Word: teamsters
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sweeping change is the result of a deal the government cut with the Teamsters in 1989 to settle a massive racketeering suit alleging that the union's leadership had made a "devil's pact" with the Cosa Nostra. To avoid a costly trial and the threat of a government trusteeship, Teamsters leaders agreed to major reforms. If the Orlando convention follows the new rules, in December the 1.6 million members of the most powerful U.S. union will freely elect their president and 17-member executive board for the first time. That's good news for the rank and file, whose...
People tend to think only of truckers when they hear the word Teamster, but the union today embraces workers from all walks of life -- hospital and brewery laborers, librarians, schoolteachers, even state troopers and sheriff's deputies -- in more than 600 locals scattered as far as Guam and the Yukon Territory. Despite a membership erosion caused mostly by trucking deregulation (the Teamsters peaked in 1978 at 2.3 million), the union boasts the largest U.S. political-action committee. Last year it raised $10.5 million, nearly twice as much as the runner-up, the American Medical Association. That money buys plenty...
...winning the election, though a slight one, is Ronald Carey, president of a United Parcel Service local in Queens, N.Y. Carey is widely regarded as a reformer running with a small power base and a shoestring campaign chest of $300,000. "The others have access to all the Teamster resources," he gripes. "They could raise $1 million in one day if they needed to. They think they're in a corporate country club...
...wild card at the convention will be labor lawyer James P. Hoffa, 50, son of the legendary Teamster leader who disappeared in 1975, eight years after he went to jail for jury tampering. A federal judge barred Hoffa last month from running for office because he has held a job "in the craft" for only half of the required two years. Even so, Hoffa aims to line up enough delegate votes to amend the union's constitution to allow him to seek the presidency. Meanwhile, jackets emblazoned with the phrase FRIENDS OF HOFFA, the slogan used by his father, have...
Hoffa's father may have been a crook, but he looked out for the members' interests (and paychecks) like no Teamster president who followed him. He died, most federal agents believe, because he finally stood up to the Mob after years of acquiescing. "When Jimmy Jr. walks out on that floor, there will be a revival that only his father could command," says an FBI agent who is close to the scene. "Just the mention of his charismatic name may generate a groundswell of support...