Talk:International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Time inconsistency

In Early History: "The Teamsters were, as an example, at the center of the City Front Federation strike of 1901, in which San Francisco unions engaged in something like a general strike." Other sections say teamsters were founded in 1903, two years later... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.213.165 (talk) 06:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, this page says "founded 1903"; this page, 1899. They can't both be right.... TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 10:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• There were several national "teamsters" unions prior to 1903. The American Federation of Labor organized the Team Drivers' International Union in 1898, which is when some people date the union's founding to. In 1901, a group of unionized teamsters in Chicago broke away and formed the Teamsters National Union. Since the AFL group allowed employers to join the union (!) and the Chicago group did not, some people date the founding of the union to 1901. In 1903, the AFL asked the two unions to merge with an emerging third teamster union. They did so, and some date the founding of the union to this event. Further creating confusion is the fact that hundreds of local teamster unions existed as far back as the early 1870s (which is why they could participate in the 1901 San Francisco strike). Sometimes these local unions belonged to one of the national ones, and sometimes they did not. I would suggest that the problems you are encountering are less a matter of error than clarity; I haven't read the Hoffa article (which is in extremely poor shape, IMHO) lately, but I suspect that the reference to 1899 is to the local union rather than the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (for example). - Tim1965 (talk) 14:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

♠Either way, it's clearer now than it was. ;D Thanx. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:41, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Roadies

What's the difference between a teamster and a roadie? This has always confused me. 81.99.61.55 16:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

כתב מוקטן==wikidreck== Allow me to be the thousandth person to comment on the high quantity of low quality articles on wikipedia. The current version is another example of shallow and incomplete history larded with at least a half dozen mistakes — quite an accomplishment for an article this short with this many editors looking at it. A list of those I have caught:

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, commonly known as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) or simply the Teamsters . . .

This is a small point, but the union changed its name to the "International Brotherhood of Teamsters", dropping the "Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America", some years ago. Innocuous, but a bad sign.

The United States had no labor laws until the 1935 Wagner Act.

This is a sloppy misstatement of historical fact. To the extent that there is a kernel of truth in it—i.e., that there was no national labor law protecting workers' right to organize, strike and engage in collective bargaining prior to the Wagner Act—the proper response is "so what?" The Teamsters organized without the benefit of the law for several decades before 1935 and continued to organize, largely without the assistance of the NLRB, afterwards. This would be a non sequitur if it were attempting to make a point or if it followed another sentence that actually did.

The group expanded to include truck-drivers in the 1920s, and grew during the hard times of the Great Depression when it was involved in several militant strikes in the 1930s including the Minneapolis General Strike and was active in the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Active in the CIO? The Trotskyist leadership in Minneapolis flirted with the CIO, but saying that the IBT was active in it is otherwise close to being 100% false.

In the 1940s the union, under pressure from the federal government, purged many of its more radical organizers and, like much of the union movement, the IBT became much more conservative in the 1950s, adopting a business unionism model.

The suggestion that the IBT only adopted a business union model in the 1950s is likewise wildly wrong. The IBT under Dan Tobin was the model of business unionism; the radical influence of Dobbs, Skoglund and the Dunne brothers, while important to IBT history, was a relatively isolated phenomenon overall.

In the next two decades, Hoffa's legal troubles and union ties to organized crime signaled a long period of decline.

The prosecution and banning of Hoffa did help push the union into decline, since Hoffa was replaced by incompetents, such as Fitzsimmons, who were even more under the thumb of organized crime. But this sentence is still unsatisfactory. "Signaled" would normally mean that these were symptoms; just how they were signals or symptoms, however, escapes me, particularly since the organized crime connection was there during the union's rise as well. There's some truth here, but it needs reworking to actually be true.

And if you want to talk about the union's decline, then deregulation of interstate freight and the blowing up of the NMFA is a much better candidate in terms of cause and effect. While Hoffa's expulsion and murder may have been an essential precondition to those events, more detail is needed here.

As a result of a grassroots movement to democratize the union, Ron Carey won control of the IBT in the early 1990s with the support of Teamsters for a Democratic Union . . .

No mention of the federal government's lawsuit imposing supervision over the union's day-to-day operations, a fundamental change in the way the union elected leaders, and an ongoing purge of almost all Teamsters with organized crime links. While it is nice to think that all of these changes came about as a result of a grassroots movement, that is not quite true.

. . . defeating James P. Hoffa, Jr, the son of Jimmy Hoffa for the presidency of the Teamsters.

