank and File (TURF), an important, but short-lived
effort to create a national rank-and-file organization.

Then the union’s older activists were infused with some young blood.
The early 1970s were years of important social movements throughout the
United States. A powerful national movement which had begun in the
1960s continued to fight against the war in Vietnam. African Americans
worked to extend the gains made by the civil rights movement of the 1950s
and 60s. Women organized an important feminist movement fighting
for, among other things, the Equal Rights Amendment. Many college
students and other young people, transformed by the experience of the anti-war
movement became committed reformers, radicals and socialists.

These rebel youth argued that business interests dominated U.S.
society, while the working people’s interests took second place.
They wanted a country where people, rather than the corporations and the
rich, would control the economy democratically. Some of these young
idealists entered the labor movement, either taking jobs with labor unions,
or going to work in a variety of industries. They believed that the
U.S. labor movement could be a great force for social justice, if
only it could be reformed.

One group, the International Socialists-one of the forerunners of Solidarity-had
members in the trucking industry and in the Teamsters union. Those
socialists sought out the union’s long-time activists, and together they
began to organize around local union democracy issues and union contracts.

In 1975 a group of Teamster activists from around the country, some
of them young radicals and others older, long-time fighters, created a
coalition called Teamsters for a Decent Contract (TDC) to fight for a decent
freight contract the following year. At the same time, they created
a parallel organization called UPSurge to organize UPS workers to fight
for their 1976 UPS contract.

During 1975 and `76 both TDC and UPSurge organized hundreds of workers
in cities throughout the United States in the movement for a decent contract.
TDC and UPSurge pressured both the employers and their union officials
with demonstrations at trucking companies and union halls and resolutions
at local union meetings. The contract campaign planted seeds of change.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union

The relative success of the TDC and UPSurge contract campaigns led
a number of activists to decide to create an on-going rank-and-file organization.
At a convention in Cleveland in 1976, a couple hundred Teamsters founded
Teamsters for a Democratic Union, committed to returning the control of
the union to its members.

TDU had grown out of a contract campaign, but the recessions of 1974-75
and 1979-80 took much of the militancy out of the labor movement.

Teamsters were afraid to engage in militant action on the job or to strike
for fear of losing their jobs. They also knew that they could not
count on their union officials to back them up. In this more conservative
climate, TDU began a long, slow task of fighting for rank-and-file workers’
rights: the right to elect stewards and business agents, the right to vote
on contracts. TDU also organized campaigns throughout the 1980s against
the sweetheart contracts negotiated by Fitzsimmons, Williams and Presser.

TDU organized among all kinds of Teamster workers: freight drivers and
dock workers, carhaulers, grocery warehousemen, and Mexican-American cannery
workers out West. TDU created special committees to analyze the problems
in the industry, survey the workers, and come up with rank-and-file contract
demands. TDU worked with Teamsters from coast to coast, and in Puerto
Rico and Canada. One of the companies TDU organized workers to fight
was United Parcel Service.

What TDU was doing was building a militant minority within the Teamsters.
The history of the labor movement is the history of such militant minorities
who take the lead, and by doing so bring others up behind them. The
militant minority acts as the leaven in the loaf.

If we look back, for example, at the history of the great sitdown strikes
of the 1930s, we find that in most cases only a few thousand or even a
few hundred workers occupied the plants. But thousands of workers
marched outside. And tens of thousands of workers offered their moral
support by staying away from work. Later, when union elections were
held, those tens of thousands of less active supporters voted to uphold
the union. The fact that they did not participate in the factory
occupations did not mean that they were unconvinced or uncommitted.

The key thing is often to create that militant minority which through
its courage, its dedication and its perseverance convinces the larger majority
to give its moral support and take action. Teamsters for a Democratic
Union over its twenty-year history has built a structure whereby Teamsters
can become organizers and thus part of that militant minority.

United Parcel Service

United Parcel Service was founded in Seattle in 1907 by James E.
Casey, a messenger boy. Casey bought some bicycles and went into
the business of delivering department store merchandise to customers.
By 1919 Casey had expanded to California; in 1930 he moved the company
headquarters to Manhattan. In the 1950s UPS became a common carrier,
that is a freight company specializing

in
packages. When Casey retired in 1962, younger UPS managers took over
the company, following his management methods. By the 1990s UPS had
become a multinational company with operations not only in the United States
but in a number of other countries throughout the world.

Back in the twenties, Casey had adopted what is called “scientific management.”
The founder of scientific management, Frederick Taylor, believed that managers,
not workers, should completely control the work process. Managers
had to study how workers work, analyze that work process, and break it
down into separate pieces. Managers and supervisors could then control
the work process and instruct workers on the most efficient way to work.

Later Henry Ford combined Taylor’s methods with the machinery of the
modern assembly line factory. In Ford’s factories, the machines set
the pace and drove the human beings. Taylor and Ford influenced Casey
and his successors.

UPS management attempts to control the worker completely from the moment
of arrival until departure. The UPS worker’s every move is planned
precisely by company managers, from picking up the keys to loading the
package.

