Teamsters IRB focuses on Local 82, a danger spot

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Eddie Flaherty, a member of Teamsters Local 82 in Boston, was beaten so badly that he ended up in the hospital. His attacker was a local staff employee, a felon who got the job right after his release from prison. Flaherty, the victim, was a critic of John Perry, Local 82 secretary treasurer. (Perry himself, according to Teamsters for a Democratic Union, faced trial in state court on charges of assaulting a local member who had filed a grievance.) Local 82 is a trade show local and there's something about trade show work that makes it a dangerous place for workers who insist on decent unionism, fair play, and honest job referrals -- not only in the Teamsters but in other unions.

Flaherty was assaulted in 2008. Now, two years later, the Teamster Independent Review Board has unearthed a host of other reasons to call upon International President Hoffa to trustee the local. The IRB charges that the local officials favor "political allies and friends at the expense of other members," hired a felon to hand out jobs, "manipulated" contract ratification votes, "colluded" with a non-union firm to allow it to pay below union scale wages and to give work "to insiders families and friends,” and allowed union benefit funds to be misused. Perhaps a trustee will correct all that, even though Hoffa, who appoints the trustees, did nothing in all these years.

Now that the spotlight is on Local 82, one evil stands out more glaringly than all the others. Members who dared to speak out were beaten and terrorized and for years and nothing was done to protect them. No need to wait for the IRB. LMRDA Section 610 makes it a criminal offense "for any person through the use of force...or the threat of force or violence" to prevent any unionist from exercising rights under the law. If good union members see that reform leaders can be cruelly beaten by thugs while law enforcement authorities are out to lunch, who will dare to do what's necessary to get rid of bullies and crooks?