An election is coming, but it’s not the one you’re imagining.
Late next year, a union election will be front and center for members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Two slates of candidates, one led by Sean O’Brien and the other by Steve Vairma, seeking the union’s general presidency, have already filed paperwork for an election that will mean a change at the top because longtime Teamsters President James P. Hoffa won’t be in the running.
That both camps have filed formal paperwork more than a year before ballots are mailed to members and are already seeking support showcases how a direct election of top union officers can unfold.
Direct elections, often called one member, one vote, have featured prominently in the reform talk surrounding another major union, the UAW, which picks its leadership by a delegate system at its conventions. Proponents argue direct elections of top leaders, something that already happens at the local level, would bring more accountability to the union.
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The union’s ongoing corruption scandal, which in August led to a conspiracy charge against former president Dennis Williams, has opened the door for the federal government to push for changes. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit and the UAW have been in negotiations, which the U.S. attorney has indicated are progressing well.
Possible outcomes include appointment of an independent monitor, third-party oversight of future bargaining agreements and democracy in picking union leaders. It’s that third piece, direct elections of UAW brass, that has caught the attention of UAW reformers and apparently has the backing of U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider.
After Williams was charged, Schneider told the Free Press that union democracy is “something I’m very interested in … as to having the members of the union pick their leadership.”
That’s the kind of message likely to please UAW reformers, such as Justin Mayhugh, with the group Unite All Workers for Democracy. Mayhugh, who works at General Motors’ Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, and others like him are not necessarily keen on government intervention in the union, but they want change.
“I think it would definitely be a big step in the right direction,” said Mayhugh of direct elections. “I think that there is a model (that) proves that it can work.”
Scott Houldieson, an electrician at Ford's Chicago Assembly Plant and a member of UAW Local 551, has pushed for direct elections for some time because he thinks that should make it easier for people outside the leadership group to win top positions. Delegates can sometimes be seen as cogs in the current leadership machine.
Direct elections by secret ballot are something Americans already have plenty of experience with, in elections ranging from school board to president of the United States, he said.
“It would be a secret ballot process and every member of the UAW would have an opportunity to cast a ballot for the candidate they choose. It's no longer rule by intimidation and it gives every member the ability to have a say in how their union is run,” said Houldieson, an interim steering committee member for Unite All Workers for Democracy.
Not everyone sees problems with a delegate-only system.
"The main benefit of it is you’ve got the delegates themselves who are elected so the workers in the factory will know that delegate firsthand and will be able to make judgments on her or him personally and also the broader issues," said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Shaiken said it's a system that has been in place almost since the UAW's inception, when organizing could be physically dangerous. The idea was that it was a type of democratic process and was necessary to avoid costly and possibly risky national campaigns.
The UAW cited an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office to not comment on pending discussions when asked for its position on direct elections.
Teamsters as a model
Looking to unions such as the Teamsters for reform ideas shows how much has changed in recent years. The UAW was long held up as the shining example of good unionism while the Teamsters served as the poster child for Mob-connected corruption that anti-union voices used to undermine the labor movement.
Longtime Teamsters boss (and father of the current president) Jimmy Hoffa’s now-45-year-old unsolved disappearance and presumed murder still provides fodder for Hollywood and endless speculation. Despite Jimmy Hoffa's Mafia ties and a prison sentence, however, some consider his legacy mixed because he secured wins for his members.
Today's UAW scandal — perhaps a misnomer because it takes two to tango and ex-Fiat Chrysler Automobiles officials are among those charged — has featured rampant self-dealing but no claims of organized crime influence.
The move to direct elections at the Teamsters, however, was not a given. It took concerted effort and a consent decree in 1989 with the government to take effect. That was after the feds, under Rudy Giuliani, who, at the time, was a U.S. attorney, filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act lawsuit, later dismissed as part of the agreement. By 2015, then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara noted that “significant progress” had been made in ridding the Teamsters of organized crime influence and corruption. The union, which says it represents 1.4 million members, left federal oversight this year, but it retains the direct elections process, including an independent election supervisor.
Richard Mark, a former assistant U.S. attorney who was involved in the Teamsters case, currently holds that role:
“The direct election process is a way … that makes the top leadership of the union accountable,” Mark told the Free Press. “It connects them to the members, and it makes them accountable to the … rank-and-file members. Everyone has a vote. I think that is really the central feature or central thing that this process does.”
Not everyone is sold on comparisons between the two unions, however.
“A frequent point of reference for the UAW has been the Teamsters. I think that is the wrong point of reference,” said Shaiken, University of California, Berkeley, professor.
The Teamsters, Shaiken said, was not just a profoundly corrupt organization before the government intervened in the late 1980s, but a violent, outside force — the Mob — was involved.