UPS became a fabulously successful corporation largely through its oppressive
management techniques. The day begins with a management pep talk
and ends in exhaustion. Under the threat of discipline and with the
promise of promotion, UPS package car drivers run all day, racing up and
down the streets of America, spending their energy on making managers happy
and stockholders rich.

With its control not only over the worker’s actions, but also its intrusion
into the worker’s mind, UPS could be called a totalitarian management.
It may be said that UPS has mastered the art of managing fatigue.
Workers are pushed to their physical and psychological limits, leading
to a high incidence of accidents, injuries and occupational illnesses.
The pressure to perform is so great that some workers even donate their
unpaid time before and after work or work through their lunch break to
meet production goals.

The pressure, tension, and sweat of the UPS workers are transformed
first into organizational efficiency, and then into more than one billion
dollars a year in corporate profits shared by about 20,000 UPS managers
who are also stockholders.

But UPS profits have not been shared with the workers. During
the 1970s and 1980s, UPS began to expand the number of part-time workers
and negotiated contracts which allowed the company to pay them lower wages
and fewer benefits. The combination of the efficient exploitation of the
package car and over-the-road drivers and the lower-wage and benefit packages
for the backbreaking work of the sorters and loaders earned millions for
the company and fueled its international growth.

UPS managers also attempt to learn about the workers’ off-the-clock
activities through eavesdropping on workers’ conversations, taking notes
and making diagrams of workers’ friends and associates. UPS sends
spies to labor union or TDU meetings.

Campaigning for a Decent UPS Contract

Frank Fitzsimmons, Roy Williams and Jackie Pressure negotiated substandard,
sweetheart contracts against the wishes of UPS workers. But Teamsters
for a Democratic Union and its UPS contract committees fought against these
deals year after year. TDU organized rank-and-file UPS workers into
a national network, created national contract campaigns for a decent contract,
and mobilized the ranks to vote against the poor contract proposals of
the Teamster leadership.

In addition to TDU, UPS management had another thorn in its side.
Ron Carey, the President of Local 804 in New York, also resisted UPS management.
Carey went to work at UPS in 1955, following in his father’s footsteps—Joseph
Carey was a UPS worker for forty-eight years. Thirteen years later,
Carey was elected president of Local 804, a union of 5,000 members.

Carey led his local in several strikes for higher wages and better conditions
in the 1960s and `70s. When Local 804 was brought into regional and
national contract bargaining, Carey became an outspoken critic of the sell-out
contracts negotiated by Fitzsimmons, Williams and Presser. When TDU
organized against UPS and the national Teamster leadership, Carey too could
be expected to oppose the Mafia-dominated national leadership. Carey
never joined TDU, but was an ally in the struggle against the company and
the Teamsters corrupt Old Guard.

The RICO Suit and Ron Carey for President

In 1988, the U.S. government decided to take action against the corrupt
Teamster leadership. Using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization
(RICO) Act, the U.S. Justice Department floated the idea that it
would take over the Teamsters. TDU intervened, arguing that rather
than putting the union into trusteeship, the government should simply oversee
elections in order that Teamsters could democratically elect their president
and other top officers.

TDU launched a national Right-To-Vote campaign that gathered 100,000
signatures, held rallies around the country, and organized members at the
local level to support this position. It also outlined how a fair
and honest election could be conducted. In March 1989 the government
dropped the trusteeship idea and the Justice Department and the union agreed
to the alternative: a one-member, one-vote for the top union officers.
The agreement also included the Justice Department’s continuing to monitor
the union for corruption.

Two months after Carey announced his candidacy for president, TDU’s
members voted to support Carey. Carey, in turn, picked several TDU
leaders to run with him for positions on the union’s General Executive
Board.

Carey was the underdog in the three-way race. The other two candidates-R.V.
Durham, supported by the majority of the General Executive Board, and Walter
Shea, supported by the minority of the board, especially those who had
closer ties to organized crime-had enormous financial resources.
But the Old Guard made a critical mistake: it never dreamed an “outsider”
like Carey could win, and therefore it didn’t go into the election unified.

TDU provided the Carey campaign with a ready-made national campaign
organization. As Carey toured the country in `89 and `90, the national
TDU office and local TDU chapters organized meetings and rallies in his
support. With TDU’s support, the first Carey campaign for the union
presidency had the feel of a rank-and-file movement. Workers themselves
passed out literature, made phone calls, organized rallies and got out
the vote. TDU played an important role, arguably the crucial role,
in winning Carey’s first election.

The Carey slate won the election with 48% of the vote in the three-way
race, much to the Old Guard’s shock-and the surprise of some in the reform
movement itself! Shortly after the election, TDU leaders met to discuss
the future.

Perhaps some observers thought that now that a reform leader had been
elected president and even some TDU members were elected to national office,
TDU was no longer needed. But most TDUers disagreed. Even with
a reform leadership in power, it was all important to have a rank-and-file
movement from below to push for the complete democratization of the union
and to make demands upon the employers. TDU decided to continue as
a force for change within the union.

