BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JUNE 26, 2000 ISSUE
GOVERNMENT Hoffa: On Free Trade, Election 2000, and Winning Note: This is an extended, online-only version of the interview that appears in the June 26 issue of Business Week. It has been just over a year since James P. Hoffa was sworn in as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In an interview recently with Business Week Washington News Editor Paula Dwyer, Hoffa listed his accomplishments and laid out his goals. And he revealed the depth of his bitterness toward predecessor Ron Carey, who was ousted as Teamsters president after a scandal involving union money and the Clinton-Gore campaign of 1996. Q: What have you accomplished so far? A: The best [win] was [United Parcel Service], where we won an arbitration. We will get 10,000 new full-time and part-time jobs. Along with the 11,000 flight attendants at Northwest Airlines ratifying the contract by 68%, [and] the car-haul contract, where 13,000 car-haulers ratified it by 80% -- these are great victories. Q: The Teamsters are refusing to endorse Vice President Al Gore. Why? A: I thought labor got a little bit ahead of itself. And I think we made the same mistake on the North American Free Trade Agreement with President Clinton. He was endorsed by labor in 1992, and then NAFTA was sprung on us in 1993. We would have had much more leverage with regard to [permanent normal trade relations for China] if organized labor had withheld its endorsement. Q: When George W. Bush appears at your executive meeting on June 21, what do you hope to hear? A: There's no test, no buzzword. We've had before us a broad array of candidates, from Al Gore to Bill Bradley to John McCain and Orrin Hatch. And bringing in Bush and Ralph Nader will complete [the process]. Then we'll make our decision, along with possible polling of our members. We may not endorse at all. Q: The union is lobbying to help UPS win an air route to China. How is that consistent with your efforts to defeat permanent normal trading relations for China? A: The difference is, UPS creates jobs here. The present trade trends now are creating jobs in China and not here. Companies are already saying they're going to build factories in China. The game plan is to use cheap, exploited labor and export back to this country, just like they did under NAFTA. We will lose over 1 million jobs because of PNTR. Q: So you don't dispute that UPS's future, and by extension the Teamsters' future, is with China? A: It is my hope that China will buy billions of dollars of material, that our factories will be humming, and Americans will be working and exporting goods to China. That they will be buying our farm goods, our hogs, our beef, our cattle. But that's not going to happen. There has been a massive amount of disinformation to really lie to farmers and people of good conscience and getting up false hopes about exports. It's very much like what happened with regard to NAFTA. It was said people would buy all kinds of our consumer goods, and none of that has happened. Trade with Mexico has turned into a disaster. We have gone to a $20 billion trade deficit with Mexico. In 1993, when [NAFTA] was negotiated, we had a $1 billion trade surplus. Of course, what happened is that American, European, and Japanese companies have moved across the border, escaped regulation and unionization, and are now exporting massive amounts of finished goods back into the richest economy of the world, basically duty-free. That's the disaster. Q: According to your own annual report to the Labor Dept., your organizing wins are way down, compared with 1998 and '97. Why? A: I don't think that's true. We're doing a lot of organizing. [But] the Overnite [Transportation Co.] strike is taking up a lot of our resources. We're striking 140 terminals. We have had many many victories, including Dobbs Catering -- 11,000 people, including Pittsburgh Plate & Glass. We've had tremendous victories. Plus, we're gaining members because of UPS. And Northwest Airlines is growing. We picked up 1,000 flight attendants in the last year. So we have internal growth. Q: But are you doing as well as your predecessor? A: Carey had a bunch of stooges on the payroll who did nothing but campaign and not organize. And under Carey, you saw the membership go down. He sucked the heart out of this union. He broke the spirit of this union with a reign of terror. Now, we have a new era of cooperation. We organized 650 people at Yakima, Wash. -- the apple workers -- that was something we jumped right into. We picked up those people. Q: But didn't Carey start that? A: Yeah, but he failed. He failed and accomplished nothing. When we took it over, it was absolutely dead in the water. We inspired everybody. When we took it over, we were able to get a neutrality agreement. Ron Carey was never able to get a neutrality agreement. That was one of our first victories right off the bat. That was a big accomplishment. We