INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD
OF TEAMSTERS

GENERAL PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN DEBATE BETWEEN
TOM LEEDHAM, CANDIDATE, AND C. THOMAS KEEGEL, REPRESENTING
CANDIDATE JAMES P. HOFFA

MODERATOR: HAROLD MEYERSON,
EDITOR-AT-LARGE, AMERICAN PROSPECT MAGAZINE

LOCATION: JACK MORTON AUDITORIUM,
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C.

DATE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2006

Transcript by:
Federal News Service
Washington, D.C.
 

PDF version

HAROLD MEYERSON: Good evening, and welcome to the Jack Morton Auditorium on the campus of George Washington University in Washington D.C. Welcome to the one and only presidential debate in the 2006 election for the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

On October 10th the Election Officer is going to mail ballots to each of the 1.4 million members of the Teamsters and begin counting those ballots on November 13th (Election Supervisor’s Note: Ballots are Expected to be Mailed on October 6, 2006, and the ballot count is expected to commence on November 14, 2006).

Tonight’s debate is the one opportunity, chiefly through video, for Teamsters to see the leaders of the rival slates on the same stage at the same time, discussing major issues confronting their union.

My name is Harold Meyerson. I’m the Editor-At-Large of The American Prospect magazine, a columnist for the Washington Post and L.A. Weekly, and the moderator for tonight’s debate. And what I want to do here at the outset is explain briefly the format and rules for tonight’s debate, introduce my fellow panelists and then introduce our two debaters.

Under the rules of this debate, the presidential candidates have a choice of appearing themselves in this debate or designating their running mate, their candidate for Secretary-Treasurer, to appear in their stead. President Hoffa has chosen to be represented tonight by Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel. Presidential candidate Tom Leedham tonight appears here himself.

This is a one-hour debate, the hour to begin when the first candidate begins his opening statement. Each candidate will have a 90-second opening statement. The order of opening statements has been determined by the drawing of lots a few minutes ago, and by that drawing of lots Mr. Leedham gets the first opening statement and Mr. Keegel gets the first closing statement.

We then begin with questions. As moderator I get the first question, which will go to the candidate who delivered the first opening statement. The next question will go from Michelle Amber to the other candidate, and we alternate throughout the debate one candidate to the other with equal time allotted to each.

The candidate to whom the question is addressed will have 90 seconds to respond. The other candidate is then given 45 seconds for a rebuttal or comment. If I think that an answer needs further clarification or a follow-up, or if my fellow panelists do, they and I can ask a follow-up question to which each candidate is entitled to respond for 45 seconds.

We have a timekeeper in the auditorium. He will show a green card when there are 15 seconds left on your answers and a red card when time is up. And when time is up I will stop the answer.

There will be, as well, some questions to the two candidates from members of the audience. We will alternate questions to each candidate. Members of the audience have submitted questions in writing and with my fellow panelists we have selected those questions, which I will read.

May I also caution the audience against outbursts of any kind, which could result in my taking speaking time away from the candidate of your choice tonight, or even further sanctions which are too ghastly even to contemplate.

At the conclusion of the debate each candidate gets a two-minute closing statement to be delivered in the reverse order of their opening statements.

I am joined tonight on stage by two excellent and experienced journalists. Michelle Amber has covered the labor movement for 25 years. She is a reporter for the Daily Labor Report, and she is known to her peers and people in the labor movement as one of the most knowledgeable people writing about the labor movement anywhere in this country. Tom Edsall, in the opinion of many, including myself, may be the finest political reporter in the United States. Many of us have seen his byline for the past 25 years in the Washington Post, most recently on a beat that included labor and politics. Tom recently left the Post and is now writing for The New Republic and the National Journal. He’s the author of many notable books on American politics. The most recent – which actually comes out next week – is entitled Building Red America: The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power, something many people here might want to read and depress themselves with. I am delighted to have them here with me tonight.

I will now introduce the candidates in the order in which they are going to speak.