With Carey’s reform administration pushing down from above, and TDU
and the rank and file pushing up from below, it would be possible to squeeze
the mobsters and the sleaze out of the union. As some TDU leaders
put it, the situation was like a sandwich, or perhaps more like a vice.

Carey Holds Out an Olive Branch

In office as General President, Carey called his administration “The New
Teamsters,” giving that name to the union’s magazine. Carey took
some important measures at the very beginning of his regime, important
both in substance and symbolism: He cut the salaries of the top union officials,
including his own. He ended the officers’ practice of “double-dipping,”
that is taking multiple salaries for holding various offices. He
sold off the Teamsters’ Lear jet planes.

Beyond those initial actions, Carey had two tasks before him: the reform
of the union and the fight against the employers.

Carey’s strategy for union reform was cautious. First, Carey made
a tactical decision to hold out an olive branch to the Teamster leaders
who had been associated with the old regime. Except in flagrant cases
of corruption, he attempted to win over his former opponents. Considering
the closeness of the vote, Carey’s strategy-to break-up the opposition,
win part of it over and neutralize another part-was critical to moving
the Teamsters forward. The broadest possible unity is always a desirable
goal, but it was particularly important for Carey since immediately after
the election sections of the Old Guard-such as Larry Brennan, president
of Michigan Joint Council 43-threatened to withhold dues payments from
the International.

Unlike most other unions, the Teamsters is formally a decentralized
union and the Old Guard network continued to control most of the centers
of organizational power even after their surprising defeat in the elections.
For example, only 13% of the dues money goes to the International.

While a strategy toward established officials was essential, the details
were difficult. Where to draw the lines? How to pose the issues?
How to draw in local officials without alienating and demoralizing supporters
and more militant forces?

Carey’s olive-branch-strategy was partially successful. He won
over a few of his former opponents. It also demonstrated to a significant
portion of the membership those who stood in the way of Teamster unity.

At the same time his administration became somewhat more conservative and,
in some cases, unable to mobilize the membership. Sometimes it seemed
as if Carey tried to keep TDU and its leaders at a distance. Although
not repudiating TDU and its support, Carey attempted to incorporate more
of the typical union officials.

Following his own vision, Carey pushed his olive branch strategy as
far as he could. Only when most Old Guard Teamster leaders made it
clear that they wanted nothing to do with Carey, and moreover that they
would do everything they could to sabotage both his regime and union reform
in general, did Carey challenge the Old Guard by abolishing the regional
Teamster Conferences that formed their power base. The Teamster Conferences
represented a great drain on the union’s economic resources, served no
useful function, and helped prop up Carey’s political opponents.

Among its many challenges, the Carey administration faced one particularly
difficult problem: the handling of corrupt local unions. Where the
U.S. Justice Department or the Carey administration had removed corrupt
union officials, the Teamsters International union had to take over the
unions and run them, a practice known as trusteeship. Out of about
600 local unions, by 1997 approximately sixty unions had been put in receivership.
(The Courts directly oversaw two trusteed locals.)

While corrupt local unions had usually been dominated by the mob, employers
and corrupt officers, the problem of corruption often reached down into
the membership. Corrupt officers may have involved some local members
in labor-peace payoffs, embezzlement from health, welfare or pension funds,
extortion, hijacking, robbery, gambling, drugs, prostitution or other crimes.
The majority of rank-and-file members were often fearful of gangsters,
union officials and the employers, ignorant of their union rights and without
any experience in union democracy.

The goal of a good trustee is to weed out the crooks, establish democratic
functioning of the union, and help to develop local leaders who can manage
their own affairs. Under any circumstances it would have been difficult
to find scores of honest, reform-minded, effective, strong leaders to undertake
this difficult work. Unfortunately, Carey appointed some trustees
and trustee supervisors who came
over from the old regime when he held out the olive branch, and who are
not committed to union reform. Partly because of this, the clean-up
and reform of the sixty trusteed locals has not been altogether successful.

Looking at the union as a whole, while several important local unions
remained in the hands of Old Guard Teamsters with their authoritarian,
conservative and sometimes corrupt practices, the International union underwent
a dramatic change. Carey, with several TDU leaders on the General
Executive Board, opened up the union to local leaders and the membership.
Carey adopted many of TDU’s programs of education, information, and organization.

He worked with local officers and rank-and-file members to begin to reverse
the years of criminal control, corruption, and conservative unionism which
had plagued the Teamsters.

The Teamsters Take on the Employers

During those first five years in office, Carey put the employers on notice
that the old sweetheart deals were at an end. He prepared the union
for strikes but showed he was flexible enough to negotiate contracts without
them whenever possible.

The national carhaul contract, covering 17,000 Teamsters, had already expired
when Carey took office. A previous tentative settlement, with a two-tier
wage scheme and other concessions, had been rejected by the membership
with a 74% margin. The main issue was double-breasting, that is,
when a company opens a non-union subsidiary and transfers work from its
union to non-union operations.

