Interview: Reformer Challenges Hoffa for Teamster Presidency

[Omaha Steve]

http://labornotes.org/2010/10/reformer-challenges-hoffa-teamster-presidency

Jane Slaughter | October 11, 2010

Yesterday Sandy Pope announced she will run against James Hoffa for the presidency of the Teamsters. President since 2005 of Local 805 in New York City, which represents workers in industries from warehousing to janitorial, Pope is a former truck driver, warehouse worker, steelhauler, organizer, and international rep.

Contrasting her roots in Teamster industries with Hoffa’s career as a lawyer and high-paid official, Pope told Labor Notes, “Maybe I should challenge him to a driving contest.”

Pope was first a Teamster in Cleveland in 1978. During a short break from the Teamsters, she was executive director of the Coalition of Labor Union Women. She is a long-time leader of the reform movement Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). When she ran for secretary-treasurer in 2006, she was her slate’s leading vote-getter. She has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

Participants in Labor Notes’ biennial conferences may be familiar with Pope as the leader of standing-room-only workshops on assertive grievance handling and bargaining. Local 805 is an aggressive organizer of new members—one current campaign is at Fresh Direct, the huge grocery warehouse--and has won noticeable contract improvements in the depths of the recession, such as increased employer contributions to union health and pension funds.

At a campaign kick-off held Sunday at the big UPS local in New York City, 100 Teamsters from the New York area cheered Pope as the leader who could turn their challenged union around. Two members of a movers local spoke about the help Pope had given their union.

FULL story at link.

[Kolesar]

1. Ron Carey getting deposed and replaced by James Hoffa was pretty peculiar

I used to love Carey's speeches on Cspan