Tom Leedham joined Local 206 of the Teamsters in Portland, Oregon, as a grocery warehouseman in 1977. He became a local union steward, was elected Secretary-Treasurer of that local in 1986. In 1992, he became the Warehouse Division Director for the International Union and was an International President from – International Vice-President, thank you; that’s considered an acceptable outburst – International Vice-President from 1996 through 1998. This is his third time running as a candidate for the presidency of the Teamsters.

Representing President Hoffa here tonight, Secretary-Treasurer Tom Keegel joined the union 45 years ago as a driver. This was in Local 544 in Minneapolis. He was first elected an officer of that local in 1978 and in the years thereafter he has been on the Central States Negotiating Committee for the National Master Freight Agreement. He has been president of his consolidated local and of Joint Council 32. Elected in ’98, he has served since 1999 as General Secretary-Treasurer of the International Union. He was re-elected in 2001. So, welcome to our two candidates.

According to the rules, the moderator begins with a question for Mr. Leedham. And in some ways this is a better question for Mr. Keegel but I think it should be the first question in any case. So you guys can figure out –

MICHELLE AMBER: (Inaudible.)

MR. MEYERSON: Oh, opening statements; you’re absolutely right. Thank you, Michelle. Okay. See, the panelists are very useful up here. (Laughter.) That’s correct; each candidate gets a 90-second opening statement. Sorry about that, gentlemen.

Beginning with Mr. Leedham and then Mr. Keegel.

TOM LEEDHAM: Well, I would like to thank the moderator, the panelists, guests and all Teamster members for this opportunity to talk about the future of our union.

Our Teamsters union faces serious challenges: weak contracts, pension and medical benefits cuts, declining membership and growing non-union competition. I’m disappointed that President Hoffa couldn’t take a single hour to discuss these issues with Teamster members without a script or PR handler telling him what to say, but I’m not surprised. Hoffa isn’t just missing in action today; he’s been missing in action for seven years.

Hoffa’s stand-in over here will tell you that our union is more powerful than we’ve ever been. I would ask Teamster members, is that how it feels where you work?

Hoffa raised members’ dues without a vote and doubled the International’s annual income. Has Hoffa doubled the backing you get from your union, or has he just doubled the PR he sends to your home?

It’s time to put Teamster power to work for Teamster members. I have a 29-year record of winning strong contracts and benefits and reversing benefit cuts, rebuilding Teamster power. That’s what we need to do at our International Union.

(Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Thank you, Mr. Leedham.

Mr. Keegel.

C. THOMAS KEEGEL: Thank you very much. I want to say to the brothers and sisters I’m happy to be here tonight. I thank you for my history. I did start – I did join my local union in 1959 and I’ve been very proud to have been part of that. I drove a truck for 17 years for a company called Sterling Cartage, and I worked in my career with people that came out of the 1934 Teamster strike that taught me a passion and a love for my union.

And I’m excited to be here today because the reality of life is – the reality of life is the fact that Tom Leedham and Ron Carey was the most corrupt – most corrupt administration that we’ve had in many, many years. Tom Leedham and Ron Carey, they stole a million dollars out of our treasury in order to finance their campaign. We spent millions of dollars on attorneys to fight that. General President Carey was banned for life from the Teamsters. People were put in jail. It was a despicable act and it never should have happened.

The reality of life is they virtually destroyed our International Union. It was not unified. We had a problem with the fact that the finances were in disarray. We were near bankruptcy with $3 million assets. That is not the way to run a union. That is not to say that this is the kind of a person that could be General President.

I’m proud of what we accomplished. We negotiated the strongest contracts in the industries. We negotiated the National Master Freight, which is the strongest contract. We got the hammer back that they gave away in the negotiations in 1994 when they took our brothers and sisters on strike – was ridiculous. We got our ass kicked. We finally got that straightened out.

Hoffa/Keegel are ready to take this union forward like we’ve done for the last seven years.

(Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Thank you, Mr. Keegel. As I said while I was jumping the gun, the first question goes to Mr. Leedham. In some ways it’s also a question for Mr. Keegel but Mr. Keegel does get a response on this. And again, 90 seconds and 45-second response.