The new leadership took a harder stance at the bargaining table and
attempted to mobilize the membership through contract bulletins.
They launched a corporate campaign against Ryder, the largest carhaul corporation
and the worst double-breasting offender. Although prepared for a
strike, the Teamsters were able to reach an agreement in April 1992 that
prohibited the corporations’ parent companies from using non-union subsidiaries.

In 1993, after sluggish negotiating, UPS got serious about a tentative
contract only when the membership voted 94% in favor of strike authorization
and the Teamsters decided to stop extending the old contract. The
agreement won the use of Teamster drivers for the new three-day select
service and the union negotiated into the national contract an “innocent
until proven guilty” clause that was a first for a U.S. union.

But the big problem remained: a work force in which the majority were
part-time workers with a wage half that of the full-timers.

During the 1993 contract talks, when the union raised the issue of weight
limits, UPS had stated it had no intention of increasing the weight limits.
But in January 1994 UPS announced its intention to increase the weight
limit on packages from seventy to 150 pounds. Negotiations between
UPS and the Teamsters made no progress and the new weight was scheduled
to take effect on February 7. So Carey set February 7 as the strike
deadline.

The company sought a temporary restraining order against the strike,
and a federal judge issued one. But Carey felt the issue important
enough to break the injunction and defend the union members’ health and
safety. For their part, the Old Guard used the order as an excuse to keep
their locals from participating. Consequently only about 30-40% of
the Teamsters at UPS struck. The action, however, forced the company
to negotiate a settlement: the higher weight limit stands, but UPS agreed
to bargain over how the heavier packages will be handled. In the
meantime, Teamsters are not required to lift packages over seventy pounds
without help from another member of the bargaining unit.

Violating the restraining order was a bold step that forced the company
to compromise. It also demonstrated the willingness of the membership
to participate in a job action, paving the way for the successful 1997
strike.

On April 6, 1994, 120,000 Teamsters began a twenty-four day strike against
Trucking Management, Inc. TMI is the largest of several employer
groups in the freight industry, comprising twenty-two national companies.
The union signed interim agreements with nineteen of the twenty-two, who
agreed to accept whatever the other TMI companies negotiated. In
exchange, the Teamsters allowed them to continue operating.

In the end the union forced TMI to withdraw the demand to replace 15,000
full-time dock workers with part-timers. On other issues the settlement
was mixed, with some union gains and some concessions.

The freight and UPS strikes proved to be modest successes, despite the
attempt of some union officials to undercut the Teamsters’ stance by charging
that the issues weren’t worth striking over. Carey, on the other
hand, showed himself to be a leader willing to mobilize the membership
against the employer. As a result, employer opposition to Carey hardened.

Carey’s First Five Years: An Assessment

During his first five years in office, Ron Carey proved to be a daring
leader on a few fronts. As a matter of principle, Carey opposed employers’
cooperation schemes-Quality Circles, Team Concept, Total Quality Management.
He called them by their right name: an attempt to undermine the union and
negate the contract. Carey discouraged Teamster locals from entering
into such agreements and encouraged the union’s education department to
organize an educational campaign against them.

Unlike most other labor leaders, Carey did not see the boss as a partner.
In taking this position, Carey prepared the ground for the UPS strike.
Had he not taken this stand, UPS management would have been in a far better
position to demand “loyalty” from its workers.

Unlike his predecessors Fitzsimmons, Williams and Presser who had a
partnership with the trucking companies and other employers, Carey saw
his job as fighting the company to win economic improvements for the workers.
To win the fight with the company, Carey was prepared to mobilize the workers,
even if it meant an illegal strike. While he did not share TDU’s
more radical rank-and-file perspective, Carey’s brand of unionism opened
up more space for the ranks.

Carey also became the foremost labor leader in the struggle against
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its destructive impact
upon American and Canadian workers’ lives, as well as those of Mexicans.
While the Teamsters’ initial statements about Mexico and Mexican workers
were sometimes awkward and insensitive, the union learned quickly from
its mistakes. Soon the Teamsters entered into an alliance with several
Mexican trucking associations and labor unions, and adopted the language
of international labor solidarity.

Within the labor movement, Carey’s New Teamsters played a progressive
role. When Lane Kirkland retired from the presidency of the AFL-CIO
he picked Tom Donahue as his successor. However, when John Sweeney,
head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) decided to challenge
Donahue-resulting in the first contested election in the AFL-CIO executive
board’s history-Carey and the Teamsters backed Sweeney. Whatever
Sweeney’s weaknesses and limitations, and there are many, his election-together
with Rich Trumka of the United Mine Workers and Linda Chavez-Thompson of
the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—represented
an important shift in the AFL-CIO leadership.

On the political front Carey turned the Teamsters union away from its
decades-long support for Republican presidents including Nixon and Reagan.
Carey steered the Teamsters straight into the Democratic Party. But
if others might have preferred Carey to join with Bob Wages, President
of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union and build an independent
labor party, such a project found no resonance for Carey.