run this union from the bottom up. This is not a top-down union. The dues do not come to the international, the dues go to the local union, and the power flows up. Therefore, the local unions do the organizing. We've kept our numbers up, and it's always hard to keep your numbers up. We lost 400 people at Mr. Coffee because of NAFTA -- they closed the plant. In that environment -- fighting NAFTA and PNTR -- we've been able to grow, and we're very proud of that. Q: How long can you go on diverting those resources to the Overnite strike, now in its eighth month? A: As long as we keep growing. Overnite is the fifth-largest freight carrier. No one has organized a major trucking company in 25 years. Carey sat on it for four years and did absolutely nothing. If we win there, that will have an important benefit in 2003 when we negotiate [a new master freight agreement]. Q: Have you raised strike benefits, as you promised during your campaign? A: No. This was one of the failures of Ron Carey. We took over a union on the verge of bankruptcy. During the 6 1/2 years they were in here, they drained more than $100 million out of the treasury that could've been used for strike benefits. Here is a union with an income of about $88 million. So they spent another $100 million on top of the annual income. In our first year, our major goal was to balance the budget. We finally balanced the budget, and we're getting some money in the bank right now. Of course, we're looking at tremendous expenditures next year, with regard to the convention and the election. Q: How much will they cost? A: I don't know. The election itself will cost somewhere around $8 million. That's a historic thing, because in 1996 and 1998 the taxpayers paid for it, and we don't think the taxpayers should pay for it. Part of my evolving independence of the Teamsters union is that the government and the Teamsters have made an agreement where we will run our own election. We're flying on our own, we're paying for our own election, and that really is part of the first step to show that this union is going to be free of a trusteeship. Q: What are the chances that the Justice Dept. will lift the consent decree [in place since 1989]? A: I think they're very good. We're demonstrating that we're corruption-free, that this union has control of its finances. We've created a climate of democracy. And we're also very dedicated to the proposition of one man or woman, one vote. We're very interested in memorializing that in our constitution because we believe in that -- free and democratic elections. We also have broad public and membership support, and all those things demonstrate to the government a number of milestones. We've seen a trend where other locals, after they have free and democratic elections, come out of trusteeship. Q: Then the earliest the consent decree can be lifted is late 2001, after the next Teamsters election? A: It could come earlier. I'm hopeful it would come quickly, but I'm also realistic that it will be some time. I can't predict. But it's important to know we have a meaningful dialogue where we are demonstrating we have competent leadership here. And I think that any observers from the outside will see that this union is moving ahead. Q: Do you see yourself running the entire labor federation? Is there an office beyond the Teamsters that appeals to you? A: No. I am very dedicated to running the Teamsters union. This is my lifetime goal. Q: Another of your campaign promises was to cut head-office expenses and salaries. Despite that, your salary is $225,000, while Carey's was only $150,000. Any explanation? A: I'm taking the salary that's been in the constitution for the past 30 years, the same salary that was in when my father was here in the '60s. It hasn't changed. Carey had overstaffed the union with basically hangers-on and campaign staff. So what we've done is cut those people out. Q: Why did you need to ask for payments from the AFL-CIO? A: We received $500,000 for the Overnite strike. A victory there is a victory that helps all of organized labor. And we also received $500,000 for our [anti-corruption] program. And we have to deal with all this debt that accumulated [under] Carey. We asked for forgiveness and were able to have over $1 million forgiven. Q: What industries or companies are you looking to organize next? A: We're doing a major thing right now -- we just applied to the AFL-CIO to organize people who work with the major ports. We launched a new area [for organizing], possibly 50,000 truckers who go to the docks and transport the containers to bring goods to the country. That's a growing area, and most of it is nonunion. We're going to do it both on the East Coast and West Coast. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Hoffa at Halftime Hoffa: On Free Trade, Election 2000, and Winning (extended) INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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