Teamster chief's failure to end government control of union looms as key campaign issue.
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WASHINGTON -- Teamsters President James P. Hoffa is resigned to continued government supervision of his union for at least another year and said he is even willing to accept five more years of federal oversight in exchange for a definite withdrawal date.
Hoffa, who faces a potentially severe challenge to his leadership in next year's union election, said in an interview he sees little likelihood that the government will end its 16-year supervision of the union before the scheduled November presidential balloting.
Two union leaders, including a vice president who heads the union's powerful freight division, already have announced their intention to run against Hoffa next year, setting the stage for what promises to be a tough re-election campaign for the former Detroit labor lawyer and son of the legendary former Teamsters leader, James R. Hoffa.
Hoffa's failure to negotiate an end to government control during his seven years in office is one of the campaign platforms of Tom Leedham, the principal officer of an Oregon local, who is running against Hoffa.
"Hoffa promised and promised that he would get the government out of the union," Leedham said in an interview. "He has failed miserably at that. We are further away now from getting the government out of the union than when he took office."
Hoffa said the union "continues to dialogue" with the U.S. District Court in New York, which has had jurisdiction over the union since 1989.
"We are willing to agree to another five years or whatever," Hoffa said of continued government oversight. "But we want to have a date that it ends.
"We've got to have something that makes sense; that is fair; that is limited in time; that makes sure the union is clean and free from corruption -- which it is -- and basically move on from there," Hoffa said. "But the answer is that it has to come to an end. It can't be infinity."
The union agreed to government oversight to settle a civil racketeering suit in which federal prosecutors contended the union was controlled by organized crime. Hoffa made ending government control his top priority when he took office in 1999.
The 1989 consent decree was left open-ended. It did not provide a definite timetable for the duration of government supervision or set definitive criteria for the union to end it.
At the least, the union must prove that it has eliminated corruption and all ties to organized crime and that there is an organization, outside of direct Teamster control, to monitor the union to make certain criminal elements do not return.
Bridget Kelly, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York, had no comment on a timetable for ending court supervision.
The past year was a tumultuous one for the 1.4 million member union. It joined six other unions to break away from the AFL-CIO last summer in a bitter dispute over the future of the labor movement in America, the biggest rift in organized labor in nearly 70 years.
And while the union lost members in 2005 because of corporate downsizing and outsourcing of work to foreign countries, successful organizing campaigns this year resulted in a net gain of several thousand new members, Hoffa said.
This is in addition to the 150,000 members added by the mergers in 2003 and 2004 with the International Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, and Graphic Communications International Union.
"It has been a tremendous year for us," Hoffa said. "We were very, very successful (in organizing) in a year when most people were not organizing."
Even so, disgruntled Teamsters appear set to mount serious challenges to Hoffa's leadership.
Tyson Johnson, a Texas Teamster who has been an international vice president since 2000 and national freight director since 2003, announced last week in private meetings with union officials and in a curt letter to Hoffa that he is running for president.
"I am declaring my candidacy for the General Presidency of this great union and many members of the General Executive Board and other Teamster leaders throughout the United States are joining me to form a slate in the 2006 election to return this union to the Teamster members," Johnson told Hoffa in his brief letter.
The challenge to Hoffa's leadership from a member of his own executive board appears to shatter his oft-repeated insistence that the union is united.
Richard Leebove, a Hoffa spokesman, said the Teamsters president would not personally respond to the latest challenge to his leadership.
"Jim Hoffa is confident that the membership is supportive of his policies and the direction in which he has taken the union," Leebove said.
"Teamsters have seen financial stability. They have seen organizing growth. They feel that in these tough times, union members will go with the proven leadership of Jim Hoffa.
Earlier, Leedham announced he would again challenge Hoffa. He ran against Hoffa in the 1998 re-run election, necessitated by the ouster of former Teamsters President Ron Carey, and again in 2001, losing both times. Leedham is supported by Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a dissident group based in Michigan, which has long opposed Hoffa.
"Hoffa has not kept a single promise he made to working Teamsters," Leedham said.
"They are fed up. They want an honest union that is not about flashy public relations and rhetoric."
Hoffa cooly dismissed Leedham's candidacy in the interview.
"He's a two-time loser and he's going to be a three-time loser when I'm done with him," he said.
"I don't think it's a serious challenge. I think we stand on our record. We've done a tremendous job here.
"We are very proud of what we have done. And our record speaks for itself and I think we will be very successful in the election."
Hoffa points to successful organizing campaigns this year at America West and the Nashville Police Department.
The union has organizing efforts under way at DHL, a delivery service; Quebecor Inc., a large Canadian-based printing company; Air Tran Airways; and Auto Truck Transport Corp.
And the union is working with the Service Employees International Union in organizing the nation's 200,000 school bus drivers.
Future targets include Overnite trucking, recently acquired by UPS, and FedEx.
At the same time, the Teamsters are working with other unions to organize Wal-Mart, the giant discount store chain that Hoffa called "the poster boy for all of organized labor."
The withdrawal of the Teamsters and six other unions from the AFL-CIO last summer was the harshest blow to organized labor since the CIO separated from the AFL in 1938. The two alliances did not reunite until 1955.
You can reach Richard A. Ryan at (202) 662-8737 or rryan at detnews.com.
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