Yet the Teamsters was the only prominent AFL-CIO union that did not
endorse Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996. They held back an endorsement
because of Clinton’s role in the passage of NAFTA.

The Old Guard and Jimmy Jr.

The Old Guard Teamsters, the conservative and often corrupt holdovers from
the old regime, had every interest in opposing union reform. The
Old Guard’s goal was the re-establishment of the status quo ante.
Their slogan might have been: “Forward to the past.”

The Old Guard knew they had to unite behind one candidate, who could
hopefully defeat Carey. Their preferred candidate was Jimmy Hoffa,
Jr., son of the former Teamster President. Hoffa Jr. had never
been a working Teamster and had never held elected office in the Teamsters.

An attorney, much of his business came through the Old Guard Teamsters
with whom he associated, and everyone recognized the name.

Hoffa decided to run against Carey in the 1996 election, and hired Richard
Leebove to help manage his campaign. Leebove was a former follower
of the kooky, but dangerous right-wing extremist Lyndon LaRouche.

Hoffa and Leebove sought out the support of businessmen, the Republican
Party, and conservative newspapers. In media interviews Hoffa criticized
Carey and the Teamsters for their mobilizing of the membership in the freight
and UPS contracts, sending a clear signal to employers that his regime
would mean labor peace.

While Leebove and the Old Guard leaders who controlled some big Teamster
locals used mud-slinging and red-baiting to attack Carey, Hoffa projected
the image of a negotiator who would be able to handle all problems.
His image projected the feeling that it wasn’t necessary to do anything
except back him-he’d make sure the union got the best contract possible.
His slogan was “Restore the Power,” an effective slogan that harkened back
to the days when his dad was “in charge.”

Ken Paff, National Organizer of TDU, explained the appeal Hoffa had
for Teamsters:

“Without internalizing that the contract represents the truce line between
corporate power and union power, some Teamsters fell prey to Hoffa’s `I
will personally negotiate your contracts’ appeal.’”

Unlike the first Carey campaign, which depended upon Teamsters for a Democratic
Union and Local 804 in New York City for support, in the second campaign
Carey turned toward professional public relations firms like the November
Group. The hiring of the November Group, with its ties to the Democratic
Party, would prove to be a huge mistake.

In the 1996 election-where 456,707 Teamsters voted out of the 1.4 million
eligible-Carey succeeded in winning by a narrow margin, receiving 51.71%
of the vote to Hoffa’s 48.28%. What really won the election for Carey
was not his professional public relations firm—which sent out a last-minute
mailing, which arrived days after the ballots were received—but his record
over the past years and the support he had from fellow Teamsters.
TDU loyalists and rank-and-file activists campaigned for Carey, and this
time around he received increased support from many local officials.

On Strike for a Job and a Pension

The strike against UPS, which began on August 4, was completely effective
in stopping the operations of the company from coast to coast. Out
of the work force of 185,000, UPS management suggested that between 5,000
and 10,000 workers had crossed the picket line to scab. That is,
the company could command the loyalty of between 3-6% of the workers, while
the union had the support of 94-97%.

While UPS did use management employees and a few scabs to move some
trucks, UPS never attempted during the strike’s duration to hire replacement
workers. Given the company’s strict methods of operation, it would
have been a difficult process to recruit, hire, train and mobilize enough
workers to really move significant amounts of freight. UPS would
not have wanted to put just anybody in its complex carousel conveyors,
behind the wheel of its package cars and tractors, or in charge of millions
of dollars worth of merchandise.

Where UPS did use scabs, the results were sometimes disastrous.
One UPS manager accidentally drove a truck off an overpass and was killed.

Another essential element in UPS’ inability to conduct business as usual
were the UPS pilots, who themselves have been locked in battle with UPS,
and have been without a contract. The 4,000 pilots wholeheartedly
pledged themselves to support the Teamsters’ strike. Their active
participation in strike solidarity verified for the U.S. public the
intransigence of UPS management. (Should UPS be foolish enough to
force the pilots out on strike, the Teamsters have pledged to honor their
picket lines.)

UPS certainly played hardball with the strike. In many parts of
the country, the company sought and got injunctions to limit picketing.
The company fired some workers, and in some places, such as the Boston
area where picket lines were more militant, workers were arrested.

Once the strike occurred, UPS banked on the possibility of government
intervention. While the company got local injunctions, President
Clinton never invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, which would have permitted
him to stop the strike at least temporarily. Clinton realized that
it would look absurd to argue that the UPS strike constituted a “national
emergency.” This hands-off position no doubt helped the Teamsters maintain
a strong position. At the same time, it should be pointed out that
Clinton never spoke out against the company’s part-time jobs policy or
pension grabbing, and did nothing to assist the union or the UPS workers.
Clinton’s was a policy of benign neglect.

