Conflicts at LV local highlighted by Hoffa foes

David Strow

Tuesday, June 26, 2001 | 10:47 a.m.

If the Teamsters' international convention were an election, James P. Hoffa would have been re-elected to a five-year term as head of one of America's most powerful unions Monday.

Taking the stage to the theme song from "Rocky," the son of legendary labor leader Jimmy Hoffa was greeted by a roar of approval from the 1,800 delegates gathered in a ballroom at the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino, home of this week's international convention. The convention is held once every five years by the union.

A methodical chant -- "Hoffa! Hoffa! Hoffa!" -- echoed through the room, as Teamsters clad in yellow vests emblazoned with Hoffa's name pumped their fists into the air.

Praise for Hoffa and his union came from both sides of the aisle of the U.S. Senate.

"I am especially honored today to share this stage with President Hoffa, one of this country's best and toughest labor leaders," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. "He's one of the only people I know who is friends with (President) Bush, Al Gore, Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan."

"Without the Teamsters, Las Vegas wouldn't be what it is today," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

It was a setting tailor-made for Hoffa's message of unity among the ranks of the 1.4 million-member Teamsters union, which has been racked by scandal and divisive elections over the 15 years since the union last held its international convention in Las Vegas. Over those intervening years, the union has seen two of its presidents indicted, agreed to federal oversight to settle a racketeering lawsuit and teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

Hoffa barely touched on this history in his speech to the convention's delegates, focusing instead on the future of the Teamsters, "a great and mighty force for good."

"Today workers must still compete with modern-day robber barons bent on placing profits over people," Hoffa said. "For nearly 100 years the Teamsters union has been the most effective voice for workers. Unified, we will continue to lead labor through the next century.

"We take pride that our union is once again strong, that our financial house is in order, that are members are united."

Hoffa then ripped on America's international trade policies, saying the "global economy ... favors corporate rights over human rights." Hoffa then referred to "the prison laborer in China work(ing) at the point of a gun 20 hours a day" and the "textile worker in El Salvador (that walks) three miles each way to her sweatshop."

"Workers still face employers bent on busting strikes and firing organizers. And American workers are still losing good jobs as employers engage in a race to the bottom," Hoffa said. "One hundred years ago labor activists fought the flow of jobs and capital to China and Mexico. Doesn't that sound familiar today?"

Only a unified union, Hoffa said, could stand up for workers' rights.

"Let us leave our minor disagreements behind and come together with a common purpose," Hoffa said.

But underneath the huge wave of support for Hoffa ran an undercurrent of discontent.

It came from a group called the "Teamsters for a Democratic Union"; their candidate, Tom Leedham of Portland, Ore., is attempting to topple Hoffa in the Teamsters' elections this fall. Leedham's backers are vastly outnumbered at the convention -- by about 20 to 1, by both sides' estimates -- though Leedham will need the backing of just 5 percent of the delegates to get on the October ballot. Leedham lost to Hoffa in the 1998 election with 40 percent of the vote; on Friday, it's likely the two men will share the stage to accept nominations to the presidential ballot.

Leedham has vocal support at the Las Vegas convention, though not a lot of it. On one occasion, Leedham's forces tried to stall a vote on a resolution until they'd had a chance to read it. This protest was nearly drowned out by angry shouts and catcalls from Hoffa partisans, and the resolution was overwhelmingly passed. Earlier, the shouts of Leedham delegates marching into the hall were washed out by the chants of the far more numerous Hoffa delegates.

"It's not the convention that will decide the leader of the Teamsters union, it's the members," Leedham said. "Our support is with the membership."

Not surprisingly, Hoffa's forces see it differently.

"This is a new era for the Teamsters ... the divisiveness of the past is dissipating," said Hoffa spokesman Chip Roth. "The delegates are clearly responding to Jim Hoffa's call for unity."

Still, the rivalry between the two camps is venomous. Leedham's troops, styling themselves as "reform" delegates, accused Hoffa of failing to keep promises to members and refusing to control corruption and excess among his lieutenants.

"There's a record Mr. Hoffa has to run on, and it's not a pretty one," Leedham said.

Hoffa's supporters are just as outspoken in their dislike of Leedham, whom they portray as a close associate of former Teamster President Ron Carey, ousted from the union in 1998 after allegations were raised that he'd funneled members' dues into his campaign fund. (Leedham responds to such suggestions by noting that he's never been accused of wrongdoing in the Carey scandal.)

