TEAMSTERS PRESIDENCY 2016

Tim Sylvester has started on the long climb to winning the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 2016 by setting out to build a coalition called Teamsters United!

The coalition will combine those who supported the late Ron Carey, those disenchanted with the leadership of incumbent James P. Hoffa, and an untold number of the million plus Teamsters who didn't vote in the union’s 2011 election.

Sylvester is the president of New York Teamsters Local 804, the same militant local of mostly UPS workers that Carey headed and was his base in his successful run in 1991 to become the first IBT president elected by the rank and file.

Among those aligning themselves with Sylvester in Teamsters United are Fred Zuckerman, president of Louisville Local 89, and Tony Jones, president of Columbus Local 413. Zuckerman and Jones were vice presidential candidates on the anti-Hoffa ‘Fighting for the Members Slate’ in the 2011 election.

With less than 20 per cent of the membership voting in the 2011 election, Hoffa tallied an unimpressive 137,164 votes, although that was more than enough to defeat his two opponents: Fred Gegare (54,117) and Sandy Pope (39,251).

Sylvester’s challenge will be to somehow draw between 150,000 and 200,000 votes from that pool of more than a million Teamsters who either didn’t vote or who voted against Hoffa in 2011.

What has Sylvester got going for him:

--Experience in defeating an incumbent. In 2009, Sylvester ousted the Hoffa-allied president of Local 804. That was a feat equivalent to beating an incumbent Senator; it can be done, but not easily.

--The big, burly, bearded Sylvester not only looks like the movie version of a Teamster, he comes from the rank and file. Hoffa, who was a lawyer with Teamsters locals among his clients, ran for his first union office in 1996. In that election he failed to defeat the incumbent IBT president, Ron Carey. For the few who don’t know, the reason Hoffa was selected by the neo-old guard as their candidate was because he happened to be born the son of the legendary Jimmy Hoffa.

--Sylvester has developed a national reputation for his accomplishments as the head of Local 804, which reputedly has the best contract covering UPS workers among the nation's many Teamsters locals. In an age of givebacks, Sylvester won a $400 a month increase in pension benefits in the last round of negotiations, enabling a Local 804 member to retire after 25 years with a pension of $4,000 a month.

--Sylvester formally announced his candidacy on March 14, 2015—and has been holding meetings across the country to add local officers and rank and file adherents to Teamsters United coalition.  He already has been to Worcester, Mass., Los Angeles, Cleveland, Louisville, and Columbus. He will be in Chicago on Saturday, April 11.

--Sylvester presumably will have the backing of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, the rank and file reform party, with its national network of rank and file activists and local union officials.

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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 five-star review of THE TRUCKERS

This is the first online review of my novel, THE TRUCKERS, which is a combination parallel and sequel to my nonfiction book, COLLISION/How the Rank and File Took Back the Teamsters: 5.0 out of 5 stars Another Good Story by Kenneth C. Crowe February 14, 2014 By Miles Henri Sumner Format:Kindle Edition I think I like the way Mr. Crowe writes. This is the third book by Mr. Crowe that I've read. His work is not boring. In 'Truckers' I began to recall my time as a member of the Teamsters Union in Los Angeles, California, both before and after my military service in the 1960's. This story exposes, mostly in the perspective of the Organized Labor Zealot, how power and corruption tend to go hand-in-hand. Now that I live in the Philippines (there are no Unions here) I recognize the beneficial effect Unionization has had on the lifestyle of the American worker, even though it's another layer of bureaucracy that must be nourished at the consumers' expense. This story is fiction, yet there are parallels to real people and events; don't look for the answer to the question: "where is Jimmy Hoffa?" ! ! ! Miles, a voracious reader, has reviewed six of my seven online novels giving each a five-star rating. Obviously, I appreciate his positive view of my books.