Waving the flag of democracy, the other strategy UPS employed was to
demand that the union–in the middle of the strike-conduct a referendum
vote on the company’s last offer. This demand was designed to fool
people-both strikers and the public at large. In this scenario UPS
was supposed to be viewed as the democratic beacon flooding light on the
union leadership, who were undemocratically trying to prevent the rank
and file from voting. But the whole campaign fell flat, brushed aside by
union spokespeople and rank-and-filers the media interviewed.

Throughout most of the country, the tone of the strike was in keeping
with the particular work force at UPS. Known for politeness, the
workers used their “familiar face” to advantage. That strategy paid
off when the media began to interview small businesspeople. Instead
of finding a group of people angry at the strikers, the general response
was “While this strike inconveniences me, I know my driver needs to win
this one.”

The War of Wits and Words

UPS had a great deal at stake in this strike, hundreds of millions of dollars
in lost business each week, and the possibility of losing customers to
other carriers in the long run. As soon as the strike began, freight
companies, the air-freight companies, and the U.S. Postal Service
all nibbled away at the UPS quasi-monopoly of the small package express
business. Workers at Emery Air Freight reported being inundated with
UPS freight, and with some UPS workers who were temporarily hired to move
it.

With the union’s strike effective, and the company prepared to take
losses to win, the strike became in part a matter of public relations.
The Teamsters won the war of words, not because they adopted the deceitful
public relations techniques, but because they mobilized the members.

The union turned the company’s own image-making upside down. The
polite UPS workers who usually appeared at your home or business to take
your package now appeared in the press and on radio and TV to explain their
union’s demands. Who could deny these young American men and women,
Black and white, Asian and Latino, the right to a full-time job? Who would
take away their pensions?

The UPS corporation, however, with its demands to continue part-time
jobs, outsource union work, and make a grab for the workers’ pension funds
appeared to be what it really is—money-hungry, insensitive, uncaring, ruthless.

Opinion polls showed that over 50% of the American people supported
the UPS strikers, while less than 30% supported management. The Teamsters
campaign for the hearts and minds of the people was so successful that
one tends to forget that other outcomes were possible. Often the
media portrays people on strike as high-paid workers who have it so much
better than lower-paid workers, so what are they complaining about?

Clearly one of the lessons of the UPS strike is that when the union
makes demands that have an appeal to working people and society at large,
it can win broad public support.

The Settlement

As an internally-owned corporation, UPS was in good financial shape to
withstand a lengthy strike. But after two weeks of a solid strike,
UPS management decided to cut their losses. Surely one important
factor in their decision must have been the public’s support to the Teamsters.
In negotiating, the company pulled back from its aggressive stance and
agreed to meet virtually all of the union’s demands:

First, UPS agreed to create 10,000 new full-time jobs by combining existing,
low-wage, part-time jobs. In addition, the company and the union
expect another 10,000 full-time jobs to be created through normal growth.
The agreement provides that five out of six new full-time jobs must go
to UPS workers, up from four out of five in the previous agreement.

Second, UPS agreed that it would remain within the multi-employer pensions
funds. The Teamsters stated that, “Under the Teamsters’ largest fund,
the Central States Pension Fund, a UPS worker will be able to retire after
thirty years of service with a pension of $3,000 per month-50% more than
the current amount.

Third, UPS agreed to limits on subcontracting demanded by the union.
This means that UPS will not subcontract the feeder (over- the-road) drivers’
jobs.

Fourth, the union also won substantial wage increases for UPS workers.
But while the union fought for more full-time jobs, it was unable to end
the huge gap between full-time and part-time wages, and the new contract
reinforces that gap. Full-time workers won $3.10 an hour, or 15%,
which will bring them to $23 by the end of the contract. The part-timer
won an extra dollar an hour, raising them from $11 to $15 an hour by the
time this contract expires.

Fifth, one of the big health hazards at UPS is lifting. The union
also won an agreement from UPS that if the company increased weight limits,
it would first negotiate with the union a safe way to do so.

At the same time, the company forced the union to extend the new contract
to five years (the previous contract had lasted four years and many major
industrial contracts last only three years). This gives the company
a long period in which to consolidate its position before facing a possible
strike. Members, who may not strike during the life of the contract, may
become demobilized.

The Biggest Victory in Twenty-five Years

The Teamster-UPS strike and the new contract represented the most important
victory for organized labor in a quarter century. Certainly there
have been other recent victories-the United Auto Workers (UAW) members
at General Motors who struck for more jobs, the drywall workers in California,
or the Justice for Janitors campaigns. But the Teamsters’ UPS strike,
as nearly everyone has recognized, has taken on a special significance.

The Teamsters have shown that organized labor can represent not only
the needs of its members, but working people as a whole. Nothing
is more crucial to the well-being of our society than the creation of well-paid
jobs with decent benefits. The Teamsters put that issue at the forefront
of their demands. When the Teamsters stood up for the working class,
the working class and the public stood by the Teamsters.

As important perhaps as the victory, was the public perception of victory.
Unlike so many of the labor conflicts of the 1980s and `90s, management
was unable to humiliate the Teamsters. UPS management won over no
significant portion of the workers to scab or to the demand that their
leadership organize a vote on the employers’ last offer. UPS workers
were not starved out in a prolonged strike but stood up for their rights
and won in a relatively short and sweet struggle. Nothing moves a
movement forward so much as a victory.

