Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 11:24:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: M-I: Re: Ron Carey's victory


        

>both the TDU and the government needed this strike to kick Hoffa in the
>balls...how can Carey complain about part-time work when he helped set the
>whole thing up to begin with?


I think its safe to say that Ron Carey and his *immediate* entourage are
wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Justice Department's Office of Racketeering
and Corruption.  *They*, and not the TDU, put Carey in office and keep him
there.  They provided logistical support (particularly in the media) during
last year's elections.  They gave the go ahead (in principle) for the
tactical necessity for this strike.

And they benefit.  Not the workers, who, in the short term at least, will
suffer job losses.  What did I say the other day?  A promise of 10,000 new
jobs would be announced, and they were.  But everyone knows that they will
in all probability never materialize.  There will be raises for all the
workers, and that's good, but with a five-year contract UPS can easily
afford to do that.  

The real issue was the pension, and Carey won.  If the teamster's pension
plan went bankrupt, government control over that union would have been
severely curtailed; dissidents like Hoffa would have a field day, and would
in all probability have seized control of the union (by all accounts, Hoffa
won the election anyway).  Too, this would have raised serious questions
about the government's ability to successfully administer a large labor
organization.  The workers themselves, in the long run, did not win anything.

They lost.

Louis Godena 



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