is chairman of the board of trustees at the union’s influential Central States pension fund, claims he brings experience and support that Pope lacks as well as a change from
the status quo represented by Hoffa. “When I look at my
résumé, I don’t see how anyone can beat me,” he says.
Pope, who in 2006 was named number two on an opposition slate that was subsequently defeated by Hoffa, hopes to
gain traction this time by contrasting her years as a field representative and as president for the past six years of Local 805
in New York with Hoffa’s lack of in-the-trenches experience.
“I’ve been in the thick of it for quite awhile, and I feel
Hoffa has been above it all, always,” she says. “He was
never a shop steward or a local officer, and he has totally
removed himself.”
The Hoffa camp argues its candidate brings unmatched
qualifications from his background as a labor lawyer, the
knowledge base gained from growing up in a prominent
union family, and his 12 years’ experience as Teamster pres-
ident. They dismiss Pope’s candidacy as a pipe dream fueled
by little more than human interest. They claim that she has
virtually no funds to conduct a serious campaign and that
she is unqualified to run the Teamsters after mismanaging
her local’s finances to the point of near-insolvency.
Hoffa’s supporters acknowledge Gegare’s level of experience but say his vitriolic comments about Hoffa ring hollow
given that he supported the general president on almost
every issue before breaking away from him.
“Gegare never spoke out against anything,” says Richard
Leebove, a senior adviser to the Hoffa campaign. The campaign did not make Hoffa available for an interview.
The Hoffa campaign points to such successes as his role in
keeping less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier YRC Worldwide Inc.
afloat—and preserving 25,000 to 30,000 Teamster jobs—as
the company teetered on the abyss through 2009. The campaign also touts the organizing of 10,000 to 12,000 members
of UPS Freight, which was known as Overnite Transportation
prior to UPS’s 2005 acquisition of Overnite.
Gegare and Pope argue that UPS Freight was
not organized as part of the National Master
Freight Agreement (NMFA), which covers
unionized LTL carriers, and that its
union members’ wages started as much
as $11 an hour below those of NMFA
carriers like YRC and ABF Freight
System Inc. Leebove declined comment on the specifics of any
wage gap, but says he doesn’t
believe the UPS Freight wages were
“significantly different” from its
rivals’. Leebove adds that UPS
Freight workers will receive wage
increases in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
go figure …
$75 billion
The amount of capital held by private equity
interests earmarked for merger and acquisition
activity in the logistics industry.
SOURCE: BG STRATEGIC ADVISORS
ACE IN THE “HALL”
Unlike Hoffa and Gegare, who are running with a slate of
candidates, Pope is going it alone. She has no slate of officers and relies on a staff that, as recently as May, consisted
of two part-timers and staff time donated by Teamsters for
a Democratic Union (TDU), a dissident group that supports
her candidacy. Pope says she has a large volunteer network,
and holds conference calls at nights and on weekends with
Teamster members nationwide.
TDU and its national organizer, Ken Paff, leapt to national prominence by backing Carey, the dark-horse candidate,
in 1991. While Pope and TDU hope lightning can strike
twice in two decades, Leebove of the Hoffa camp says the
comparisons don’t stand up to scrutiny.
For one, Carey ran against a splintered field after the
incumbent at the time, William McCarthy, declined to seek
another term. By contrast, Pope is facing a two-time incumbent in Hoffa, Leebove says.
In addition, Carey, who was a long-time UPS employee,
built on a groundswell of support among the company’s
rank and file, Leebove says. Pope doesn’t have that embedded base, Leebove claims. Carey also had about 12,000
members in his local—Local 804 in New York—while Pope
has slightly more than 1,000 members in hers, he adds.
“Ron Carey was by far a more significant player than
Sandy Pope,” Leebove says.
In a nod to the importance of nearly 250,000 unionized
UPS workers, Hoffa has named as his running mate Ken
Hall, who is director of the Teamsters’ small parcel division
and was one of the architects of a 1997 job action that shut
down UPS for 15 days.
Leebove says Hall is still considered a hero by workers at
UPS and throughout the union for standing up to the
Atlanta-based giant. The choice of Hall is “a major game
changer,” he says.
Paff agrees that Hall’s connection with UPS Teamsters
was a key factor in his selection as Hoffa’s number two.
However, Paff says the Hoffa campaign may be misreading
the rank and file’s likely reception of Hall, contending the
most recent UPS contract, negotiated in 2007, was “not
that popular” with members. ;
