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From the July-August 2006 issue of Union Democracy Review #163
Teamster Convention reveals fatal flaw in election rules
When they vote in October for top officers of their union, Teamsters will have a choice. At the union convention in July, Tom Leedham was nominated to run for president at the head of an insurgent ticket against James Hoffa. But it was a cliffhanger. Teamsters elect international officers by direct membership vote. However, according to current Teamster election rules, a potential candidate must be endorsed by at least 5% of the convention delegates in order to be nominated and get a spot on the referendum ballot. The Leedham ticket made it, but with not much to spare. The 107 delegates who resisted pressure and intimidation to nominate him made up only about 6% of some 1,800 delegates at the convention.
Without those 107, a million members would have no choice and the Hoffa team would coast in without opposition. Now, think of the future. If the international, using its enormous powers of fear and favor, could get rid of, say, just 15 of that independent band, any opposition could be wiped off the map and the right of members to vote would become an empty constitutional fiction, because no rivals could get on the ballot. We already know how hard the Hoffa forces will work to bear down on those 15 delegates. All the last convention, pro-Leedham delegates were forced to walk through a gauntlet line of jeering and threatening Hoffa cronies to cast their nominating votes for Leedham. At the convention this year, two Leedham delegates were assaulted.
An insurgent like Leedham could have been eliminated by the shift of a mere 15 delegates; yet he has a massive following in the membership! When he ran against Hoffa in 2001, he got around 35% of the total membership vote but only 7% of the delegate votes. But more. Before this convention, as an aspiring candidate, he collected 50,000 petition signatures just to win certain campaign rights, including access to the Teamster magazine. But those 50,000 supporters did not guarantee him a spot on the ballot as a candidate --- only the right to try to convince delegates to nominate him. And so, by getting rid of 15 insurgent delegates, the ruling administration can deny a million members the right to vote for or against a man who once had a third of the membership behind him and who had thousands of members signing supporting petitions.
The Teamster election rules are not only fatally flawed from the standards of democracy. They are inconsistent and self-contradictory.
In unions, as in the political life of the nation, the ruling administration solidifies its control by creating a political machine of supporters. Loyalty to the machine is guaranteed by a patronage system which awards everything from minor perquisites to good jobs to supporters and which gives a hard time to critics. No point to whining over this fact of life, but at least we must recognize it and take it into account. Generally speaking, international union officials back up the loyal local administrations which, in gratitude, give knee-jerk support to the international. And so, union conventions are usually a mutual admiration gathering of pliable delegates elected predictably in the locals. When delegates elect international officers, the local and the international political machines bypass the membership.
Where, as in the Teamsters union, members have the right to elect international officers by direct referendum vote, they can bypass machine control and upset all the cozy bureaucratic arrangements. On the one hand, Teamster rules allow members, by petition, to give potential candidates the right to campaign. But one the other hand, the rules vitiate that right by compelling potential opposition candidates to defeat the bureaucratic machine and elect sympathetic delegates in order to get on the ballot. No matter how powerful, the machine can be overcome by a voting membership. But if the machine can block opposition candidates from running, it makes the members' right to vote meaningless.
It can be difficult to persuade millions of members; it is far easier to control delegates. A classic example is provided by the Steelworkers union. In 1977, when Ed Sadlowski ran as an insurgent for union president, he got over 200,000 votes and threatened to upset the national leadership. But some months later, his supporters had hardly any presence among the convention delegates.
It would be a simple matter to correct the dangerous flaws in Teamster election procedure. Free the nomination procedure from machine control. Just as members now have the right to elect, give them the right to nominate. Aspiring candidates who collect the required number of member signatures to win the right to campaign should be automatically awarded a place on the ballot as nominated candidates.
Teamster election info:
http://www.ibtvote.org/
http://www.teamster.org/resources/election/election.htm
http://www.teamster.org/resources/election/candidateforumvideos.htm
Articles on the Teamsters:
At the Teamsters
Independent Review Board (3/08-4/08)
Teamster
elections: inspiration from the ground up (11/06-12/06)
AUD Conference: Confronting
Corruption in Labor Unions (12-06)
Teamster
Convention reveals fatal flaw in election rules (7/06-8/06)
Harvey
for TDU charges IRB coddles top Hoffa aide (3/05-4/05)
RISE
uncovers corruption before its demise (9/04-10/04)
RISE and Teamster reform at Cornell University (1/04-3/04)
Can the IBT police itself?(9/03-10/03)
The Transmogrification of
Teamsters Local 854(9/03-10/03)
Is Teamsters
Union safe for dissenters? An exchange (10/11 2002)
The vindication of Ron
Carey (12/1 2001-2002)
"The Fox and the
Chicken Coop" -- comments on the proposed Teamsters Ethics Code. (3/4
2000)
"Some Modest
Proposals for a Teamster Code" (3/4 2000)
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