[Subscribe to Socialist Action for one year A…]

Scan page 3

Subscribe to Socialist Action for one year A monthly newspaper with a working class Nicaragua: Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution Or Introductory offer: $3 for 6 months Gorbachev's USSR: Is Stalinism Dead?

Please send with my 1-year subscription my free copy of: • Nicaragua: Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution • Gorbachev's USSR: Is Stalinism Dead?

If you want to receive your subscription in a sealed envelope you must have it mailed first-class ($16).

SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1992 3 ing and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) suit, they had not signed the Consent Decree under which this election took place. But they had little choicebeing faced with prison terms for their previous corruption.

As of November, 138 officials had been removed for corruption or mob ties by the government's investigations officer. Now they've lost nearly the entire GEB.

On the other hand, the government might be regretting their own intervention, which helped pave the way for this kind of an election. Obviously, they never factored in the impact of a weak economy and increasing unemployment.

For over 10 years, the IBT has been granting givebacks to the employers, while keeping the membership passive and in the dark. The members resent the high-living of the parasitic bureaucrats; 171 officers made over $100,000 last year, mainly by pyramiding salaries and pension plans.

Top guzzler at the union treasury was Harold Friedman, who pulled down $1,356,568 in 1989, the year he was removed as head of Local 507 in Cleveland for racketeering. Last year, outgoing Teamsters General President William J. McCarthy had to get by with $321,257.

Even with the democratic pressure of the election, we have seen weak bargaining in the major national contracts-UPS, freight, and car-haul. In the first two cases, the contacts were grudgingly accepted but not in the third. Now, in the aftermath of Carey's victory, the renegotiated car-haul proposal is expected to be voted down again, with an unprecedented turn-out of car-haulers.

The role of TDU Despite the current recession-which undercuts workers' confidence while bargaining—the Carey slate succeeded because of the strength of TDU. Initiated by union activists (including socialists), many of the troops to win. Although it kept a low profile, it was the backbone of the Carey campaign.

Carey's campaign is significant because it does not represent primarily a split in the bureaucracy. Instead, it expresses a genuine, although small, rank-and-file Most of the candidates on Carey's slate are working Teamsters, with a majority being TDUers. Over 10,000 members donated to Carey's shoe-string campaign. On the other hand, less than 1 percent of Durham's ample campaign fund came from working Teamsters.

The Carey slate campaigned on a "platform of the rank and file." They stressed demands such as no give-back contracts, abolishing officials' multiple salaries and pensions, no more sellouts on grievances, better pensions, a voice for women members, a fight for national health insurance, and the right to vote for convention delegates.

Increasingly, the campaign focussed on ending corruption, in the belief that the An Anthology (Walnut Publishing Co., 171 pp.) bureaucracy and the employers.

TDU's perspective on this was articulated in a report at the October Rank-and-File Convention by Joe Fahey, president of Watsonville, Calif., Local 912. Warning that action must be taken immediately to bolster membership confidence and participation, he said, "We need to move quickly ... to change the union and to show the members that something important has happened because of their votes... [the old guard] may try to take advantage of any indecision to sabotage Carey's plans."

Fahey concluded, "Ron Carey is our brother, but he is not Moses. ... Our work doesn't end with the election of Ron Carey."

Indeed, Carey's first announcement as president elect was that he would cut his own salary and "get the bums out." A good start. But the future will be difficult. The majority of the new GEB is inexperienced. The crux of the problem is that leaders are forged in the crucible of mass movements, something U.S. labor has not been for a generation.

Name Address City State Phone Clip and return to: Socialist Action, 3425 Army St., San Francisco, CA 94110. (415) 821-0458 Movement (NDM) in the United Auto Workers (UAW). This group sent observers to TDU's recent convention. NDM orator and co-founder of the UAW, Victor Reuther, optimistically generalized from the Teamster experience, "There is growing in the ranks a wildfire for change. It's going to sweep this nation."

A test for Carey's positions Carey himself is a contradiction. He probably looks to either the Democrats or the Republicans as makeshift political friends. Nevertheless, he has earned his Local 804 members' respect for servicing their needs, supporting strikes by other New York area locals and being willing to defy injunctions when necessary to win strikes.

A big problem has been the perception that the U.S. government was a tactical ally against the mob-backed Teamster bureaucracy. The Consent Decree did give the reform movement an opening. Nevertheless, it provided a dangerous precedent, and the government is not yet out of Teamster affairs.

A small, but nevertheless important, example of the problem of government intervention is the court ruling forcing TDU to disclose the names of its supporters. This opened up TDU supporters to retaliation and intimidation.

Carey's victory will soon be tested in real life. Will this leadership mobilize its members in mass picket lines when necessary to win strikes? This is the real way to stop replacement scabs, not through the election of phony friends of labor in the bosses' parties.

Furthermore, the Carey leadership, which is pledged to take the question of political endorsements to the membership, will have to wrestle with the question of independent political action. At least several members of the GEB support the idea of a labor party. $8 for one year Zip Union/ Organ.

----- pull-quotes -----

Special New Year Offer! Socialist Action today!

Subscribe to perspective on world events