(16 دسمبر 2008) —
To Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) and other members whose votes made him the first directly elected leader of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), Carey was a genuine hero. In a union where to this day few local officers dare to cast their lot with TDU, the pugnacious ex-Marine and former UPS-driver from
Remembering him now, neither of us is neutral on the question of Ron Carey and whether he was different from those who served before or after him in the IBT’s "
But Teamsters seeking change they could believe in back then needed a candidate to run against the IBT’s still-powerful, well-financed "old guard." There were not a lot of folks knocking on TDU’s door to apply for the job. Always a brave battler against United Parcel Service in his own NYC Local 804, Carey stepped forward and waged a grueling, two-year, cross-country campaign to rally the rank-and-file in hundreds of Teamster work locations. After he took the plunge, of course, all sorts of experts and insiders in the daily press and labor bureaucracy dismissed him as a loner, a fringe candidate, an inexperienced "outsider" with little backing among "real Teamsters."
In December of 1991, Carey got 48 percent of the vote in a three-way race, sweeping into office with a near-full slate of dissidents, including some top TDUers. Four years later, his "new Teamsters" cast 1.4 million votes for the "New Voice" slate of current AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, providing the margin of victory in the first contested election at the federation in 100 years.
To his credit, Carey never felt comfortable in his new inside-the-Beltway world (where a sycophantic culture of political hustling and unprincipled "consulting" would, in the end, contribute to his undoing). He liked hanging out with working Teamsters in Queens, not politicians or union officials in
Ron was in his element during UPS national bargaining because he knew the company like the back of his hand. He went to the table with a team of thirty that included, for the first time, rank-and-filers just off the truck and loading dock. On the other side sat an equal number of arrogant "Big Brown" managers and lawyers. He loved jousting with the top brass, but, unlike his tainted predecessors, he was not about bluff and bluster, followed by backing-down.
When UPS wouldn’t drop its demand for contract concessions — despite record profits in 1997 — Carey countered with coordinated Teamster rallies around the country. When there was still no progress in the talks, he broke them off and ramped up the union’s carefully planned member mobilization. UPS found itself beset with job actions and negative publicity about its plan to replace even more full-time workers with part-timers, while undermining their defined-benefit pension coverage.
As the contract deadline neared and it was clear that UPS management wouldn’t budge, Carey privately agonized about the enormous cost and disruption of a national walkout for UPS workers and their families. He knew that taking on the company was risky and a favorable outcome far from assured. Strike action by such a relatively well-off group could easily have become the focus of much public resentment, just as auto workers today are being unfairly pilloried for their past gains.
To avert such a backlash, the Teamsters under Carey used direct rank-and-file outreach to friends, neighbors, customers and local communities to turn their struggle into a popular cause. During the two-week strike, Carey himself became a convincing national spokesperson not just for his own members, but for all workers concerned about the "part-timing of
The result was a rare strike win, an inspiring victory for all of labor, at a time when workers had little else to cheer about. If only for that reason and his original decision to run, Ron Carey will be long remembered by Teamsters and other labor activists who know that the full potential of unionism — on display so dramatically during the UPS strike — is far from being fulfilled today.
About Steve Early and Rand Wilson:
Rand Wilson was a Teamster communications staffer who helped coordinate the 1996-97 contract campaign and strike at UPS. Steve Early is a longtime supporter of TDU who aided Ron Carey’s 1991
Teamster presidential campaign and then was loaned by the Communications Workers of
see Early’s forthcoming book, "Embedded With Organized Labor" (Monthly Review Press, 2009). Wilson can be reached at [ای میل محفوظ], Early at [ای میل محفوظ]
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