Teamsters Election Shaping Up as Fiercest Battle Yet

Ballot tampering. Negligence. Fraud. Misuse of funds. And a drive-by shooting.

Such charges characterize past battles for the union leadership of 2,400 Teamsters in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

But as contentious as previous local Teamster elections have been, some members believe this year’s race, set for Sept. 20-23, will turn out to be the most combative yet.

The reason: The former Teamster leader who was imprisoned for embezzlement is back on the ballot seeking to reclaim his old job.

“Local 186 elections are always emotion-packed,” said Aurora (Junior) Ramirez, a 20-year union official who has worked for the administrations of five local Teamster leaders. “But I think this is going to prove to be the most interesting one.”

Martin Fry, who led the local union until his imprisonment for embezzling funds in connection with the firebombing of non-union trucks in 1978, is one of the three candidates challenging incumbent Secretary-Treasurer Dennis Shaw. Other candidates for the three-year term in the top job are longtime Teamsters John Windsor and Sarah Zuniga.

The job these candidates seek is in demand for several reasons. The secretary-treasurer is the local union’s chief administrative officer, the leader of thousands of truck drivers, warehouse workers and other employees in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

And the job pays an annual salary of nearly $60,000, plus other benefits including an expense account that was worth another $26,000 last year alone.

Some Teamsters believe Fry has been considering a return to power since his prison release in 1987. Fry and several of his key supporters did not return repeated phone calls.

Fry has worked construction jobs as a Teamster for the past few years, but left his most recent job to focus on his campaign, fellow Teamsters said. In his appeal to the rank and file, Fry has been explaining his conviction and prison sentence as evidence of how strongly he supports the union.

At campaign barbecues, he has reportedly said the only reason he got in trouble with the law was because he was fighting for the union.

Fry’s conviction prohibited him from seeking office in the 1991 election, when Shaw soundly defeated Greg Boverson, the Fry-backed incumbent. Fry could not run for any union office as long as he was on parole, which expired last year.

Shaw and Fry were not always on opposite sides. Shortly before reporting to serve his federal prison term in 1985, Fry hired Shaw as a business agent for the union. It was while Fry was locked up that Shaw began exerting his independence, and he eventually decided to challenge his former allies from Fry’s Administration.

“This is the classic battle between what the Teamsters have stood for in the past and what we should stand for in the future,” said Shaw, a bearded, angular 48-year-old whose father was a Teamster leader.

Shaw described himself as a strong administrator who has learned to hammer out good contracts through tough but sophisticated bargaining. In contrast, he said, Fry has a more confrontational style that used to be based, in part, on intimidation.

“Marty’s tack has always been to have a couple people who were considered to be muscle,” Shaw said. “The Redman strike is typical of that.”

The Redman strike was the incident that landed Fry in Lompoc Federal Penitentiary for 21 months.

In 1978, when Fry was leading the union, he and other Teamsters organized employees at Redman Moving and Storage Co. in Thousand Oaks. But the company refused to recognize the union and fell victim to threats and violence, which later were linked to Fry and other Teamsters. Vandals slashed more than 100 tires, shot out windows and burned two trucks.

Fry was convicted of embezzling union funds by paying for the gasoline in a car used to follow a Redman truck across state lines for the purpose of setting the truck on fire. No one was hurt in the incident.

Jeffrey Gitomer, acting district director of the Office of Labor-Management Standards, said the federal government has no authority to oversee this election. But, he said, federal labor officials will “keep an eye out because we’ve had a recent experience with the local.”

The local was forced to rerun its last election in 1991 under federal supervision after the Labor Department determined that union leaders had violated federal labor laws by denying members in good standing the right to vote and permitting an ineligible candidate to run for office.

It was also in that election that windows of the headquarters of one slate of candidates were shattered by gunfire. “It’s been a checkered situation,” conceded Shaw.

Although it is still three weeks away, the election is already tangled in controversy. The local’s board of trustees, controlled by Shaw’s slate, has disqualified one of Fry’s running mates as ineligible. Frances Chacon is seeking the job of recording-secretary, but the board ruled that she allowed her membership to lapse during a recent injury leave, thus making her ineligible to run for office, union officials said.

Fry has appealed the decision to the union’s international headquarters, they said.

In a way, each of the candidates appears to be pinning hopes for election on the same, familiar argument: We are here to serve. Our opponents are out to line their pockets.

“The only reason I’m running,” said Zuniga, “is to win back the integrity and honesty of our union.”

But the winner of the race will also have to deal with serious issues, such as a declining membership, which has dipped from 4,200 in 1984 to 2,400 today. Likewise, as membership shrinks, the union collects less in dues. It took in $617,000 in 1992 compared to $774,000 in 1986, union financial disclosure records show.

Shaw’s Administration blames the recession for thinning Teamster Local 186’s ranks--saying most of the union jobs were lost because of plant closures.

“We’re having the same problems as the rest of the economy,” Shaw said.

Zuniga, 50, is a lab technician and 33-year veteran at Nabisco Co. in Oxnard. She is running for secretary-treasurer, she said, because Shaw’s Administration does not adequately represent union members.

About 1,000 other union members are also employed at Nabisco, although roughly 800 of them are seasonal workers from August through October.

Zuniga said last year, for instance, Nabisco hired temporary, non-union employees to process goods while some union employees were out of work. She said Shaw took no action over the matter.

Shaw and Nabisco denied such a situation ever occurred.

Hank Sandbach, a Nabisco spokesman, said temporary workers were brought in for a short while last year at the beginning of the summer season while regular seasonal employees were being recalled.

Sandbach said the regular employees all showed up within three or four days and the temporary helpers were released from their duties.

“It’s a process that’s part of the union contract,” Sandbach said.

Zuniga was elected as a shop steward at Nabisco, a position that requires her to help workers file employee grievances, among other things. But Shaw said he replaced her because he believed she was not properly handling workers’ cases.

“I gave her warnings. I talked to her. I tried to work with her,” Shaw said.

Zuniga said she was replaced as shop steward because “I didn’t play the game.” She also said there is no real distinction between Fry and Shaw, noting that several members of Shaw’s slate also were either part of Fry’s Administration or his slate.

“What people are telling me is they are fed up with Dennis Shaw, and they don’t want Marty back in there because of what he’s been convicted of,” Zuniga said.

The harsh words Shaw and Zuniga have for each other seem to underscore the bitterness of this campaign--something that is expected to increase as the election nears.

Shaw, though, said he really does not care what allegations Zuniga or Windsor, a bus driver for the Santa Barbara Motor Transport District, make about him.

He called Zuniga’s candidacy “a big joke.” He also dismissed his other challenger: “John Windsor is even more laughable.” Windsor did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

Shaw is guarded when the subject changes to Fry.

In fact, he says Fry might have a chance of unseating him if the voter turnout is low.

“That’s why I’m telling people that everybody has to turn out or we have a chance of losing the local to Marty Fry,” he said.