Teamster Delegates Reject Move to Let Rank and File Elect Top Officers

Delegates at the Teamsters Union convention here Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected an attempt by union dissidents to give the rank and file the right to directly elect the organization’s president and other top officers.

By voice votes, the delegates also spurned proposals to cut the salary of Teamsters President Jackie Presser and other members of the union’s executive board and declined to raise benefits for striking members.

The actions came just one day after Secretary of Labor William E. Brock III urged the convention’s nearly 2,000 delegates to re-examine their union and its policies in an effort to shore up public trust.

Last week, Presser was indicted on federal racketeering and embezzlement charges. He has declared his innocence. Three of the previous four union presidents have been convicted and imprisoned, and around the country more than 100 local Teamsters officials have been convicted of crimes in the last decade, according to Justice Department records.

Support for Incumbent Leaders

No reference was made to Brock’s speech Tuesday. But what emerged in the floor debates on the reform proposals was that the vast majority of the delegates think everything is just fine with the 1.6-million-member union.

The degree of support for the incumbent leaders became particularly clear during debate over the proposals to lower their salaries. Wilson Overall, a Los Angeles delegate and an active member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a dissident group, proposed to amend the union’s constitution to lower the president’s annual salary to $125,000 and to cap the salaries of the union’s other board members at $100,000.

Presser’s salary as president is $225,000 a year. He also holds three other Teamsters jobs in Ohio that bring his total annual salary to $550,000, far more than any other union president in the country.

According to Labor Department figures, a number of other Teamsters officials also make more than $100,000 a year.

‘Can Start Fresh’

“Think what the extra money (saved) could do for organizing,” Overall said. “We can start fresh here today. Once again, the role of a labor leader would be seen as a calling, not a job like the bosses of Union Carbide, Johns Manville and A. H. Robbins.”

But his plea went unheeded. Several opponents of the measure said top officers deserve large salaries because they have responsibilities as great or greater than corporate officials who are paid considerably more.

“I think salaries of our officers should be increased,” said Nolan LeBlanc, a delegate from New Orleans. “We should be able to pay you a million dollars,” he declared, beaming at Presser on the podium.

The debate on election procedures also reflected strong support for Presser and considerable antipathy toward Teamsters for a Democratic Union, an 8,000-member organization that has been attempting to change the union for 10 years with little success.

The proposed constitutional amendment calling for direct election of officers was introduced by C. Sam Theodus, president of a Cleveland Teamsters local who is Presser’s lone opponent for reelection as union president. Current rules call for election of the union president by convention delegates.

The direct election proposal was attacked as “an insult to every delegate and every alternate” by Robert Sansone, president of a St. Louis Teamsters local. “A certain small group is trying to cause disruption in this union.”

Most U.S. unions elect their president by a delegate vote at a convention. However, in virtually all of those unions, the delegates are elected by the rank and file shortly before the convention.

Many of the Teamster delegates got their status because they hold a union office, offices to which they often were elected considerably before the convention. Conventions are held every five years.

Procedure Challenged

Teamsters for a Democratic Union has challenged this procedure in federal court, and it is being reviewed by the U.S. Department of Labor. Doug Allen, a Los Angeles delegate and an active member of TDU, said he was not surprised by the vote and said the group will continue to press its case in court.

“TDU and the rank-and-file movement will not stop,” Allen said. “We are going to change the Teamster constitution.”

The only successful rebellion of the day came when delegates voted down by a wide margin the leadership’s proposal to delete a section of the union’s constitution that makes James R. Hoffa union president emeritus for life.

Hoffa was president of the union from 1957 until 1971 and is still revered by many Teamsters, despite the fact that he served four years in federal prison for jury tampering. Hoffa disappeared in 1975 as he was mounting an attempt to regain control of the union. There has long been speculation that he was murdered, but his body has never been found.