Socialist Action /July 2002
James Hoffa Jr. - Trying to Serve Two
Masters
Teamsters President James P. Hoffa made a tough, militant speech at the
June 27 rally. He said that he had sat in that morning at the bargaining
session between the ILWU and the PMA, and that he told the companies the
ILWU could count on the support of the Teamsters. If longshoremen are picketing,
Teamsters will be picketing.
Still, Hoffa seems to be trying to walk a very narrow line, or some might
say he's trying to serve two masters, the Bush administration and the maritime
ranks. For right around the time that security director Tom Ridge was attempting
to intimidate the ILWU officers, Hoffa told reporters outside the White
House that Teamsters could be an important part of a "basic domestic
intelligence service where we can see things that are suspicious and make
sure they're reported."
"I offered the fact that we have 500,000 truck drivers on the road
at any one time, and these people can be the eyes and ears of the homeland
security office," he told Reuters (June 21). "Hoffa said the Teamsters
would get together with various trucking associations to work out a strategy."
Hoffa was just one of a number of union chiefs that met with Ridge that
day. Nor was he the only one to offer to bring his members even closer to
the state apparatus than they and their unions are.
"Michael Sacco, president of the Seafarers International Union,
made a similar offer for watching America's seas and ports. 'We want to
put an intelligent network around this country and around the world to protect
the citizens of the United States, and funnel whatever information we can
to whatever agencies, after this department is put in place we have to funnel
it to,' he said."
The tendency of unions around the world to become closely tied to the
political state was noticed long ago. However, it seems unlikely that the
observers at that time would have foreseen Hoffa's and Sacco's specific
proposal to Ridge.
If it's not clear what Sacco's motivation is, the same is not true of
Hoffa. He's strenuously campaigning to get the government to lift its oversight
of the Teamsters. The press reports that he's a frequent White House visitor
talking to Bush and his staff. What about? The press thinks it might be
Bush's reelection effort.
Socialist Action /July 2002 |