An interview with the author of THE TRUCKERS

An interview with Kenneth C. Crowe, author of THE TRUCKERS, by the $100 Plus News of the Association for Union Democracy (www.uniondemocracy.org)
The interview appeared in $100 Plus News on Jan. 6, 2011:

$100 Plus News: What made you write the story now? Were you working on it for some time?
Ken Crowe: The original version of THE TRUCKERS was completed ten years ago in July, 2000. My agent figured there was no market for a labor novel. So, I put the book away with other novels I had written, seemingly doomed to gather dust in a closet. Along came the e-book and online publishing revolution in 2008 led by Amazon’s CreateSpace and Smashwords. I took the novels out of the closet and began rewriting them and putting them on the internet as e-books and
paperbacks. Last summer, I reached THE TRUCKERS. I rewrote the ending to accord with the emergence of Sandy Pope as the TDU-backed, rank and file candidate for IBT president.

$100 Plus News: There is a tension between Helmut Knall and Tommy Kerrigan about whether the International Pres. should get involved in local elections, with Kerrigan believing it was inappropriate despite Knall’s attempts to persuade him that he must support local reformers against the “old guard” which still ran the majority of the locals. Do you believe that dynamic was present
in the Carey administration? Is that meant to be a lesson for reformers?
Ken Crowe: Ken Paff has always believed in reforming the Teamsters from the bottom up. When Ron Carey was elected the IBT’s general president he thought that Teamsters at the local level shared his vision of unselfish, committed leadership, that the good guys would follow his example and the membership would oust those who didn’t. Ken Paff was right in that winning the top
is not enough.

$100 Plus News: Was there any merit to Kerrigan’s position to stay out of local politics?
Ken Crowe: No. That is like the President of the United States staying out of Congressional and Senate elections. A sympathetic base (local union officials in the case of The Truckers or the Teamsters) makes governing so much easier and leading so much more pleasant.

$100 Plus News: After the novel ended we are left with the irony that despite Kerrigan’s successful efforts to win the battles against the companies for the rank and file, it was union enemies from within that were his undoing. In that regard it’s a sad story, though Kerrigan comes across as a hero who gave his life for the working person. Any thoughts?
Ken Crowe: The sophisticated, vicious, unrelenting campaign to destroy Truckers Union president Tommy Kerrigan had its parallel in the Hoffa campaign operatives’ continuous onslaught to undermine Ron Carey from the moment he was elected. Just as in my novel, THE TRUCKERS, the Teamsters old guarders were aroused by self-interest and some rather sordid consultants to turn
out their supporters in their locals or risk losing their comfortable life styles to an awakened rank and file. Myths are built on the bodies of the assassinated, the murdered, and the martyred.

A suggestion: my novel, THE TRUCKERS, has been described as a fun read. It is serious and tragic too. Try it free on Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, or Apple.

A review of THE TRUCKERS by Kenneth C. Crowe

The following review of THE TRUCKERS appeared in the Association for Union Democracy’s Jan. 4, 2011 edition of $100 Plus News. It is reprinted with AUD’s permission:

THE TRUCKERS by Kenneth C. Crowe
(CreateSpace, Charleston, SC: 2010) 300pgs.
Available in paperback on Amazon.com for $9.99 and
as an e-book on Kindle and Smashwords.com

AUD REVIEW:

This is an entertaining and fictional account of
the administration of a reformist IBT international
President called Tommy Kerrigan. The
novel is very loosely based on the Carey presidency
of the 1990s. But it is clearly fiction, and
Mr. Kerrigan’s fate turns out to be very different
than Mr. Carey’s. Mr. Crowe dedicates the
novel to Ken Paff, then, and still, director of the
Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) --
who in the novel is the fictional character
“Helmut Knall.”
A very palpable tension between Kerrigan and
Helmut Knall’s “TFOCC” (“Truckers Fighting
Organized Crime and Corruption”) is present
throughout the story. The reader is introduced
to it on page 11, when Kerrigan is planning his
post-election victory party and is consulting
with his top aide “Cobb Wowka” on who
should be on the invitation list. Wowka advises
Kerrigan not to invite Knall, but Kerrigan
reminds Wowka that “TFOCC did a lot for us.”
Wowka replies “Not for us. For their agenda.
Never forget that... Now that you’ve won,
Helmut and crew might get a little hungry for a
piece of action, which is okay, but we want to
keep them at a certain distance. Don’t let them
get the notion they’re gonna run this union
instead of you.” Kerrigan responds accordingly:
“I’ll give ‘em a couple of jobs. I’m sure we
can find an opening for Helmut in Alaska or
Hawaii.” “Right on buddy,” replies Wowka.
Helmut Knall is a smart, no-nonsense, pain-inthe-
neck whose advice to Kerrigan seems
always to be ahead of the game and works each
time Kerrigan does follow it. But Knall’s first
piece of advice, Kerrigan does not follow. The
uninvited Knall interrupts the victory party and
demands to speak to Kerrigan -- Kerrigan
reluctantly gives him a few minutes -- and
Knall points out that though Kerrigan has won
a great victory he needs to remember that most
of the locals are still being run by the “old
guard” -- the officials who owe their allegiance
to “Steamer Staski” and his successors. The
Steamer Staski character is loosely based on
the administration of Jimmy Hoffa, Sr. On his
victory party night, Knall implores Kerrigan to
help Trucker reformers get elected in the locals:
“The union is the locals, the locals are the
union. You should know.” But Kerrigan is
never willing to do this, as he tells Knall time
and time again throughout the book that an
“International President should not get
involved in the politics of the local.”
Meanwhile, the “old guard” infiltrate the
Kerrigan administration, and become his most
trusted aides, only to betray him, and eventually
succeed in their goal to get rid of him.
Sabotage by the old guard starts with its defiance
of Kerrigan’s call to go on a strike, then
moves on to a series of “dirty tricks” and smear
campaigns having to do with Kerrigan’s personal
relationships and alleged ties to organized
crime. Using its influence with an all too
compliant press, and even the FBI and Justice
Department, the old guard overwhelms
Kerrigan with government investigations into
alleged links to organized crime, or “communists.”
Knall advises Kerrigan on union strategy -- it
was the TFOCC’s plan to strike a major carrier,
a strike which turned out to be a a smashing success,
and makes Kerrigan a hero within the union. Later,
Knall and the TFOCC bail out Kerrigan
in another strike when the old guard begins to sabotage
it. But as the dirty tricks by the old guard become more
and more outrageous, and the investigations proceed,
mob characters appear – and are ready to go after
Kerrigan, reacting to schemes orchestrated by
Kerrigan’s union foes.
In the end, Kerrigan makes great gains for the Trucker
rank and file in its battles with employers, but, sadly,
is unable to withstand the relentless assault by his
internal union enemies.

A suggestion: my novel, THE TRUCKERS, has been described as a fun read. It is serious and tragic too. Try it free on Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, or Apple.