Saturday, December 19, 2015

Round Two in the 2016 Teamsters Election

I was shocked and distressed when Tim Sylvester lost the presidency of New York Teamsters Local 804 on Dec. 15.
I was elated when I realized this was just the first round in Sylvester’s bid to become the next General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; that he was still in the fight.
In effect incumbent General President James P. Hoffa won the opening round of the 2016 election when a slate obviously aligned with him beat Sylvester by 70 votes.
Sylvester is going into the second round, the final round, with the continued support of Teamsters United and Teamsters for a Democratic Union. The preliminary for the final round will be at the 2016 Teamsters Convention in June at which Sylvester must win enough votes to be on the ballot in the November-December 2016 election--no sure thing when you are opposing an entrenched incumbent.
There are two routes to the presidency for Sylvester:
First: Hoffa stumbling into a scandal so serious he is forced from office;
Second and most likely: Sylvester generating enough support from Teamsters disgusted with the Hoffa administration along with somehow tapping into the vast reservoir of rank and filers (over a million) who haven’t bothered to vote in past IBT elections.
vvv

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