The Teamsters victory at UPS had an immediate impact upon the labor
movement. At Labor Day picnics, parades, and demonstrations around
the country, UPS workers took center stage.

Whose Victory Was It?

What accounts for the victory? There is of course no one simple answer.
As a high-profile company always in the public eye, with terminals throughout
the country interacting with hundreds of thousands of customers, UPS was
under national scrutiny.

In political terms, the benign absence of President Clinton and the
federal government helped. John Sweeney and the AFL-CIO solidarity
loan made a difference. Of course it was Ron Carey, the Teamster
executive board and the UPS bargaining committee who organized, led and
won this strike.

But Carey would never have been elected, the strike would never have
taken place, and the members would never have given it their support had
there not been a tradition of rank-and-file activism in the Teamsters.

The existence of Teamsters for a Democratic Union played a critical
role in this strike. Twenty years of organizing had given UPS workers
and other Teamsters the confidence to stand up and talk about their views.
Year after year TDU had reached out to the newer, younger workers, drawing
them into the fight for union democracy and economic justice. Only
an on-going rank-and-file organization could have incorporated wave after
wave of new hires into the movement.

TDU had taught Teamster members how to make a leaflet, how to put out
a local rank-and-file paper, and how to run for steward, business agent
or local officer. TDU has organized contract campaigns even when
voting down the contract meant defeating it by more than two-thirds.
TDU has created a militant minority within the union, a small social movement,
and that movement had helped to change the direction of the union.

The Government Calls for New Elections

Throughout the Carey administration, as provided by the RICO suit, the
U.S. Justice Department and the courts continued their oversight
of the Teamsters union. In a decision reached on August 4—but held
until the Teamsters’ strike against UPS was settled—the court-appointed
Election Officer, Barbara Zack Quindel, nullified the 1996 election for
Teamster President and most of the Executive Board officers. She
called for a new election because Carey’s election benefited from illegal
campaign contributions.

Quindel found that the Carey campaign had used Teamster union funds
laundered through other individuals or organizations to help finance the
campaign. Carey himself, however, was not personally accused of any
wrong-doing. She also found that as soon as Ron Carey learned of the problem,
he directed his campaign committee to immediately repay the money and ordered
that the Teamsters follow a policy of full cooperation with the investigation.

The Carey campaign irregularities involved the campaign manager, Jere
Nash, and two consultants: Martin Davis of November Group political consultants
and Michael Ansara of Share Group telemarketing. According to the
indictment against Davis, he told Ansara to pad his bill for get-out-the-vote
phoning the Teamsters did for the Clinton campaign. Extra money was
to be given to Ansara’s wife, Barbara Arnold, who would then donate it
to the Carey campaign. More than $200,000 was involved, mostly union
funds laundered and recycled into the Carey campaign.

Carey himself denied any knowledge of these activities, severed his
relations to the individuals involved, and condemned such corrupt practices.
Interestingly enough only Hoffa is appealing the Election Officer’s decision!
He has stated that he wants Ron Carey removed from office, a government
trusteeship placed over the union, postponement of the rerun and Ron Carey
disqualified from running again. In October 1997, the question of
disqualifying Carey is before the Election Officer and is being used by
Republicans in the on-going battle with the Democrats over campaign funding.

Hoffa is hardly Mr. Clean-his supporters had also been accused
of similar wrong-doing. Hoffa’s campaign organization, the Real Teamsters
Caucus, had been funded with dues money from Teamster locals, joint councils
and state conferences. In early 1996 the Elections Officer found
that the Real Teamsters had collected $116,187 in illegal funds, and ordered
the caucus to return the money.

Similarly, in November 1996 a Texas official was found to have funneled
$36,700 of his local union’s money into the Hoffa campaign. The Elections
Officer also ordered that money returned.

The Hoffa campaign’s election violations were similar to those of the
Carey campaign, but occurred earlier in the election cycle.

Carey clearly made a mistake when he allowed political consultants associated
with the Democratic Party to run his campaign. Unlike U.S.
presidential campaigns, union elections tend to be won by activist members
who organize in the workplace, at the union hall and in their communities.
Mass mailings, professional phonebanks and glossy leaflets do not usually
win union elections-committed activist members do.

Hoffa, of course, attempted to focus as much attention as possible on
the allegations of corruption in the Carey campaign. In doing so,
Hoffa and Leebove got the assistance of conservative politicians such as
Newt Gingrich and the voice of the employers, the Wall Street Journal.

Hoffa and the Old Guard represent the worst tradition in the U.S.

labor movement. Despite his rhetoric, Hoffa stands for a return to
the old partnership between the employers and the union bureaucrats.

Now the rerun has been set: mail ballots will be sent out in mid-February
1998 and the counting will begin March 17.