In 2001, during the last presidential election, President Hoffa designated another member of his slate – in that case I think it was Chuck Mack – to take his place in the one presidential debate, which was also against Mr. Leedham. Tonight he has designated Mr. Keegel. This is the only opportunity to appear before members in a joint forum to defend one’s record, to confront the opposition.

So to Mr. Leedham, what do you conclude from this? And to Mr. Keegel, why isn’t this important enough for Mr. Hoffa to show up at?

So begin with Mr. Leedham.

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, as you stated, it is the only opportunity to face Teamster members and to be held accountable for your actions over the past seven years. I’m disappointed that President Hoffa decided to duck out and to send a stand-in. I think it’s certainly unusual to have a stand-in at a debate. You seem to miss the point of the actual debate.

But I think Teamster members are going to have to ask themselves, if he doesn’t have the courage to come here and defend his own record, how will he defend them and their contracts?

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Keegel?

MR. KEEGEL: The reality of life – I thought I – I thought it was a General President or General Secretary-Treasurer, and I am here. Mr. Hoffa, the General President, is in his hometown of Detroit with Local 299 walking the docks and talking to the membership.

This is not a credible candidate. This is a man that got less than 6 percent of the vote at the Convention while we got over 94 percent of the vote. He’s not a credible candidate.

All he wants to come and do here is to get a video so that he can turn it over the Chamber of Commerce or give it to his TDU friends that he’s running with so they can put it on their website so that anti-union forces at First Student who were trying to organize in Baltimore, TDU, they go to the website, they grab the material – it’s absolutely ridiculous.

There is no sense for him to even be involved – to listen to this kind of rhetoric that this man is trying to throw out.

MR. MEYERSON: Thank you. Your next question goes to Mr. Keegel from Michelle Amber.

MS. AMBER: Mr. Keegel, when President Hoffa was elected in 1999 he pledged to get the federal government out of the union’s internal affairs. Project RISE was supposed to be the vehicle to do that, but with the collapse of Project RISE and the resignation of Ed Stier how can this be accomplished?

MR. KEEGEL: Well, it’s certainly a goal of ours. We want the union out of our International. They have no business to be there. We want the government out of our International Union. They have no business being there. The fact of the matter is that they made it impossible for us to make an agreement with them to leave. They wanted to make sure they stuck around for this election. I believe that Jim Hoffa will be successful in getting the union out.

Ed Stier – the program we put together was very simple. We wanted a program to replace the IRB. We wanted a corruption study about the so-called mob in our union. He completed that study. That study indicated that there was hardly any remnants of any kind of mobsters, corruption that everybody wants to make allegations about in our union. In fact, when we recognized that all he wanted to do was stay on for his law firm and we were not going to get rid of the IRB, there was no – not necessary for him to be doing – performing the services that he did. Certainly Mr. Leedham remembers in 2001 the fact that he said there was no reason for Ed Stier to be there.

And we went through with the program, we got the study done and we’re excited about the fact that there is no corruption that shows up in our International Union.

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Leedham.

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, Ed Stier after the union spent $15 million on this anti-corruption program. Ed Stier, his entire advisory committee, all the ex-FBI agents that they had hired, they all resigned on the same day and the reason for resignation was that their investigations were being blocked the closer they got to the General President’s office.

But we don’t have to go back in history to look at corruption in this union. Two days ago in San Francisco the Election Administrator just released a report about one of Hoffa’s key spokespeople at the Convention – and an International Rep who makes over $200,000 a year from the International Union – was just caught laundering $15,000 of union funds into the Hoffa campaign.

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Leedham.

MR. LEEDHAM: And I would like Mr. Keegel to announce tonight that they’re going to terminate Rome Aloise so that he can’t launder more money into the Hoffa campaign.

MR. MEYERSON: Okay, we’re at time now. The next question goes –

MR. KEEGEL: May I respond to that?

