TEAMSTERS DIRTY TRICKS

         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.

          

2016 Teamsters election: The Key to Victory

A line in a story touching on Fred Zuckerman in LEO, Louisville’s alternative weekly, caught my eye as the solution to the problem confronting him of how to put together 200,000 votes to win the 2016 race for the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The article by Alex Bradshaw and Richard Becker on Sept. 2, 2015 said: “He is not your granddad’s labor leader; he has a vision for the future.”

The key to a victory over James P. Hoffa, the incumbent IBT president, would be Zuckerman’s figuring out how to put his vision in words that would inspire a couple of hundred thousand Teamsters, who didn’t bother to vote in the 2011 election to cast their ballots for him in hopes of creating a better union.

Zuckerman, president of the huge Louisville Teamsters Local 89, has a background to which rank and file Teamsters can relate. A Teamster since 1979, Zuckerman came off a truck to be elected president of his local.

Originally running for an international vice president’s slot, Zuckerman moved up to be the presidential candidate on the Teamsters United ticket after Tim Sylvester lost his bid for reelection as principal officer of New York Teamsters Local 804. Sylvester shifted to the number two slot as the candidate for secretary-treasurer the Teamsters United slate.

A continuation of Hoffa’s downward voting trend in which he recived 137,172 votes in 2011, 40,000 fewer than 2006, of course would be a mighty boost for Zuckerman’s campaign for the presidency.

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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.
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TEAMSTERS 2016 ELECTION BEGINS

Incumbent James P. Hoffa and challenger Tim Sylvester have joyfully reported the impressive results of their petition drives to be accredited as candidates for the Teamsters presidency in 2016.

Hoffa reported 135,000 signatures--more than twice Sylvester’s 63,000.

However, we need to delve into the numbers. Hoffa’s incumbency gives him access to hundreds of local officials--many hungry to please him with hopes of being added to the international union’s payroll and being viewed favorably in conflicts with other locals, other unions and employers.

In the 2011 presidential election, Hoffa won a dismal 137,172 votes, just 2,172 more than the list of signatures he recently submitted on his petitions.

There is a political adage that to win an election, you have to run either unopposed or scared and hard.

In the 2011 election, Hoffa’s opposition was so divided and ineffective that he was just about unopposed.

So, the 135,000 signatures he collected either means that is about the max of his support or he is really running hard this time around planning to pressure his Teamster underlings to turn out the vote--or else face the prospect of being stripped of their extra salaries and perks.

Tim Sylvester, who heads New York Teamsters Local 804, promises to be a formidable candidate. His supporters in Teamsters United and Teamsters for a Democratic Union managed to tally 63,000 signatures on his petitions--or more than twice as many as needed for certification.

Sylvester has been on the campaign trail--mostly on weekends--since January and will pick up the pace as the election approaches. He is running hard to find enough votes among the 90 per cent of the 1,400,000 Teamsters rank and file who didn’t vote for Hoffa in 2011.

Accreditation gives a candidate the opportunity to promote himself in the Teamsters magazine as well as the names and address of all Teamsters members. Formal nomination still needs to be won at next year's Teamsters Convention.

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THE TEAMSTERS’ AUGUST SURPRISE: AL MIXON

Al Mixon, chairman of the Teamsters National Black Caucus, has jumped into the 2016 race for the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The candidacy of Mixon, who is secretary-treasurer of Cleveland Local 507, transforms the election into a three-way contest. His opponents: incumbent Teamsters general president James P. Hoffa and Tim Sylvester, president of New York Teamsters Local 804, home of the late Teamsters General President Ron Carey.

The revelation that Mixon has launched a petition drive to be accredited as a presidential candidate came not from an announcement by Mixon, but from the Teamsters United Facebook page. Teamsters United and Teamsters for a Democratic Union are backing Sylvester.

