Teamsters

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, commonly known as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters or simply the Teamsters, is one of the largest labor unions in the United States. A teamster was originally a person who drives a horse-drawn wagon, and such laborers made up the original core of the union at the start of the 20th century.

The IBT was officially formed in 1903 in Niagara Falls, New York, as the merger of several different groups representing teamsters. The United states had no labor laws until the 1935 Wagner Act. The union was involved in several violent strikes in its fledgling years. The group expanded to include truck-drivers in the 1920s, and grew during the hard times of the Great Depression and World War II. However, its membership skyrocketed with the post-war boom as the automobile, food-processing and transportation industries grew rapidly. By 1949, its membership had topped one million.

At the 1957 IBT convention held in Miami Beach, Florida, Jimmy Hoffa was elected president of the union, which then had 1.5 million members. In the next two decades, Hoffa's legal troubles and union ties to organized crime signaled a long period of decline. The 1959 Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), the first United States labor laws to regulate the internal structures of unions, was largely driven by the public perception of corruption within the Teamsters, and collusion between union bosses and employers.

Like most American unions, the IBT has seen a decline in membership over the past 20 years. In 1996, James P. Hoffa lost the presidency of the teamsters to Ron Carey. Shortly afterward in 1997, the union initiated a large and successful strike against UPS. The postal services department by that time had become the largest division in the union. James P. Hoffa, the son of Jimmy Hoffa, became president of the Teamsters on March 19, 1999.

The union also received press coverage regarding alleged links with organized crime in Chicago.

External links


This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia article. Browse Wikipedia for more information.