MR. MEYERSON: You can work it into your next response but I want to go to a question from Tom Edsall. Tom Leedham can start.

TOM EDSALL: One of the things that the Hoffa administration has done has been to join the Change to Win Coalition. It was quite a dramatic event that involved a real matter of turmoil within organized labor. Do you support that and would you continue, if you were to win, to be separate from the AFL-CIO and a member of the Change to Win Coalition?

MR. LEEDHAM: There was very little internal debate in the Teamsters Union regarding the breakaway from the AFL-CIO. I believe that, especially in a time like we face today with the challenges that the American labor movement faces today, that we need to work together. We need all of labor to work together. It’s not the time to be dividing our forces. I would like to see organized labor come back together. It doesn’t matter to me so much what the letterhead reads, whether it’s AFL-CIO or Change to Win or whatever else it may be, but I think it’s for the benefit of all working people that we have to reunite the American labor movement and work together, especially at such a critical time when we’re under attack on so many fronts from politicians and greedy corporations. It just doesn’t make sense to me that we divided the labor movement and they are going in separate directions.

In Oregon – the state where my – where I’m a proud member of Local 206 – we’ve worked with all unions since the split. We’ve worked with both the AFL-CIO unions and Change to Win unions. And what is troubling to me is that in both cases the meetings that I attend in both cases we’re all talking about just getting back to the position that we were in approximately a year ago when the split occurred. So I think it’s important that we continue to work together and move toward reuniting the American labor movement.

MR. KEEGEL: I certainly think the Change to Win was an excellent thing to do, but I just want to address that corruption bit.

Mr. Leedham, you are not seriously trying to compare the situation in San Francisco with the fundraising scandal that the Carey/Leedham slate was involved in in 1996 are you?

MR. LEEDHAM: Can I respond?

MR. KEEGEL: In that case, an entire election was overturned. Millions of dollars were spent on legal fees, slate members were kicked off of the union and General President Ron Carey was barred for life. Worse, it took our union nearly five years – five years to recover from the impact your slate’s embezzlement had on organizing and our union’s prestige. Please don’t insult our members’ intelligence. A bunch of hogwash.

And the Change to Win was a tremendous thing to do. We are moving in a new direction. We are going to organize, organize, organize. We changed the culture of our international union to organizing. We’re working in solidarity with the AFL-CIO today.

MR. MEYERSON: All right. Next question from me to Secretary-Treasurer Keegel.

In 2001 the International Brotherhood of Teamsters had about 1.4 million members. In 2006, today, it has about 1.4 million members, and in the intervening years it’s affiliated three unions with a combined membership of about 130,000, 140,000. Without those affiliations, membership would have dropped, therefore, by an equivalent amount.

The Teamsters are not a manufacturing union where factories are going overseas; most of your jobs, pretty much, cannot be off-shored. Why hasn’t the membership grown, and what do you propose to do about it?

MR. KEEGEL: The fact of the matter is very simple, is that we are a union that does have manufacturing, over 100,000 in that industry. We’ve lost tremendous amount of members there, as everybody else has.

The fact of the matter is that three International Unions of Brotherhood—the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way, the locomotive engineers and the graphic communications workers--wanted to come with a great powerful international organization such as the Teamsters Union. I don't care how you get members, whether you organize them or whether you do it through international – whether we do it through mergers, it's all in the same. It's growing our strength and our power.

There is no question that the membership base of all unions in this country has taken a tremendous hit with the anti-union Bush administration, with the fact, with the fact that organizing under the NLRB is virtually impossible. You have to have new ideas and new thoughts. But we are creating a culture of organizing and – that we've never had in the Teamsters before. We've created a mighty army of Teamster organizers that partner with the international union.

Local unions, joint councils have seen the right thing to do, and they're putting on these organizers. I'm excited about the fact – we've organized 50,000 people in the last two years, and we've organized them in the waste industry, DHL and freight; we've organized them in the police, 1,200 members in Memphis. We have organizing on a constant basis. They've never had an organizing department at the International when Leedham was there.

MR. MEYERSON: All right.

