‘Trucker’ Captures Saga of Woman’s Union Battles

Stories about labor unions are almost never seen on television or in theatrical films, but the Canadians have produced a stunning TV docudrama about a feisty female truck driver who helped fight corruption and mobsters in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The tough, idealistic Diana Kilmury was one of the first female members of a Canadian local of the Teamsters’ brotherhood. She is also a member of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), a small group of rebels who sparked a revolution inside the 1.4 million-member union.

Officials at TNT insist it is only a coincidence, but “Mother Trucker: The Diana Kilmury Story” is airing here tonight, just 18 days before the union’s members in the United States and Canada will vote on whether they want to retain Ron Carey as the reform president and, among other officers, Kilmury, who was elected vice president in 1991 on Carey’s reform slate.

The film is primarily an exciting personal story about Kilmury, but certainly it could have an influence on the Teamster election that pits Carey against James P. Hoffa, son of the late Jimmy Hoffa, who was sentenced in 1967 to 13 years in prison for mail fraud and jury tampering but was pardoned in 1971 by President Nixon, who was endorsed by the Teamsters.

While the film doesn’t touch on the coming election, members who see it will be vividly reminded of the struggles by Carey, Kilmury and others against mobsters who dominated the union for decades. Carey says “Junior” Hoffa, as he contemptuously calls the younger Hoffa, is trying to return the union to the days of mob-rule, an accusation Hoffa furiously denies.

Even though the story of the late Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared in 1975, a presumed victim of mobsters, is fairly well known, “Mother Trucker” gives us a look at the union through the eyes of Kilmury (played by Barbara Williams), a stubborn rank-and-file woman--a courageous one but a “pain in the ass,” as she calls herself--in an organization that was almost all-male for so many decades.

The film can be compared to the 1979 production of “Norma Rae,” about a real-life Southern union organizer, acted by Sally Field. That movie told of its heroine’s courageous battles against greedy textile mill owners with the help of a union.

In contrast, Kilmury was, and still is, fighting corporation executives and those “old guard” Teamsters who, even though most of them were not mobsters or corrupt, did not and have not joined Carey and Kilmury in their reform movement.

The film opens in 1978 as Kilmury arrives at a British Columbia dam project as the only woman at the site. Just watching her calmly maneuver giant trucks to move tons of gravel and dirt along dangerous roads and steep cliffs shows the courage she displays throughout the film. She is remarkable as she battles against corrupt union leaders and personal tragedies, including massive injuries to herself and her son, Sean, suffered in a car accident in a blinding snowstorm.

“Mother Trucker” should grip the attention of Teamsters, whether they like Kilmury or not. But it should appeal to anyone who appreciates high drama based on a true life story, acted superbly by Williams and an excellent supporting cast. It honestly refuses to gloss over the personal turmoil such heroism brings, especially in the life of a woman forcing herself into a man’s world.

* “Mother Trucker: The Diana Kilmury Story” airs at 5 and 9:30 p.m. today on TNT cable.