The Meaning of Rank-and-File Unionism

Teamsters for a Democratic Union represents something different in the
labor movement. TDU is not just about contracts or running for union
office. TDU is about the idea that the union should be a movement for workers’
power. This idea that workers should have power in their union and
control over their workplace is one with enormous appeal to millions.

From the point of view of the powers that be-the corporations, the government,
politicians, and the union bureaucrats-independent rank-and-file organization
is the most dangerous thing imaginable. Rank-and-file power threatens
the whole corporate system. Making concrete the idea of rank-and-file
control of unions and grassroots control of the society, we can begin to
challenge the corporations which so dominate our lives today.

If such an experience and such an idea begins to spread, a new vision
of society can open up and transform our society. It’s a vision of
society where workers could democratically control the economy and the
government. We call that vision socialism.

So claim the victory of the UPS strike for rank-and-file activism, and
claim the future for a new movement for justice and freedom.

For Further Reading

Amy Carroll. Savvy
Troublemaking Politics for New Labor Activists. Detroit:
Solidarity, 1997.

Convoy Dispatch. (Monthly newsletter of Teamsters for A
Democratic Union.) P.O. Box 10128, Detroit, MI 48210.

Farrell Dobbs. Teamster
Rebellion. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1972.

Farrell Dobbs. Teamster
Power. New York: Monad Press, 1973.

Farrell Dobbs. Teamster
Politics. New York: Monad Press, 1975.

Farrell Dobbs. Teamster
Bureaucracy. New York: Anchor Foundation, 1977.

Steve Downs. Why the Jobs Moved But the Unions Didn’t: Capital’s
Restructuring and Labor’s Crisis. Detroit: Solidarity, 1994.

Labor Notes. (Monthly newsletter that covers issues and
struggles of the labor movement.) 7435 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, MI 48210.

One year: $20.

Dan La Botz. Rank
and File Rebellion: Teamsters for A Democratic Union. New
York: Verso, 1990.

Dan La Botz. A
Troublemaker’s Handbook: How to Fight Back Where You Work and Win!
Detroit: Labor Notes, 1991.

Kim Moody. Workers
in A Lean World. New York: Verso, 1997.

Kim Moody. An
Injury To All: The Decline of American Unionism. New York: Verso,
1988.

Mike Parker and Jane Slaughter. Choosing
Sides: Unions and The Team Concept. Detroit: Labor Notes,
1988.

Dan La Botz was a founding member of Teamsters
for a Democratic Union and is the author of Rank
and File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (Verso).

He edits the biweekly Mexican Labor News and Analysis and is a member
of SOLIDARITY.

The Fight at UPS: The Teamsters Victory and the Future of the “New Labor Movement”

Posted August 27, 2006

by Dan La Botz

A Solidarity Pamphlet

Further
Reading

Rival Interpretations

How to Make the Possible A Reality?

The Teamsters Prepare

Labor’s Twenty Years in Retreat

The Employers’ Assault

The Employers’ Partner

The Concept of Partnership

The Re-Engineering of America

Supporting Democrats as an Alternative

The Mafia and Sweetheart Contracts

Jimmy Hoffa-and the Mafia

Fitzsimmons and Nixon Make a Deal

The Dictators, the Mob and the FBI

The Beginnings of Rank-and-File Rebellion

Teamsters for a Democratic Union

United Parcel Service

Campaigning for a Decent UPS Contract

The RICO Suit and Ron Carey for President

Carey Holds Out an Olive Branch

The Teamsters Take on the Employers

Carey’s First Five Years: An Assessment

The Old Guard and Jimmy Jr.

On Strike for a Job and a Pension

The War of Wits and Words

The Settlement

The Biggest Victory in Twenty-five Years

Whose Victory Was It?

The Government Calls for New Elections

The Meaning of Rank-and-File Unionism

For Further Reading

Like this:

The Fight at UPS: The Teamsters Victory and the Future of the “New Labor Movement”

Posted August 27, 2006

by Dan La Botz

A Solidarity Pamphlet

Further Reading

Rival Interpretations

How to Make the Possible A Reality?

The Teamsters Prepare

Labor’s Twenty Years in Retreat

The Employers’ Assault

The Employers’ Partner

The Concept of Partnership

The Re-Engineering of America

Supporting Democrats as an Alternative

The Mafia and Sweetheart Contracts

Jimmy Hoffa-and the Mafia

Fitzsimmons and Nixon Make a Deal

The Dictators, the Mob and the FBI

The Beginnings of Rank-and-File Rebellion

Teamsters for a Democratic Union

United Parcel Service

Campaigning for a Decent UPS Contract

The RICO Suit and Ron Carey for President

Carey Holds Out an Olive Branch

The Teamsters Take on the Employers

Carey’s First Five Years: An Assessment

The Old Guard and Jimmy Jr.

On Strike for a Job and a Pension

The War of Wits and Words

The Settlement

The Biggest Victory in Twenty-five Years

Whose Victory Was It?

The Government Calls for New Elections

The Meaning of Rank-and-File Unionism

For Further Reading

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