O.C. Looms as Key Battleground in Teamsters Union Elections
His tattooed arms crossed, Charles Poper listened intently as James P. Hoffa, son of the late Teamsters leader, stood in a blue truck pumping his fists in the air and promising to invigorate the nation’s largest private-sector union.
“I wonder if this is the man who can change things around,” said Poper, 49, an Orange County bus driver disenchanted with his local union and the lot of the working man. “At this point, I haven’t decided.”
Members like Poper--who cares about his union and is certain to vote, but remains uncommitted--figure to make the difference in the election this fall for president of the storied, controversial union.
And few places will be as important to the two contenders, Hoffa and incumbent Ronald R. Carey, as Southern California. The region is home to about 140,000 Teamsters, or 10% of the union’s total membership, and Orange County looms as a major battleground.
A clearer picture of the race will emerge in about two weeks at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters convention in Philadelphia, where delegates will nominate candidates and vote on finance issues and institutional reforms that have been at the heart of the Carey and Hoffa campaigns.
Analysts say the West Coast may prove to be the swing vote, at the convention and in the November mail-ballot election for president. Carey, 60, hails from New York and seems to have a lock on the East, while Hoffa, a 55-year-old native of Detroit, has strong support in the central region.
But in Southern California, long the Teamsters’ West Coast power base, the leadership is split. And so apparently is the membership.
“There are many sitting on the fence,” said Raul Lopez, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 396 in Covina. Lopez is supporting Carey, even though his 9,000-member local is affiliated with Joint Council 42, an umbrella group of 19 locals that is firmly behind Hoffa.
Both Hoffa and Carey see the Southland as crucial to their success. “It’s very important to us,” Hoffa said in an interview last weekend in Anaheim, where nearly 100 people turned out for a rally. “We’ve got to touch the members.”
Carey, who took office in 1992, was also moving through freight barns and warehouses in the Southland over the weekend, shaking hands with workers and raising donations. Carey’s camp said a recent independent poll of members commissioned by his campaign showed that nationally, he has a 19-point lead over Hoffa.
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Hoffa dismisses those poll results, and he says the convention will provide a gauge of where he and Carey stand.
But Steve Wattenmaker, a spokesman for Carey’s campaign, said that’s not necessarily true. At a similar convention in 1991, he said, Carey garnered just 15% of the delegates but then went on to win the mail ballot election by a commanding margin over runner-up R.V. Durham of North Carolina.
“It’s one thing to elect delegates, another thing to get a secret ballot at your home,” Wattenmaker said.
Carey, a former United Parcel Service truck driver in New York, won a five-year term on a grass-roots campaign to clean up the corruption-marred union. In fact, his path was paved in 1989 when Teamsters leaders settled a federal racketeering lawsuit by agreeing to allow the rank and file to elect delegates to the convention and vote directly for national leaders.
Hoffa, a stocky man who has his father’s piercing eyes, for years worked as a union lawyer in Detroit. In 1993 he quit his law practice, and last summer announced his candidacy during a taping of the “Larry King Live” show in Los Angeles. Hoffa has won instant recognition because of his name, which represents a legacy of both Teamster strength and corruption.
Throughout his campaign, Hoffa has attacked Carey for the union’s declining membership and financial woes, including a strike fund that went broke in 1991 because the weekly benefit for strikers increased from $55 to $200. Carey says he has actually staunched the long decline in membership--which peaked at 2 million in the 1970s--thanks to organizing victories at freight companies and public agencies, such as the Los Angeles schools.
Carey also says he inherited the union’s financial problems and that he has returned millions of dollars to local unions by eliminating unnecessary layers of bureaucracy.
At the upcoming weeklong convention, the 1,700 delegates are likely to take up matters relating to union leaders’ powers and salaries, the right of members to directly elect leaders through secret ballots, and a proposal to change part of the union’s name, a particularly divisive issue.
Carey, for example, supports the notion that “Brotherhood” be dropped from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to reflect the presence of women in the union. But Hoffa and his backers argue that the word is as much a part of the union’s tradition as the horses on the Teamsters’ emblem, which depict an earlier era when members rode horses to haul goods.