Like a free drink: THE TRUCKERS by Kenneth C. Crowe

After two years, I am tearing up the price tag on my novel, THE TRUCKERS, to make the book free on various sites including Kindle, Smashwords, and Apple i-Tunes. For the more than a million Teamsters who haven’t read the novel, I invite them to download THE TRUCKERS onto their e-book reading devices. Briefly, the novel’s two protagonists, Tommy Kerrigan and Helmut Knall are uneasy allies dedicated to transforming the nation’s largest union, the Truckers International Union (obviously a name inspired by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters), into a progressive force capable of dragging the American labor movement out of the quagmire that has been sucking it under for the past 40 years. Tommy K emerges as a legendary hero experiencing great triumphs and tragedy. Nothing down, nothing to pay, just download THE TRUCKERS and read away.

A suggestion: My novel, THE PENCIL ARTIST is available as an e-book on Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble; as a paperback on Amazon.

My Google Adwords campaign

I guess I am not a good judge of what appeals to readers since the sales of my enovels have been near dismal. I had hoped that BEN CONNOLLY in the PARIS COMMUNE would draw readers and buyers through Google’s Adwords campaign since there is a targeted audience. While the numbers of impressions and clicks far outperformed my campaign for THE TRUCKERS, after four days there have been no sales. I would think that someone clicking might be interested in buying on the spot. Maybe there will be delayed reactions. A real problem is the absence of reviews for BEN CONNOLLY in the PARIS COMMUNE. An explanation: An impression is one of those little ads you seen when scanning websites. Clicking on the impression takes the browser to the object for sale. In my case, BEN CONNOLLY in the PARIS COMMUNE. --To be a profitable or self-sustaining campaign, I must sell a book for every 12 clicks. Should that evolve, I would keep up the campaign indefinitely. Otherwise, I have to decide whether to continue as a form of advertising figuring that spending $100 would get me an estimated 588 clicks with about 75,000 impressions. Spending $250 would get an estimated 1,470 clicks with about 188,000 impressions. As I view these estimates, I come to the conclusion that it would be worth the $100 to $250 to flash my book past the eyes of 75,000 to 188,000 potential readers. Besides, I can’t believe the campaign of that extent, if it happens as projected, won’t produce some buyers and readers and maybe a review or two. And, there is always the potential of some reading the book via Amazon Prime. --Before the Google Adwords campaign began on Feb. 20, 2013, there had been 8 sales of BEN CONNOLLY in the PARIS COMMUNE on Kindle and none on CreateSpace or via Amazon Prime. Those sales give me hope that readers will be drawn to buy the book through the Google Adwords campaign.

A suggestion: My novel, THE PENCIL ARTIST is available as an e-book on Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble; as a paperback on Amazon.

Disdain for the unpaid novelist

I looked into the eyes of a novelist friend over lunch last week and sensed disdain as I told him that I was approaching 45,000 downloads of my free ebooks, three novels: THE DREAM DANCER, THE HERO, and THE JYNX.
He put the old fashioned notion of writing for money that I saw in his eyes into words: “And how much have you been paid.” No question mark. It wasn’t a question, but I will answer it:
I wasn’t paid in cash, but the profit has come in other forms. Before I made the novels free I charged to read them, managing to sell a few dozen. I wanted a larger audience and I have achieved that along with the occasional review or “like it,” or stars.
My novelist friend’s one novel, published many years ago, is still for sale as previously owned on Amazon with other reaping the cash; and it is available in public libraries as a free read. No money to be made there either. He hasn’t been able to find a traditional publisher for his later works; I know that empty feeling.
In case you are curious, I do have three more novels for sale at modest prices on the various internet sites (Kindle, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Apple iTunes, Sony, etc. They are: OOOEELIE, THE TRUCKERS, and THE ABSCONDER.

A suggestion: My novel, THE PENCIL ARTIST is available as an e-book on Smashwords, Kindle, and Barnes and Noble; as a paperback on Amazon.

