Reformer Sandy Pope to oppose Hoffa for Teamster president

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Veteran Teamster reform activist Sandy Pope has announced her candidacy for the union presidency in next year’s election. Pope will face off against 12-year incumbent Jimmy Hoffa Jr. and a slate headed by Fred Gegare, a current vice president who was elected on the Hoffa slate in 2006.

A former freight driver, Sandy Pope worked for the International under former President Ron Carey, who was elected by a rank-and-file rebellion against the oldguard gangsters and who went on to lead the historic national UPS strike in 1997. Pope is the president of Local 805, a warehouse local based in Long Island. Under her leadership, Local 805 has been transformed from a gangster-run do-nothing union into one that has gained national recognition for aggressive organizing drives and negotiating strong contracts.

In contrast, the International under 12 years of Hoffa Jr. has transformed one of the largest and most powerful unions in the country into a sinking ship. Under Hoffa’s watch the membership in the union’s traditional base, freight trucking, is now one third of the size when Hoffa was first elected. Massive concessions given to major employers on pensions have put the future of Teamsters pension plans into doubt. Hoffa allowed the union’s largest (and very profitable) employer, UPS, to withdraw from the Central States Pension Fund.

Hoffa came into office promising to “restore Teamster power.” Instead, the rank and file has endured 12 years of concessionary contracts and weakened pensions.

The son of legendary Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa Sr., Hoffa Junior’s ascendency to the head of the Teamsters union has everything to do with the legacy of his last name. Hoffa Jr. spent most of his adult life as a lawyer, including stints as a company-side labor-law practitioner with no affiliation to the union he now runs.

When, in 1991, an insurgent reform movement elected a militant local president, Ron Carey, to the presidency