<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4134.600" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks Leo.  I was wondering where the LRA whitewash on Hoffa was coming from.  The odd CP support for Hoffa as well as the even stranger left-LaRouche alliance with him have been his primary connections to the left.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>One thing I have not seen is a good report of how the TDU has been doing in elections at the local level in the last couple of years.  TDU was making serious inroads in a number of locals just before and after the Carey election debacle, but I haven't heard much in the last year or two.  That is probably the best clue as to whether Leedham has a chance in hell of dislodging Hoffa.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>Nathan Newman<BR><A href="mailto:nathan@newman.org">nathan@newman.org</A><BR><A href="http://www.nathannewman.org">http://www.nathannewman.org</A></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV> <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=LeoCasey@aol.com href="mailto:LeoCasey@aol.com">LeoCasey@aol.com</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=lbo-talk@lists.panix.com href="mailto:lbo-talk@lists.panix.com">lbo-talk@lists.panix.com</A> ; <A title=pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu href="mailto:pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu">pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu</A> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, July 11, 2001 4:50 PM</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Teamsters, Hoffa Jr. and Rank Opportunism On The Left</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT size=3>I know that this e-mail will create some controversy, but I think that it is <BR>a political issue that needs a full airing. <BR><BR>In the last few weeks on LBO-Talk, someone made a comment, in passing, that <BR>suggested that Hoffa had not been such a bad leader of the Teamsters. I <BR>disagreed, but it didn't seem like it was more than a general impression on <BR>the part of the person or an issue of enough importance to pursue. In the <BR>last few days, however, another poster has sent to a number of left listservs <BR>a "report" on the Teamsters' recent Convention, which purports to demonstrate <BR>that the Teamsters under Hoffa are the most democratic and most successful of <BR>all American unions. Before this "report" becomes a basis for the <BR>verification of vague impressions, it is necessary to take a deeper look at <BR>what is going on here. <BR><BR>The report forwarded on the Teamsters was written by Greg Tarpinian of the <BR>Labor Research Association, a group which has been a primary front group of <BR>the Communist Party with regard to its labor movement work. It continues a <BR>pro-Hoffa perspective that the LRA and the CPUSA has held since prior to the <BR>election of Hoffa. <BR><BR>Why would the CPUSA take a position so contrary to the rank-and-file movement <BR>in the Teamsters Union? The answer is appallingly simple. The founders and <BR>leaders of Teamsters for a Democratic Union are, for the most part, <BR>Trotskyists, affiliated with the journal _Labor Notes_ and the organization <BR>Solidarity. Their Trotskyist roots go back decades to the original <BR>International Socialists group in the US. The CPUSA would rather team up with <BR>Hoffa Jr. then with a rank-and-file group led by Trotskyists. <BR><BR>Now, I do want to make it clear that there are criticisms one can make of how <BR>TDU has conducted the struggle within the Teamsters, and on other occasions, <BR>I have made them here on LBO-Talk. But it is one thing to criticize from a <BR>position of solidarity with the efforts to democratize and cleanup the <BR>Teamsters; an entirely different thing to join with those who oppose <BR>democratization and clean unionism. <BR><BR>There is no question but that Hoffa Jr. has been forced to make some major <BR>concessions on issues of union democracy, as the considerably more accurate <BR>report by David Moberg in _In These Times_ indicates. <BR>[http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2518/moberg2518.html] No doubt, too, TDU <BR>rhetoric about the imminent collapse of the Teamsters under Hoffa Jr. is <BR>hyperbolic. But there also is no question that every corrupt Teamsters' <BR>official and every organized crime element within the union supported Hoffa <BR>Jr. in the last election, and will do so again. There is no question that, <BR>whatever their faults, the future of union democracy and clean unionism in <BR>the Teamsters lies, for the immediately foreseeable future, with the TDU. It <BR>is rank opportunism of the worst sort that LRA and the CPUSA has teamed up <BR>with Hoffa Jr. <BR><BR>Leo Casey <BR>United Federation of Teachers <BR>260 Park Avenue South <BR>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869) <BR><BR>Power concedes nothing without a demand. <BR>It never has, and it never will. <BR>If there is no struggle, there is no progress. <BR>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who <BR>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and <BR>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. <BR> <P align=center>-- Frederick Douglass --</P></BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></FONT></BODY></HTML>