And Abraham Lincoln defeated George McClelland for the Presidency, but not in 1860. This statement is correct, if you are talking about the second election, but what about the first? If we're talking about "the early 1990s," i.e., 1991, then Hoffa Jr. is not in the running; R.V. Durham and Shea were.

The postal services department by that time had become the largest division in the union.

This may sound like nit-picking, but it's not. It's parcel, not postal, and it is very different. I think I detect a British author here; no one in the US would make that mistake.

A List of General Presidents that leaves out Roy Williams, Jackie Presser and William McCarthy.

Not an error, of course, but all of these individuals played a key role in the decline of the IBT.

Pardon the snarky tone of this comment, but I actually like wikipedia and hate to see it mangled in this fashion. I will contribute a rewrite that gives some detail and corrects the most obvious errors. But if fifty edits left in this many errors and left out this much detail, then I worry about this project's long-term prospects. --Italo Svevo 22:19, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Drek and snarky - goodness. The "k" sounds does give faux words more punch, doesn;t it?

This is precisely the sort of topic that wikipedia does worst at: a complex and nuanced issue requiring lots of knowledge, with just enough appearance in everyday knowledge to draw casual editors - as compared to, say, mathematics or modern dance, where only the knowledgeable or the cranky wander. I'm sure your comments are accurate, judging from a quick look at the profession on your User page, and your edits will improve the article greatly.

As to whether this article's shape demonstrates the fatal flaw in wikipedia that renders our many hours of labor useless, you may be right. Or you may be wrong. I've been trying to decide that, myself, for 2 1/2 years.... - DavidWBrooks 02:19, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• See section under Disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa*

Hoffa did not enter prison in 1971, he was pardoned by Nixon in 1971. He entered Lewisberg Federal Prison in March of 1967.

Done

This is the overhaul I promised (threatened?). Here's some information that is probably correct, but which I deleted all the same:

Departments

• Communications Department
• Office of Corporate Affairs
• Education Department
• Government Affairs Department
• Human Rights Commission
  • Disaster Relief Fund
  • The James R. Hoffa Memorial Scholarship Fund
• Legal Department
• Organizing Department
• Research Department
• Department for Retiree Affairs
• Safety and Health Department
• Office of Strategic Initiatives

Departments

• Accounting and Budget Department
• Affiliates Records Department
• Information Systems Department
• International Auditors

I don't think that this really adds all that much. --24.126.41.116 08:51, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC) aka User:Italo Svevo

Further pruning

I have eliminated the following links. Some are already in the body of the article, some are of dubious relevance solidarity, some don't exist:

• 1930s New Deal
  • National Recovery Administration (NRA)
• 1935 National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) -

collective bargaining

• • NLRB
• 1947 Taft-Hartley Act
• 1956 Federal Aid Highway Act
• 1959 Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) (the Landrum-Griffin Act)
• 1970 Organized Crime Control Act

• American Federation of Labor (AFL) - Samuel Gompers
• solidarity, anti-trust law, labor law
• employment contract, work week, overtime, minimum wage, price controls
• stock market crash of 1929, World War I, World War II, war bond
• Canadian Trades and Labour Congress
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan
• PATCO air traffic controllers union
• DRIVE (Democrat, Republican, and Independent Voter Education) -

Political Action Committee (PAC)

• National Master Freight Agreement, master agricultural agreement
• Labor union
• labor movement

Frontier Hotel and Casino Strike

I did some fact checking and found that the Frontier Hotel strike lasting from 1991 to 1998 was part of Local 226 of Culinary Workers Union (UNITE HERE) not Teamsters. --Ben 18:34, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

What's a "Local"

I think I can guess from the context, but it would be nice if this article explained how the union is organized with respect to what "locals" are and how they relate to each other and the rest of the union. ---B- 07:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikilinked it to the relevant article (local union). The internal structuring of different internationals, frankly, would be a topic for a doctoral thesis, not a Wiki article. --Orange Mike 13:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It would also be important to include what "lodges" are as well, since the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way uses "lodges" instead of "locals".65.71.93.97 (talk) 23:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)j.crowson

Restructured a little....

I cut the lead way down in order to present the bare information as an intro, and the rest I either worked back into the chronology of the article or cut out, as it was already there. MSJapan 20:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes

This Organization preserved the historic spelling of its official name when it became a Division of the Teamsters Union. Please refrain from trying to "correct" the spelling.

