The easiest way to win an election in a Teamsters
local is to bring internal union charges against a potential opponent. The
local’s executive board sits in judgement of the accused with a guilty verdict
effectively eliminating him/her from the election.
The
incumbent officers of New York Teamsters Local 804 have a compelling reason to
block Tim Sylvester from running for reelection as president of the local next
year.
Sylvester,
a close ally of the late Ron Carey, won the presidency of Local 804 in 2009 and
was reelected in 2012. He was ousted from that office by just 70 votes in 2015 after he had announced he was running for general president of the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters on the Teamsters United slate against incumbent James P. Hoffa.
As a
result of losing Local 804’s presidency, Sylvester switched his candidacy to
general secretary-treasurer enabling Fred Zuckerman to become Teamsters United's presidential candidate. In last year’s election, Local 804
members gave Teamster United a smashing victory over Hoffa by a vote of 1835 to
295--a margin of 1,540 votes.
That
1,540 vote margin must have sent chills through the Local 804 incumbents, who
won their 70-vote victory over Sylvester with the help of the Hoffa forces.
Local
804’s officers, who will sit in judgement, have charged Sylvester with embezzlement
for cashing in his accrued vacation when he departed as the local’s president, which Teamsters United contends is a common and permissible practice..
Teamsters
United has branded the charges as baseless, “a political smear campaign by
Hoffa and the Local 804 officers who do his bidding.”
The
Teamsters court-appointed Independent Investigations Officer would do well to
examine whether the charges against Sylvester are valid or politically-motivated
and whether the Hoffa forces played a role in bringing them. Stealing an
election is just as serious--perhaps more--as looting a union treasury or
pension fund.
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