At the Intersection of Federal Labor Law and Rank and File Activism: A Legal History of Teamsters for a Democratic Union
by Michael J. Goldberg (Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, Vol. 45, No. 2, 2024)
Reviewed by Samuel Borgos
1976 was a landmark year for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and for union democracy in toto. It was that year that TDU was formed as a rank-and-file caucus within the IBT to combat corruption and autocracy in that union’s leadership. In Labor Attorney Michael Goldberg’s new article on the history of TDU, the longtime ally gives a blow-by-blow account of how TDU came to be and how it has managed to stay relevant in the Teamsters for nearly half a century. Goldberg, Emeritus Professor, Delaware Law School of Widener University and AUD Board member, focuses on the legal struggles TDU has endured (both successful and unsuccessful) over the years and what lessons can be drawn from them by IBT members or unionists more broadly.
TDU joined in the great tradition of rank-and-file union militancy in the 1970s, at first blush resembling Miners for Democracy and Steelworkers Fight Back. Contra those organizations and many others like them, TDU has sustained, continuing to organize on behalf of the IBT membership right up to the present (see a short piece on their convention on page 6). As Goldberg points out, “Unlike earlier dissident caucuses after winning major electoral victories, like the Miners for Democracy in the United Mine Workers of America, TDU did not disband… thinking its mission had been accomplished. Instead, TDU maintained an independent role.” As it turns out, this strategy was key to TDU’s longevity. However, that was not at all clear in 1976, when the task of democratizing the IBT, fighting both the autocratic tendencies of many in its leadership and its connections to the organized crime, seemed of Herculean proportions. The activists behind TDU’s founding understood from the outset that the source of the caucus’ legitimacy was to be a strong bond to the specific concerns of the membership and, for that reason, deeply embedding themselves within it. In addition, successful campaigns would signal to those Teamsters still on the fence regarding reform caucuses that TDU meant business and was in it for the long haul (so to speak).
A contemporary organization with TDU was Professional Drivers Council for Safety and Health (PROD), an independent group focused on reforming the IBT, who released a report called “Teamster Democracy and Financial Responsibility”. PROD, hence the name, came to advocate on behalf of union democracy by a circuitous route, initially formed to promote safety at the workplace for the IBT membership and provide legal services for specific whistleblowers therein. Not unlike many of the attorneys who worked on behalf of Miners for Democracy, many of the founders of PROD came out of Ralph Nader’s “Nader’s Raiders”, idealistic lawyers taking on corruption in all institutions of American life. This is not to say PROD was a patrician imposition from the outside on the IBT; hundreds of rank-and-file Teamsters participated in the founding of PROD, many of whom were concerned with job safety and union democracy.
For a time, both groups would collaborate to fight corruption and autocracy within the Teamsters. PROD, given its legal pedigree, tended to fight legal battles when necessary and TDU, given its origins in the rank-and-file IBT membership specialized more in organizing, giving individual union members a banner to march with. As Clyde Summers said, in his article Democracy in a One Party State, “Criticism of incumbent officers or current policies by a solitary member or small groups (my italics) serve as a flag around which others who are discontented or persuaded may rally.”
In 1979, PROD and TDU merged, retaining the latter’s name. Importantly, though, the new TDU continued to fight in the courts to enforce the IBT membership’s rights, in addition to doing so on the shop floor. This two-pronged strategy was essential given the severalfold nature of the problems Teamster reformers were facing, fighting both organized crime’s influence and the lack of democracy in the union.
TDU’s influence was not limited to the IBT itself or the workplaces it organized. In 1982, attorneys affiliated with TDU helped craft the Surface Transportation Assistance Act, which passed both houses of congress and was finally signed into law by President Reagan in January of 1983. The STAA gave broad protection to whistleblowers in the trucking industry:
“A person may not discharge an employee, or discipline or discriminate against an employee regarding pay, terms, or privileges of employment, because–
(A) the employee, or another person at the employee’s request, has filed a complaint or begun a proceeding related to a violation of a commercial motor vehicle safety regulation, standard, or order, or has testified or will testify in such a proceeding; or
(B) the employee refuses to operate a vehicle because–
(i) the operation violates a regulation, standard, or order of the United States related to commercial motor vehicle safety or health; or
(ii) the employee has a reasonable apprehension of serious injury to the employee or the public because of the vehicle’s unsafe condition.”
In 1983, TDU helped spearhead a campaign to stop the ratification of a collective bargaining agreement (the National Master Freight Agreement’s (NMFA) special relief rider clause) that would result in massive pay cuts for drivers and a two-tier system for wages. The agreement was voted down overwhelmingly by the membership and solidified TDU’s growing power and influence within the IBT. Likewise, TDU found success in petitioning the government to fight abuses of Teamster pensions by the union leadership and their allies in organized crime.
In 1989, the battle against corruption and autocracy within the IBT came to a head when the union was placed under a consent decree by the federal government as a means of ending organized crime’s influence in it. The decree would increase federal oversight of the union and ensure it followed the strictures of federal labor law and respected the rights of its membership. As Goldberg states:
“TDU played a central role in these events in several respects. First, before the RICO settlement was reached, TDU helped federal prosecutors build their case by documenting many instances of violence and intimidation against union reformers. TDU also went to great lengths to persuade the government’s lawyers that a total takeover of the IBT by the government would be a counterproductive remedy, and that rewriting the IBT constitution to give the members a chance to clean up the union for themselves was an approach more likely to succeed. Indeed, TDU played a critical behind-the-scenes role in helping to shape the specifics of the consent decree.” (Incidentally, the Association for Union Democracy played a role in the consent decree, as well, filing an amicus curae brief on behalf of the direct election of union officers within the IBT.)
Goldberg, as a veteran of these legal battles and many more on behalf of union democracy is an apt guide to the history of TDU and his current work is testament to that fact. AUD and The Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law are lucky to have “At the Intersection of Labor Law and Rank-and-File Activism.” The article is available free of charge at https://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/ir/bjell/. For the interested reader, AUD offers more on the history of TDU via Michael Goldberg’s Teamster Reformers: Their Union, Their Jobs, Their Movement, available on our website store for $3.00.