Not to understate the significance of the situation, Shaiken said, but the UAW’s corruption was on a “far smaller scale, and it didn’t have the kind of external networks of force fueling this.” Or the same level of cash.
The Central States Pension Fund, a plan for Teamsters members, for instance, had at one time been labeled the piggy bank of the Mob.
Shaiken pointed to the current UAW leadership’s efforts to institute reforms as showing that the leaders understand what’s required to restore confidence. Some of those reforms include the naming of the union’s first external ethics officer and the launch of a confidential ethics hotline.
“I think there is a recognition in the UAW among the top leaders that far-reaching reforms are needed, and I think they are acting on that,” Shaiken said.
Democracy can happen with a delegate system as well, Shaiken said.
Direct elections haven’t had a perfect track record at the Teamsters either. The results of the 1996 election, which featured incumbent Ron Carey, previously a reform candidate, were later thrown out over illegal campaign contributions.
Part of Shaiken’s hesitancy in too much government intervention, shared by others who have spoken to the Free Press, is a wariness of the potential for politics to play a role. He worried that the current presidential administration could see an opening to weaken the union.
“The kind of wholesale revamping by the federal government that took place in the Teamsters, I don’t think that’ll be constructive right now,” Shaiken said.
U.S. Attorney Schneider, however, said he doesn’t want to run the union but rather aims to get the union in a position to run itself without corrupt leadership. He has set a goal to wrap up reforms by the end of the year.
Election fear factor
David Witwir, a professor at Penn State Harrisburg who has written extensively on union corruption, acknowledged a difference in scale between the corruption in the UAW and what was happening in the Teamsters, but he said that’s not a reason to avoid changes.
Direct elections can create enough of a fear factor for the leadership that it might have curbed some of the abuses that occurred in the UAW. With election by delegates, real reform would never have come to the Teamsters, Witwir said.
“There’s no evidence of organized crime presence in the leadership of the United Auto Workers union, so I do think that’s quite different,” Witwir said.
But the UAW scandal does represent an abuse of power, which is still quite bad, Witwir said.
“I don’t know what the downside is of direct election,” Witwir said. “It’s like a check and balance on power. To be perfectly blunt, I think it’s a great thing. … I don’t think you’re ever going to get rid of corruption, but I do think that curbs on endemic and spreading corruption, I do think that’s an important thing.”
Corruption is a fact of life that goes well beyond unions, Witwir said. He pointed to church child abuse scandals and even the many unremarkable examples of corruption in youth sports and community organizations, when trusted parents and members embezzle money.
“That’s just the imperfect nature of humanity, and that’s true in unions, too,” Witwir said.
And of course, the corruption that has been exposed in the UAW did not just involve the union. FCA's onetime lead labor negotiator, Alphons Iacobelli, is sitting in a federal prison in West Virginia after using money meant for worker training to pay for a Ferrari, jewel-encrusted pens and home remodeling. The company, which is in a high-profile legal fight with General Motors over GM’s claims that FCA corrupted contract bargaining to damage GM, is in talks with the Justice Department on a resolution. FCA, for the record, has called GM’s claims meritless.
To be clear, even with direct elections, delegates play a key role in the Teamsters. The 30th IBT International Convention is scheduled for June 21-25 in Las Vegas, where delegates would conduct regular business as well as nominate candidates for offices. To make the ballot, a candidate for national office, such as general president and general secretary, would need support from 5% of the delegates. The membership would then get a chance to vote via mailed ballot.
With government oversight lifted, there’s a possibility attempts will be made to change the threshold. James P. Hoffa was quoted by Bloomberg earlier this year as saying that “he’s sure that proposal would come up.” Activists worry a proposal to raise the percentage required to make the ballot in the future — it wouldn’t be able to take effect until after the upcoming election — would make it harder for candidates seeking to challenge incumbents.
Ken Paff, a founder of the activist group Teamsters for a Democratic Union, or TDU, doesn’t think it will happen.
“I would say that we are working to ensure that proposal will never even get made, let alone pass. It would be so unpopular, it may never even hit the floor. That is the beauty of the (rank-and-file) election coming four months after the convention — if you crap on the members' rights in June, watch out in October!” he said.
Paff, who got his start as a truck driver in Cleveland and is now a national organizer for his group living in California, said direct elections have been transformative for the Teamsters even though James P. Hoffa, for instance, has stayed in power since the 1990s.
“Even when one person wins repeatedly, he has to face an election. They have to be more attentive to the needs of the rank-and-file members,“ Paff said, asserting that members would punish someone who negotiated bad agreements.
In addition, when a group in power is never challenged it “can breed some very bad things,” Paff said.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @_ericdlawrence.
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