The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), formed by a merger of two driver associations in 1903, is an independent labor union that once largely represented workers in the trucking industry, but now the Teamsters hardly represent any truckers. With union membership numbers dropping steadily over the years, the Teamsters, like so many other unions, have had to merge with smaller unions and organize in industries outside of their normal realm to inflate their membership numbers.
From the union's own web site:
"Our 1.4 million members are public defenders in Minnesota; vegetable workers in California; sanitation workers in New York; brewers in St. Louis; newspaper workers in Seattle; construction workers in Las Vegas; zoo keepers in Pennsylvania; healthcare workers in Rhode Island; bakery workers in Maine; airline pilots, secretaries and police officers."
One topic that often comes to mind when discussing the Teamsters is corruption. This union has an infamous past with almost legendary stories of influence by organized crime, abuse by officials and disregard for their members. The big question is: are they any different today?
In 1989, the Teamsters became the first union to ever have its operations supervised by the United States Justice department. Years later after uncovering numerous cases of corruption, the union is still being actively investigated by the government's Independent Review Board.
In a stated attempt to end governmental oversight, the Teamsters in 1999 set up their own internal corruption review program called RISE, which stands for Respect, Integrity, Strength and Ethics. The union poured over $15 million into RISE since then. However, in April of 2004, the former federal prosecutor who headed up the RISE investigation team resigned along with his entire staff, claiming that current Teamster president, Jimmy Hoffa Jr. is "no longer committed to cleaning up the union" and had interfered with their investigations into mob connections to union locals.
So it appears the Teamsters' effort to get rid of the outside Review Board has hit a dead end. It's not surprising that a Teamster president should be the center of attention involving corruption. Practically every one of their presidents in the last 50 years has found themselves with serious legal problems. It didn't seem to matter who was in charge as sooner or later most of them wound up being indicted and charged with criminal activities with some even going to jail. Even the current president, Jimmy Hoffa Jr. has a black mark on his record from illegal campaign contributions and misconduct.
It seems that with the Teamsters union and corruption, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