Mr. Leedham.

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, if you don't mind, I would like to respond to this previous attack –

MR. MEYERSON: Free to respond to whatever.

MR. LEEDHAM: Look, Mr. Stand-In, you ought to get the message – (applause) – Ron Carey has been out of this union for nine years. I think it's time that we move forward into this century, and I would also remind you – I just think you should give it a rest.

I would remind you that I served our union when Ron Carey was president, and I was proud to do so, along with several members of your slate, including Carl Haynes, Fred Gegare, Ken Hall, and I'm sure they were equally proud to serve. So let's talk about this century and the problems that Teamsters face now, as opposed to trying to find other people to blame for Hoffa's failures. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay.

MR. KEEGEL: You look like your nose is growing, Tom. I mean, I'm not Mr. Stand-In.

MR. MEYERSON: All right.

MR. KEEGEL: I'm just a General Secretary-Treasurer that loves my union. I have done a great deal of good for my union, and I'm proud of it. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: It has entertainment value, but I want to limit the back-and-forth between the two of you, since we do have a format here.

And the format says Michelle Amber has the next question to Mr. Leedham.

MS. AMBER: Mr. Leedham, you received 35 to 38 percent of the vote in the last two elections, yet the Hoffa campaign says that since you only got 5 percent of the votes at the Convention, you're triggering a, quote, "purposeless election" that is costing the union over $10 million to run. How do you respond to this?

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, there's really no connection as the vote counts that you recited indicate between the number of votes that you get at a convention and the number of votes that you get when the rank and file has the opportunity to make a decision.

Clearly, Teamsters want change. In less than four weeks we gathered more than 55,000 signatures of Teamsters members, and that is an organization out there gathering signatures that is entirely rank-and-file volunteers, not paid staffers from the IBT building down the street, but Teamster members from around the country that take their time off, take vacation time, after work, before work, time away from their families, to go out and get those petitions signed. And in four weeks, we gathered 55,000 signatures. That told me that Teamsters want change. They want a more powerful union, and they're not satisfied with the current leadership. And that, to me, was what we needed to hear from them to make our decision and to move forward to the convention.

If you look at the convention delegate votes that we got in the past in 2001, it was a very similar margin, because with our limited resources – and we don't have the big money. We're not the big money officers of the union. With our limited funds, we're focusing our effort on Teamster members and giving them the chance to make a decision who's going to lead their union. And that's where we're putting our campaign. It's not at the Convention. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Keegel.

MR. KEEGEL: Well, I don't know where you've been, Tom. I haven't seen you for five years while we've been going through these tough issues fighting for the membership. The reality of life is that the 1,800 delegates to our International Convention were all elected delegates. Under our democratic system that we put into the constitution, all delegates are elected by the rank and file; all International Officers are elected by the rank-and-file. And they showed up in numbers, it was 95 percent of those delegates agreed with the philosophy of where we're taking our international union, they agree with the philosophy that we have in fact united our great union. We have put joint councils back together again that were divided by his previous administration.

The membership knows – they are not stupid. They understand that the Hoffa administration is the one that's going to lead the fight to their future, not somebody that is not qualified to do that job. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: I want now to take some questions that have been submitted to us by the members, all of whom submitted questions are here in this auditorium tonight.

The first is a question to Mr. Keegel, and it comes from Jim Price of Local 107 in Philadelphia. The question is: President Hoffa has called exactly two strikes in seven years in office; one was at Overnite, and one was at Red Star Trucking. Both ended with horrible defeats and thousands of Teamsters lost their jobs. Do you take responsibility for these defeats?

MR. KEEGEL: Let's take a look at the Overnite situation, a company that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has tried to organize since 1951. Under the previous administration, where Leedham was a part of that administration, 30 locations of Overnite were organized by local unions. They for years tried to get a contract and couldn't do it.

When we took office, what we found was that this company who committed untold labor – unfair labor practices against its workers, had fired many, many, many workers. We had no choice but to call an unfair labor practice strike to save those jobs of those brave men and women that stood out there after the failed attempt of this administration.

