Teamsters Sell Out Their Own

by | Aug 19, 2011 | Labor Relations Ink

Teamster organizers were about to force a vote at a FedEx Ground facility in Brockton, MA, when the International leadership pulled the petition two days prior to the vote.  Local union sympathizers were incensed at the betrayal, but it is just another day of “business as usual” for the union. Although this drive at a local facility was in full progress weeks before the Teamsters national convention, the union used the convention to announce an all-out effort to organize FedEx Freight, another division of the company. International leadership was afraid that a loss at the Massachusetts facility would be bad PR, and when the local drive couldn’t “guarantee a win,” the International pulled the petition. The SocialistAlternative speculated that there were deeper, political reasons for the betrayal:

“It seems likely that Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa’s re-election battle against Sandy Pope, representing Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), had something to do with it! Hoffa is correctly criticized for his failure to organize unorganized workers, and he was likely concerned that a defeat in Brockton – after failing to provide serious resources for the union drive – would be another black mark on his record.”

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