"Leedham is Ron Carey's man," said Hoffa spokesman Chip Roth. "(Carey) will stand trial this fall."

Echoing this feeling, more than several Hoffa backers walked the halls of the Paris sporting buttons proclaiming: "TDU sucks."

Carey isn't a popular figure among Hoffa's camp. During a break in the convention, Roth blamed Carey for sending the Teamsters to the brink of bankruptcy. Under Hoffa's leadership, the union has been rebuilding its balance sheet, he said.

The union reported $20.2 million in net assets as of Dec. 31, 2000 -- well below the $153.8 million posted at the end of 1991, but a substantial improvement over the $3.5 million in assets the union had at the end of 1997.

"We're now in the black and have pulled back from the edge of bankruptcy," Roth said.

But not enough to institute a strike fund for Teamsters, Roth said. Many unions establish such funds to provide income to striking members; Hoffa has discussed such a fund in the past, but hasn't moved to establish one.

"Our intent is to establish strike benefits for the membership," Roth said. "First, we need to establish a solid financial foundation. We can only address the strike (fund) issue once we have our finances in place."

Leedham is using the strike fund as a key plank in his platform, however. He argued funds could be diverted to such a fund by capping the salaries of Teamster officials and preventing them from drawing paychecks from more than one source -- from the international organization and from a local at the same time, for example.

"Nothing is more important to Teamster members than to know they have (a strike fund backing) the threat of a strike," Leedham said. "Otherwise, who's going to believe us (if the Teamsters threaten to strike)?"

Leedham is also raising the example of Las Vegas-based Teamsters Local 631 to bolster his charges of corruption within Hoffa's administration.

The Independent Review Board, a federal body established to monitor the Teamsters in 1989, accused Hoffa lieutenants Dane Passo and William Hogan Jr. of influencing Hoffa to place Local 631 under trusteeship in April 2000. Hogan's brother is an executive with the janitorial services company United Service Cos.; the IRB said in a May report that Passo and Hogan attempted to push 631 officials to accept a contract to supply labor to Las Vegas convention services companies from United at wages well below those called for in the Teamsters' collective bargaining agreement. When Timothy Murphy, then secretary-treasurer of the local, resisted, Passo convinced Hoffa to remove him and place the local under trusteeship, the report stated.

Hoffa has maintained the move was necessary because 631 officials weren't acting in the best interests of the more than 4,000 members of Local 631.

"It's hard to believe Mr. Hoffa did not know what these close associates were doing," Leedham said.

Roth responded by noting Hoffa was not accused of any wrongdoing in the IRB report. He said the Teamsters' General Executive Board would review the charges and decide whether disciplinary action against Passo and Hogan was necessary.

"It's not that corruption won't occur, it's what we do when that corruption does occur," Roth said. "Jim Hoffa wants to provide the best representation for 631."

Hoffa's answer to fighting corruption is "RISE," short for "Respect, Integrity, Strength, Ethics." This program, launched in July 1999, is developing an internal review and discipline process designed to deal with corruption within the Teamsters union. The Teamsters plan to press the Department of Justice to allow RISE to replace the IRB, though Roth said he didn't know if the issue would come up at this week's convention.

"Our union has had to spend $100 million on (the IRB in the past 12 years)," Roth said. "'We need to end the IRB for economic reasons, as well as a matter of our own pride."

This convention is a crossroads for the union, and it comes in a town of both pride and embarrassment for the Teamsters. Many Las Vegas casinos of the past were built with Teamster pension fund loans, but the influence of organized crime in both the casinos and the Teamsters created scandals that rocked both. And at the Teamsters' international convention of 1986, newly indicted union President Jackie Presser was paraded around Caesars Palace in a sedan chair by four men dressed as Roman gladiators during a party paid for by $650,000 in union funds.

The union's convention hasn't returned to Las Vegas since then. But the Teamsters aren't apologizing for picking Las Vegas in 2001. A big reason, Roth said, is the fact that a convention in Las Vegas is far more affordable, and that's an important consideration for a financially strapped organization.

But Las Vegas is also strategically important, Roth said.

"Las Vegas is an important town for us," Roth said. "We're proud of the Teamster movement in Las Vegas. We are going to invest in Las Vegas, because there is opportunity for the Teamster union here. The working families of Las Vegas are going to get our attention."

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