We will organize UPS Freight. We will organize UPS Freight, and they will have a contract.

I feel sorry for my brothers and sisters at Red Star. That was the situation where the company had a planned action. We're talking about 15 people in Philadelphia that wanted to join the Teamsters' union – not an unusual feat. All they did was put up recognition pickets at that facility on a Friday. What happened was that that company used that as an excuse for their poor management and the fact that we were being successful in organizing terminal after terminal with USF Dugan. And that's a company that they owned, and they used all kinds of anti-union tactics against us, all kinds of labor tactics. What we were able to do in that situation is, they wanted to show the people that USF Dugan, don't join the Teamsters, because we'll shut you down, too. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: All right. Response from Mr. Leedham.

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, Hoffa's had two strikes, Red Star and Overnite. When Hoffa took office, 37 terminals of Overnite had been organized. He fired the organizers and never organized another terminal. Then they took the group out on strike, a strike that lasted more than three years.

At the 2001 convention, Hoffa promised to deliver a contract. He said from the podium at the convention that the union would not stop until we had won the Overnite strike. Shortly after the election, he pulled the plug on that strike.

The Red Star strike was the other strike. Both of these had been failures, and many good long-term Teamsters – a very small percentage have found work in union houses – lost their jobs as a result of that action at Red Star.

MR. MEYERSON: All right. The next question from our audience, from our Teamsters, goes to Mr. Leedham. And it was submitted by Jeff Farmer, a member of Teamsters Local 120 and also the Organizing Director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

And the question is, Mr. Leedham, you propose to take 1,000 freight drivers off the job and put them to work as organizers. Considering that the average National Master Freight Agreement member makes over $75,000 in wages and benefits, your plan will cost the Teamsters over $75 million per year. Either this is a phony promise, or do you intend on doing what you did when you were in office and bankrupt the union? In just one year, you will throw the Teamsters back into the situation you left the union in in 1966, with no money in the treasury and no strike fund. How will you pay for this organizing plan without raising dues or slashing services? And how – but that's enough. That's plenty. How do you plan to pay for this plan without raising dues or slashing member services?

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, since Jeff Farmer is the Organizing Director, he should know that our union has never been bankrupt. We've never missed a payroll. We've never missed a payment on anything.

Ron Carey used dues to build power. We won the UPS strike. We organized and we turned around a 16-year decline in organizing in the Teamsters.

In regard to the proposal, however, he misstates my proposal. I intend to hire and train a thousand Teamster organizers from the ranks of Teamster membership, including freight but certainly not limited to freight.

Is it an expensive proposal? Yes, it is, because we intend to redirect the finances away from the quarter-million-dollar salaries of Mr. "Stand-in" and President Hoffa – (applause) – to work for Teamster members. And we do not intend to just hire them, all those organizers, by the International, but indeed to work in partnership with the local unions and to actually rebate a large portion of the increased per-capita payment, the portion that locals pay to the International, to those local unions that want to organize and do so correctly in our core industries, in freight and transportation, DHL, FedEx, the industries that compete with Teamster contracts. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Keegel.

MR. KEEGEL: There you go again. The reality of life is that he did say he was going to put on a thousand, and that is $75 million. That is the kind of irresponsible activity that we have from somebody like Tom Leedham.

The matter of the fact is he was an International Vice President, and during his administration he was on the finance committee that's called for by our constitution and to overlook the finances of our International Union. Not once did they ever hold a meeting. We can find no record of them holding a meeting to take action about what is happening to our treasury. That's unconscionable.

