Reform Slate Sweeps Walla Walla Teamsters

Rank-and-file reformer Maria Martinez and the Members' Voice Slate has swept the local election in the 2,000 member Teamster Local 556, based in Walla Walla, Washington.

Martinez, who is a national leader of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), the reform movement in the Teamsters, and a candidate for International Vice President on the Tom Leedham Slate, handily defeated Victor Serna, an appointee of Teamster President James Hoffa, by a lopsided 3-1 margin.

The Local 556 election is a dramatic victory for a rank-and-file movement of mostly immigrant workers who have battled the low wages and unsafe and unsanitary working conditions at Iowa Beef Processors (IBP)-- Local 556's largest employer-- and the cozy relationship that local and international Teamster officials have with IBP management.

A year ago, after Local 556 members blamed Hoffa and other Teamster officials for undermining their 1,300-member strike against IBP and bargaining away their retirement plan, Hoffa imposed a trusteeship canceling the local union election scheduled for the fall, for which Martinez and other reformers had already announced their candidacy.

Hoffa used the trusteeship to groom Serna to run in the local election, and to attack Martinez who was illegally removed from her elected chief shop steward position. A federal judge ordered that Martinez be returned to her position, and fearing the same judge would overturn the trusteeship, Hoffa ordered a surprise election for Local 556 officers, waiving the normal eligibility requirements so that his annointed candidate Serna could field a slate.

If Hoffa's support wasn't enough, Serna was also backed, illegally, by IBP management, which held captive audience meetings where they distributed Serna's campaign literature to employees.

"The company and old guard union officials think the same. It's like they have one brain," Martinez said. "But here in Local 556, the members know that we, the workers, are the union and that together we can make a difference. I want to spread this spirit and this fight all across the country."

Hoffa has not announced when the new officers will be installed. Members and their attorney, David Mark of Seattle, plan to press ahead with pending litigation if Hoffa does not immediately lift the Local 556 trusteeship which he imposed last year.

Hoffa faces additional legal scrutiny from the Teamster Election Administrator, William Wertheimer, who is investigating whether Hoffa imposed the Local 556 trusteeship in retaliation for Martinez's reform candidacy in the International Teamster election.

(forwarded via Glenn S. Cisco, co-chair of Pacific NW TDU Evergreen Chapter)