Talk:Teamsters

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Contents

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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

[edit] 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:

collective bargaining

Political Action Committee (PAC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Correction to the Teamsters endorsement of Barrack 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)