THE DAME, THE NAME, THE DISENCHANTED

If I were a twitterer, this would be my offering for this year’s race for general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters:
The 2011 Teamsters election summarized: The dame (Sandy), the name (James), the disenchanted (Fred).
The dame, of course, is Sandy Pope, president of New York Teamsters Local 805. Dame can be use as a term for a woman, but I am using it in the expansive concept of a woman of accomplishment. In the United Kingdom, they bestow the title on female high achievers—and that’s what Sandy is. Sandy is a real Teamster having worked her way up from the hard jobs of selector and truck driver.
The name, obviously, James P. Hoffa, the son of Jimmy Hoffa, an earlier Teamster president of some repute. James P. rode his father’s name into the Teamsters presidency in 1999. His claim to being a Teamster comes from summer jobs in his college years and then becoming a lawyer for various IBT entities a couple of years after graduating from law school.
The disenchanted candidate is Fred Gegare, another real Teamster up from the rank and file from Green Bay Wisconsin, who was a vice president on Hoffa’s team until he stunned Teamsters through North America last summer when he announced he could no longer endure Hoffa’s pitiful performance as general president. He says on his campaign website: “"Over the last twelve years, James Phillip Hoffa has proven that running a union of 1.4 million members like a family fiefdom is disastrous. He has shown that the Teamsters Union will not be successful as long as it is run from Washington, D.C. by unelected lawyers, consultants and personal assistants. Just like Hoffa, they have never done the work of real Teamsters. Just like Hoffa, they are more concerned with taking care of themselves than about fighting for the members."
Another shock to Hoffa came last July when Tom Keegel, secretary-treasurer of the IBT, announced he would retire instead of running again on the Hoffa slate. Keegel warned that the Teamsters were being led in the wrong direction and said “"I do not claim to have all the answers, but I do know that continuing down the same road as the IBT has traveled for the last few years will not lead us out of our present difficulties or help us avoid the problems yet to come."
In my latest novel, THE TRUCKERS, there are two characters who seem to be very much like two of the real life characters in this year’s IBT election. The rank and file candidate, Carolyn Gordon, a tough, fearless woman who heads a small Truckers local in Colorado, is running against Steve Staski, a minor television and film actor. Steve is the choice of the Old Guard because he can run on the name of his famous father, Steamer Staski, The Truckers who was murdered on a picket line.
The rank and file leader Helmut Knall says to a doubting aide who thinks Carolyn doesn’t have much of a chance against the Staski name: “We’re going to get a million dollars worth of free publicity because she’s so young and she’s a woman.”
“Like Little Stevie gets because he’s a Staski and an actor,” the aide says.
Knall replies: “The difference is he acts tough. Gordon is tough. And don’t forget she made a name for herself, while he inherited his.”

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.

Three radically different novels

Over the past year, I have uploaded three radically-different novels, OOOEELIE, THE HERO, and THE TRUCKERS, onto the web primarily via Kindle, Amazon, and Smashwords.
Writers often tend to tell the same story in different forms in their train of books. Obviously, I have successfully avoided that dip in the road:
OOOEELIE’s protagonist is an Airedale, the reincarnation of a canine creature on an interstellar journey who crash-landed on earth tens of thousands of years ago. Ever since, as in all good dog stories, Oooeelie has been trying to find a way home to his planet in the Sirius (Dog Star) system. He has come down to modern times through a chain of lives as a dog with two natures: the superior being and the animal.
Ryan Garrity, whose dream of a career as a professional soldier was shattered on a battlefield in Korea, is the protagonist of THE HERO. Ryan is a bookstore operator, who suffers from the guilt of failing to have expressed gratitude to the soldier who courageously saved his life. After returning to civilian life Ryan’s savior is killed saving a young woman from an onrushing subway train in Queens. The plot of THE HERO spins around Ryan’s effort told against a background of mysticism, arrogant duplicity and murder to determine why the soldier was denied a Congressional Medal of Honor.
THE TRUCKERS is a novelistic sequel to my nonfiction book, COLLISION, about Ron Carey’s successful campaign to capture the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from the union’s old guard. There are two protagonists in THE TRUCKERS: Tommy Kerrigan and Helmut Knall who are uneasy allies dedicated to transforming the nation’s largest union, the Truckers International Union, into a progressive force capable of dragging the American labor movement out of the quagmire that is sucking it under. Tommy emerges as a legendary hero experiencing great triumphs and tragedy. Helmut is the unwavering force behind the Truckers rank and file reform movement.

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.