An Ode to KEN PAFF

             Ken Paff

          you wear the honorable name

          that shames the Hoffa faction

          everything you are

          boy Hoffa is not

          Ken Paff

          you are courage and persistence

          standing bravely when few dared

          fighting the tyranny of thugs

          in the risky days of old

          Ken Paff

          You clearly have earned your place

          in the pantheon of heroes

          tougher than cold marble

          your monument is TDU

                                                (July 21, 2017)

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STEVE KINDRED’S ODYSSEY

Nowadays if you want to start a revolution, an audience of potential recruits and sympathizers is only a few clicks away on the internet via blogs, email, Facebook, chat rooms, YouTube, Twitter, and the list goes on. How much more difficult such an undertaking was 39 year years ago when a dozen dissident Teamsters gathered in Ken Paff’s living room in Cleveland, spending four hours plotting how to create a national grassroots organization of truck drivers and dock workers, who like them, were dissatisfied with their notoriously corrupt union. I have told this story before, but the courageous, self-sacrificing, and poetic saga of 31-year-old Steve Kindred’s odyssey is worth recounting again and again to illustrate his commitment to reforming the American labor movement, the Teamsters in particular. Chipping in, the dissidents came up with a $100 kitty, which doesn’t sound like much but in that earlier time $89 was enough pay for a ticket allowing 21 days of travel to wherever Greyhound buses went. Kindred, who had the gift of gab, climbed onto a Greyhound in Cleveland’s bus terminal on a dreary April morning in 1975 with only a few dollars in his pocket along with five pounds of Spanish peanuts, three pounds of raisins, and a list of Teamster activists culled from various sources. Can you imagine the ordeal he faced: having to sleep on buses and wash in public restrooms, lingering in bus terminals waiting for the targeted Teamster member to show up or the bus to the next city, hoping the person he was meeting would treat him to a meal. And, there was always the possibility of getting his head bashed in. Kindred had been beaten up by thugs at the 1972 Teamsters convention. The affable, loquacious Kindred, who had attended the University of Chicago before being expelled for his role as a student activist, had been a taxi driver and a truck driver, which earned him the right to his audience. Those he spoke to in the 22 cities he reached (including Dallas, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles) were to form the nucleus of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), created in 1976 to battle the business unionists and outright criminals running the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Teamsters for a Democratic Union, which is the union’s reform party, has compiled an admirable record of accomplishments through the years including fighting off contract giveaways and being directly responsible for both getting the rank and file the right to vote for the union’s hierarchy and for the election of Ron Carey to the presidency of the IBT in 1992. As the years went by, Kindred moved to New York City where he worked as a truck driver continuing his calling as an advocate for workers. He was most recently involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Kindred, who had a life worth living, died from cancer this past Dec. 9. He will be honored at a memorial at 4:00 p.m. on Feb. 8, a Saturday, at the Murphy Center/ CUNY Labor Studies Dep’t, 25 West 43rd Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues, in New York. Perhaps, I’ll see you there.

A Song for Sandy Pope

Just the other day, singer-songwriter John Paul Wright of Louisville, KY, uploaded his latest song, “Ain’t No Easy Run (Sandy Pope)” onto YouTube. He was on his way home from the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) convention in Cleveland when the sight of tractor trailers barreling along reminded him that Sandy Pope was once a truck driver.
As the title of JP Wright’s song implies he sings about Sandy Pope’s campaign to oust James P. Hoffa from the presidency of the Teamsters.
With the ballots in the mail and supporters making calls from phone banks to turn out her voters, we will find out next month whether Pope can fulfill her goal of getting 150,000 Teamsters to vote for her. As JP Wright sings to the individual Teamsters listening: “One vote for Pope and the election’s won. Hoffa’s days are done.”
If the turnout for this election is similar to the 2006 election, then 150,000 would assure a victory for Pope. What she has going for her is a base of support from TDU, which is worth 90,000 to 100,000 votes, the rest would have to come from new Teamsters who want to create a rank and file activist union, from women attracted to a woman candidate, from those old timers disenchanted by Hoffa’s performance as president over the past 12 years.
Among the disenchanted is Fred Gegare, currently an international vice president and the third candidate for the presidency. Gegare decided to run against Hoffa over what he considered his disastrous handling of union finances, contracts and pensions.
The only hope for a change of direction in the Teamsters is Sandy Pope. She comes from the reform milieu with the promise of instilling activism in the Teamsters both internally and externally as did Ron Carey in the victorious strike against UPS in 1997.

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.

THE TRUCKERS novel

My latest novel, THE TRUCKERS, is available as a paperback on Amazon.com and as an e-book via Amazon’s Kindle and Smashwords.com. There is no hiding the root of THE TRUCKERS: the decades-long struggle by Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) to reform the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. There are two protagonists in the novel: Tommy K and Helmut Knall. Tommy K is a daring and successful leader of both his New York local and the Truckers International Union. He flashes across the union firmament like a comet, is consumed in the process and emerges as a legendary figure. Helmut can be compared to an infantryman, an eternal soldier, who moves relentlessly and fearlessly towards the seemingly impossible goal of transforming the Truckers into a progressive union. And of course, there is the woman from Colorado.

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.

Ron Carey’s successor

A big, burly, bearded Brooklynite UPS worker named Tim Sylvester inherited the late Ron Carey’s prestigious mantle as the rank and file reformer of Teamsters Local 804 in an election triumph on Dec. 3 that can only be described as breathtaking.
Sylvester won the presidency of Local 804 with his Members United Slate ousting the incumbents by a vote of 2,348-1091, a margin of more than two to one. Local 804 has 8,000 members and covers UPS’ crucial New York market.
While his victory was stunning, it came not by chance, but by building a movement in Local 804 to oppose concessionary contracts and to demand the local’s officers keep the membership informed instead of in the dark about negotiations—reflecting the philosophy of rank and file participation espoused by the ever-militant Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Sylvester and Jim Reynolds, his partner in transforming Local 804 are affiliated with TDU. Reynolds was elected Local 804’s secretary-treasurer on the Members United Slate.
Carey’s career can be broken into three shining rank and file reform moments: his election to the presidency of Local 804 in 1967; his election as General President of International Brotherhood of Teamsters with crucial support from TDU in 1991; and the great victory over UPS on the picket lines and at the bargaining table in 1999, again with the backing of TDU in an era when most unions were fearful of striking.
The 52-year-old Sylvester, who has been a Teamster and a UPS worker for 30 years, matched Carey’s 1967 achievement in ousting the current administration from Local 804, now headed by Howie Redmond, a long-time an ally of Carey who transferred his allegiance wholeheartedly to James P. Hoffa when he won the general president’s seat in 1999. Hoffa came to power after Carey was dumped from office on corruption charges—later proven to be untrue. Ousting an incumbent local Teamsters administration is the equivalent of defeating a sitting Member of Congress; it can be done, but not easily.
Whether Sylvester blossoms into a candidate for General President of the Teamsters will depend on luck and his performance as the top officer of Local 804. The next election for General President of the Teamsters will be in 2011—not much time for Sylvester to jell into a star with a national reputation for leadership.
But the next candidate backed by TDU to run against Hoffa and his allies in Washington will have to be someone just like Tim Sylvester, a Teamster leader up from the rank and file with a hunger to craft an activist union.

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.