{"id":6687,"date":"2022-05-27T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=6687"},"modified":"2022-11-06T11:01:46","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T16:01:46","slug":"what-we-learned-from-the-teamster-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/05\/what-we-learned-from-the-teamster-election\/","title":{"rendered":"What we learned from the Teamster election"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/span>n Thursday, November 18, 2021, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) announced that Sean O\u2019Brien had been elected as the new general president of the union, following more than twenty years of rule by James P. Hoffa. O\u2019Brien, running mate Fred Zuckerman, and their entire<\/a> \u201cTeamsters United\u201d slate swept the election, winning every seat on the union\u2019s General Executive Board (three seats for the union\u2019s Canadian region went to the uncontested \u201cTeam Canada\u201d slate). O\u2019Brien-Zuckerman (OZ) Teamsters United decisively defeated the Hoffa-backed Teamster Power slate, led by Steve Vairma, two-to-one.<\/p>\n

For many, that said it all: the good guys won. \u201cThere are landslide elections, and then there are\u00a0LANDSLIDE\u00a0<\/em>elections. The Teamsters just had the italicized all-caps version,\u201d wrote Harold Myerson<\/a> of the American Prospect. Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) posited<\/a>, \u201cIt was a landslide because Vairma\u2019s more-of-the-same message didn\u2019t attract members, even in their own locals. And most of their candidates don\u2019t have a clue about how to involve members; in fact, they prefer passive members.\u201d Labor Notes<\/em> hailed the victory, \u201cIt\u2019s the first time in almost a quarter-century that a coalition backed by Teamsters for a Democratic Union has taken the driver\u2019s seat in the international union.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Teamsters are unique among North American unions as one of the only unions that elects top leadership by direct membership ballots\u2014most unions use a delegated convention. As a result of imposed federal \u201cconsent decree\u201d in 1989, Teamster elections are monitored by the Office of the Election Supervisor (OES), which certifies election results, adjudicates election violation allegations, and delivers executive reports that can be inspected at the membership (through the website www.ibtvote.org<\/a> ). The ballot data, along with the union\u2019s reports and filings, allow us to get a deeper look at what happened in the election, and more broadly get a \u201cstate of the union\u201d.<\/p>\n

The membership<\/h4>\n

The IBT\u2019s LM-2 filings with the federal government over the five years between the two elections give some sense of the dynamics in the union. Outgoing president James Hoffa left the union with a serious crisis that the new leadership has to address. According to the Teamsters\u2019 own reported figures, it lost more than one quarter of a million <\/strong> members since the last election \u2013 1 in 5 union members have disappeared. Where did they go?<\/p>\n

\"Snapshot<\/p>\n

\"Table<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the Teamsters, as it did all labor unions, with the temporary closure of non-essential industry and slowdown of the economy generally. Most of this loss, however, appears to be after<\/em> the re-opening of the economy. The total number of workers represented went up<\/em><\/strong> between 2020 and 2021, but what appears to have happened is that a staggering number of workers have moved from union membership to paying agency fees only. On average, the proportion of agency fee payers to members in the IBT has been 3% — in 2021, it jumped to 20%.<\/p>\n

\"Graph<\/p>\n

This shift cannot be explained by the 2018 AFSCME vs. Janus<\/a><\/em> ruling, introducing right-to-work provisions into the public sector, because that ruling absolved represented workers of the obligation to pay agency fees. For the IBT, the new agency fee payers can only be located in the private sector, in one of the twenty-two union security states, grouped in the northeast, Illinois\/Minnesota\/Missouri, and the West Coast. The figures also say nothing about how many \u201cfree riders\u201d (entitled to Union benefits while not paying dues or fees) are represented in right-to-work states and, now, the public sector.<\/p>\n

The Election<\/h4>\n

Looking just at the 2021 election, the OES Report to IBT #3<\/a> states, \u201cOES sent ballot packages to 1,391,225 ballot-eligible IBT members.\u201d Of that, 189,335 ballots were returned (13.6%). The report\u2019s own table shows this to be the lowest figure to date:<\/p>\n

\"Table<\/p>\n

22,300 fewer ballots were returned (a 10.5% drop from 2016). Of the returned ballots, a number are always disqualified and so the final ballot tally was 173,556. O\u2019Brien received 115,573 votes to Vairma\u2019s 57,983. Turnout has dropped in every Teamster election since the right to vote was established in 1991 \u2013 only Ron Carey\u2019s re-election campaign in 1996 boosted turnout.<\/p>\n

Looking at the union\u2019s regions, this tells us more about what is happening in the race beyond a flat 2-1 victory. Overall, we see that Teamsters United won every district, save for Canada, which has traditionally been allied to Hoffa in exchange for autonomy. By comparison, in 2016 Teamsters United won only the Central and Southern districts.<\/p>\n

\"Table<\/p>\n

\"Table<\/p>\n

In this election, turnout was down almost everywhere. Teamsters Canada\u2019s votes were cut in half \u2013 a drop of nearly 6,000 votes. O\u2019Brien\u2019s Eastern region turnout was down 15%, roughly following the trend of the union\u2019s membership loss over the 2016-2021 period (see above). The Central region, a key battleground, had 20% lower turnout \u2013 OZ Teamsters United\u2019s votes were more or less flat, but Teamster Power\u2019s voters didn\u2019t show up. Only Vairma\u2019s Western region turnout grew, increasing turnout by 6%.<\/p>\n

OZ\u2019s decisive victory looks different in this light. Turnout fell in nearly every Teamster local. Local turnout was typically up only in candidates\u2019 own locals \u2013 and sometimes not even then. In Chicago, Juan Campos\u2019 Local 705 turned out 5,400 members to vote, an increase of 2,000 from 2016, and allied Locals 743 and 786 about doubled their votes; Tom Erickson\u2019s Local 120 in Minnesota likewise increased its turnout 66%, another 800 votes; Danny Avelyn\u2019s Local 554 in Omaha, NE was up and so on. Interestingly, Fred Zuckerman\u2019s Local 89\u2019s turnout declined by about 1,000 votes in 2021 \u2013 almost all from those who had voted Teamsters United five years earlier.<\/p>\n