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Among Teamsters leaders and delegates in Southern California, the Carey and Hoffa camps are divided along county lines.
Ed Mireles, head of Local 952 in Orange, set the stage two years ago by pulling out of Joint Council 42 of Los Angeles and forming a separate council based in Orange County. Mireles said the secession effort was spurred by dissatisfaction with the Los Angeles joint council, but the move had Carey’s blessing, and Mireles is now running for a vice presidency on Carey’s slate.
Mireles’ Joint Council 92 currently has 10 Teamsters locals with about 50,000 members. All of those locals have elected convention delegates committed to Carey--a reflection, Mireles says, of the rank and file’s will.
Hoffa says that if he is elected, he will dismantle Joint Council 92, which he called an inappropriate gerrymandering move. Mireles retorted that Hoffa would have no constitutional authority to do so.
Los Angeles-based Joint Council 42, which has nearly twice as many locals and members as Joint Council 92, has long been controlled by Mike Riley, whose salary and domain have been reined in by Carey in recent years.
Riley, who declined to comment, has thrown his weight behind Hoffa but is not on the slate for national elections. Mary Lou Salmeron of Local 986 in Los Angeles, which is headed by Riley, is running as a trustee on Hoffa’s ticket.
Salmeron, who rose from a clerk to an office manager in her 28 years as a Teamster, says she’s backing Hoffa because “he has his father’s gumption and the ability to negotiate.” But she said it would be foolhardy to assume that members will heed their leaders’ endorsements.
“There are some who won’t even talk to me,” Salmeron said. “You really don’t know who they’re for. There’s a lot of people who are undecided.”
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Teamster Showdown
The Teamsters union will soon choose a president, and California holds one of the keys. A look at the candidates and their union:
Ronald R. Carey
Age: 60
Background: Incumbent; left Marine Corps in 1956 to work for United Parcel Service. Became shop steward in 1957 and president of Local 804 in New York City in 1967. Elected international president in 1991.
Residence: New York City
Family: Married, five children
Motto: “Restore Teamster Power”
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James P. Hoffa
Age: 55
Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics, Michigan State University, 1963; law degree, University of Michigan, 1966
Background: Son of former Teamster leader James R. Hoffa. Worked as member of Teamster Local 299. Practiced law in Michigan from 1968-1993 and represented Teamster groups. Became executive assistant to Michigan Teamsters Joint Council No. 43 in 1993.
Strength and Sector
Teamster ranks began to dwindle in the 1980s due to a changing economy, fewer organizing campaigns and worker reluctance to join a union with a reputation for corruption. Membership has since stabilized. Members, in thousands:
1950: 1,000
1960: 1,461
1970: 1,830
1980: 1,891
1990: 1,553
1991: 1,513
1992: 1,472
1993: 1,450
1994: 1,433
1995: 1,437
Teamsters are mostly blue-collar workers, but the union hopes to organize more white-collar professions. Where Teamsters work now:
Industrial*: 45%
Warehouse: 25%
Freight: 10%
Public service: 8%
Construction: 7%
Airlines: 5%
* Includes manufacturing, service, soft-drink bottling, breweries, dairy, bakeries, newspapers, TV, film and other industries
Teamsters Profile
The Teamsters union has a lively history. Its leaders have included individuals with legal problems, some of them tied to organized crime. A look at the union today and its leadership lineup:
Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
Founded: 1903
President: Ronald R. Carey
Locals: 615
Monthly dues: Set by individual locals, averages $28; locals keep all but $4.90, which goes to the international’s headquarters for member services
Past Presidents
Daniel Tobin: 1907-52
David Beck*: 1952-57
James R. Hoffa*: 1957-71
Frank Fitzsimmons: 1971-81
Roy Williams*: 1981-83
Jackie Presser*: 1983-88
William J. McCarthy: 1988-92
Ronald R. Carey: 1992 to present
* Indicted or convicted on corruption-related charges
Sources: Teamsters union, World Book Encyclopedia, Biographical Profiles, Hoffa ‘96, Ron Carey Campaign; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times