Justus R (talk) 19:56, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I know, I got that all the time when I was President of BMWED Lodge 2286 (allied federation). Everyone would try to tell me there was 2 "e's" in employees, but thats the way we spell it.65.71.93.97 (talk) 23:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)J.Crowson

Warning: Lobbyists Berman and Company at work

This article has been edited anonymously by Berman and Company, who are lobbyists for amongst others the American Beverage Institute, the Center for Consumer Freedom, the Center for Union Facts and the Employment Policies Institute.

IP address of 66.208.14.242 traces to Berman and Company, see the Whois report. I Spy With My Big Eye (talk) 10:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Correction to the Teamsters endorsement of Barack Obama

He is not a candidate for the presidential election at this point. He is a candidate for the democratic nomination versus Hillary Clinton. In the event Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, the Teamsters would likely endorse one of the two presidential candidates for the election. When a nominee is selected, this will have to be updated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.11.251.92 (talk) 06:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The Teamsters for Obama website was launched on April 21st of 2008, according to my union's website (BMWED). Was that before or after the primaries?65.71.93.97 (talk) 23:29, 30 November 2008 (UTC)j.Crowson

Tone

Woah... I just read this and got chills. This article reads like "The Lore of the Teamsters" or something similar. I'd go so far as to say it's POV-slanted, but as my knowledge of the teamsters is somewhat limited, I don't consider myself qualified to make that determination. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:28, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

When reading about a union in an article that does not have the anti-union animus that is taught in schools of economics and journalism, it may take some time to become accustomed to an article written with NPOV. Enjoy! Justus R (talk) 02:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so I'll concede that it may not be POV-slanted. I still feel the tone in which many of the paragraphs are written do not convey an appropriate encyclopedic tone, and read more like, as implied before, a storybook. An excerpt:

Beck used different tactics, on the other hand, to organize the independent owner-operators who hauled much of the agricultural produce from California farms; the union simply pulled the drivers out of their cabs and signed them up.

The phrase, "the union simply pulled the drivers out of their cabs and signed them up" strikes me as doublespeak- were these drivers willingly asked to sign up, or were they compelled to join? This isn't clear, and leaves it up to the reader's preconceptions of the Teamsters. Another excerpt:

In many cases organized crime played an even more direct role. Hoffa depended on the support of a number of "paper locals" from New York established by Johnny Dioguardi, an associate of the Lucchese crime family, in running for the presidency of the Teamsters in 1957.

The definition of a "paper local" is not established anywhere else in the article. My best guess is that it refers to a "local" that is "on paper only", thus it is not a "local" at all. But this sort of jargon should be explained. I hope this helps. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Meaning / origin of the word "teamster"

some background information on why they are called teamsters, what a teamster is, would be useful 84.9.125.170 (talk) 00:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The wikilink to teamster (lowercase) the profession is in the first sentence of the "History" section. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Local color

There's a lot of refs to Teamsters Locals as if the reader knows what & where they are. I suggest 1) more detail explaining it & (if possible) 2) a comprehensive list of Locals with their locations. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 11:00, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• I respectfully disagree. This article is already getting too long. Little is being done to really improve this article right now, but I suggest that if more detail is added then it'd be time to break the Teamster history section off on its own. I think a list of locals would be great. There are problems, though...there are more than 500 such local unions! Lists, like articles, need inline citations, and at least 1,500 characters of accompanying text. The problems are not insurmountable, though, and I look forward to the list you or anyone else generates! - Tim1965 (talk) 14:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

♥No argument on splitting the history off. And I know so little about this, I wouldn't even know where to look for sources to begin a list (one reason I suggested it ;p). TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:43, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

topic sentences?

Very little effort put into producing topic sentences which would ideally inform the reader of what the rest of the paragraph is really about.

UPS 1997 strike in the list of strikes within two years of WWII?

WWII ended in 1945 so a 1997 strike doesn't belong in this list:

In the two years following the cessation of hostilities, the Teamsters struck only three times: 10,000 truckers in New Jersey struck for two weeks; workers at UPS struck nationwide for three weeks during the United Parcel Service strike of 1997;

Can somebody who knows the subject fix this up? Thanks!

Atomota (talk) 01:37, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

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Battles of the Teamsters

Nothing in here (of any note) about Teamsters Local 399 (for example) and their battles with (management) the Hollywood studios, where the (Employers) studios want to rid themselves of restrictive practises by the Union. --BeckenhamBear (talk) 18:55, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Demographics of membership

I came here looking for demographic information about the membership, but there's nothing here about that except the total number of members. It would be a good addition to the article. Ishboyfay (talk) 16:00, 6 October 2024 (UTC)