Mixon currently is an international vice president, elected in 2011 on the Hoffa slate. I have no idea why Mixon has split with Hoffa. Sylvester said on his website: “Long-time allies, Mixon and Hoffa broke with each other this Spring.” Not a very informative comment.

The next few days will reveal whether Sylvester's petition drive to be certified as a presidential candidate has been successful. A minimum of 30,794 signatures are needed to be certified. Sylvester supporters are aiming for 50,000.

At this point, Al Mixon is only a name in the game with no indication of whether he will launch a full-fledged slate or will run alone. I don’t know how potent the Teamsters National  Black Caucus is and whether or not it gives Mixon a significant political base for the 2016 election.

The first test of his candidacy will be his petition drive for accreditation.

Accreditation gives a candidate the opportunity to print campaign ads in the Teamster magazine and  a list of the entire Teamster membership for mailings and other forms of access.

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Teamsters 2016: The two legged stool and the distant ripple

Incumbent James P. Hoffa is perched on a wobbly two-legged stool in the opening days of the 2016 campaign for the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. His ostensible opponent, Teamsters United candidate Tim Sylvester, currently is just a ripple on the horizon of sea of 1.3 million potential Teamster voters.

Hoffa’s two legs are his name (the son of Jimmy Hoffa) and his incumbency (Teamsters president since March, 1999.) Incumbents are always hard to beat. A third leg, some great achievement--fulfilling his promise to resurrect Teamsters Power-- during his 16 years in office, would have all but assured his reelection.

Unfortunately for the union, I am unaware of any notable accomplishment by Hoffa during his reign. A point of comparison would be Teamsters President Ron Carey’s great victory in the 1997 national strike against the United Parcel Service.

The yet to be shaped third leg for the Hoffa stool will be the extent of support he wins from the potential pool of 1.3-million Teamsters eligible to vote in the 2016 election. In 2011, Hoffa only managed to tally 137,164 votes—which were more than enough for him to win reelection. The insignificant turnout is a indicator of the disinterest of the vast majority of the members in the union. 

Of course contesting Hoffa for those 1.3 million voters is Tim Sylvester, president of New York Teamsters Local 804, the local that was Ron Carey’s base of support.

Whether the Sylvester and his United Teamsters coalition ripple turns into a wave that crests and breaks without significant impact or becomes a tsunami to sweep away the Hoffa regime will be revealed after the votes are cast in October, 2016.

In the interim, Sylvester, who is already campaigning hard (his next stop will be in Providence, RI, on Saturday, May 16, 2015) has set out to gather at least 200,000 Teamsters to his banner.

Sylvester announced that that 800 Teamsters listened in to his national conference call in a pitch for campaign volunteers on a recent Sunday. Signposts of how well Teamsters United is doing will be first, the Accreditation Petition Drive this summer to collect the signatures of at least 50,000 members and then the number of delegates to the 2016 convention Teamsters United can win in local elections in the fall of 2015 and the winter of 2016.

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TEAMSTERS PRESIDENT 2016

Tim Sylvester's bid to become General President of the Teamsters picked up momentum last week in Milwaukee when Fred Gegare came forward to endorse him.

Gegare, now retired, is the former International Vice President, who became so disenchanted with James P. Hoffa that he ran against him in 2011. Hoffa was reelected soundly defeating Gegare and New York Teamsters leader Sandy Pope.

Sylvester drew the obvious lesson of the 2011 election that if Hoffa is to be ousted, it will take a coalition to defeat him in 2016.

Teamsters United is the name of Sylvester's umbrella campaign organization that so far includes Fred Zuckerman, president of Louisville Local 89, and Tony Jones, president of Columbus Local 413.

Teamsters United will stage a national conference call on Sunday, April 26, 2015, to brief Teamsters on the coalition’s strategy and to provide the opportunity for those interested to get involved in the campaign.

Details on how to sign up for the conference call are available on the Teamsters United website (teamstersunited.org.)

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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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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.

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