Not only that, not only that, our employees that work at the building are covered by a pension plan. They are covered by a pension plan because we believe in the right for every worker to have a decent pension plan. He never – their administration never put one penny into that pension plan, not one contribution from 1992 until we put the first one in in 2000. We spent millions of dollars to make sure that our dedicated workers have a pension. He did nothing. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: The next question goes to Tom Keegel, and it is from Matt Latzo of Local 639 right here in Washington, D.C. And he says: It's not easy for members in the Western Region to be here, so I'm asking this, as someone who lives in D.C., for some friends of mine who have lost $500 a month off their pensions due to cuts in the Western Conference pension. They've had to delay retirement. That pension fund is 100 percent fully funded, so why have your running mates out there, Chuck Mack, Jim Santangelo, Al Hobart and Randy Cammack, voted with employers to maintain those cuts? Do you agree that funds that are 100 percent funded should have pension cuts?

MR. KEEGEL: I did talk to Chuck Mack, and that plan is not 100 percent funded. The reality of life is, unlike what happened to Enron, our trustees of funds, guided by fiduciary responsibilities, had to make certain adjustments. As a matter of fact, that happened to all pension plans across this country, where they took the tremendous burden and the hit of the 2000, 2001 and 2002 market drop. We all know that. I'm tired of people playing politics with the retirement security of our members. That is not the right thing to do.

The reality of life is to make sure that each and every single member retires and has a pension check. We have never, ever missed a payment of a pension check since its inception, and it's a misnomer to say that. When that fund gets to 100 percent, based on their rules, they'll do the right thing. They are doing the right thing now in protecting the members, their pensions for the future. And I'm sick and tired of people playing politics with it. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Leedham.

MR. LEEDHAM: No one is playing with anything, and this is certainly no game. This is people's retirement that we're talking about.

And I suggest that “Mr. Stand-in" look at the most recent publication from the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Plan, which arrived in the mailboxes about two weeks ago, that indicates, in black and white from the pension office itself, that the fund is 100 percent funded. Yet Teamster members are still experiencing a cut in their benefits of 60 percent. A freight Teamster has lost $500 per month from their retirement check for the rest of their life, from a fund that is 100 percent funded.

And it goes to a different problem here, and the problem is this administration has given up control of our pension funds to greedy corporations who are extracting more money from Teamster members by way of these reduced benefits. That fund is 100 percent fully funded. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay. And now we have a question for Mr. Leedham, submitted by Brian Kildee, who is a member of Teamsters Local 469 in Hazlet, New Jersey.

Mr. Leedham, while you were part of the Carey administration, the Teamsters' net assets dropped from 156 million (dollars) to less than 3 million (dollars), and you never had a plan to rebuild our strength because the members rejected your approaches. At one point, the Teamsters stopped paying strike benefits altogether, and the organizing department was brought to a standstill. Now that the Hoffa administration has rebuilt the treasury and created a real strike fund and has more than 100 organizers in the field, why should members trust you with their dues money?

MR. LEEDHAM: Hoffa didn't fix the finances of the union. Teamster members fixed the finances of the union with the largest dues increase in the history of the union, and weren't even given the opportunity to vote on it.

If I might step back for a minute, I would remind Brother Keegel again – since he wants to go back in history – I served the Teamster membership when Ron Carey was president. I served with vice president on the Hoffa slate, Carl Haynes. I served with vice president on the Hoffa slate, Fred Gegare. I served with vice president on the Hoffa slate, Ken Hall. I was the warehouse director for the union from 1992 till my resignation in February of 1999. I was not in charge of fundraising or policy at the International Union, and he knows that.

MR. KEEGEL: The fact of the matter is that what you just mentioned, Tom, is they – the only Vice President you mentioned there that was on the board was Carl Haynes. The rest of them were – they were directors. They had no say on the executive board. You know that.

The reality of life is that when you inherit an International Union – and it was 10 times worse than we ever thought it could be – we had to take the measures that was important to make sure that the union was strong and could fight back the greedy employers that had been attacking a weak, divided union under his administration.

I'd have to go back in history to make sure I'm going in the future. I am proud of the fact – I am proud of the fact that we restored the finances. I am proud of the fact that the members recognize and know that we have to have a strong union if we're going to stand up to the greedy employers, if we're going to stand up to the anti-union labor attorneys out there, if we're going to stand up for workers' rights. We can't do it when we're broke. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay, back to our panel. And we have a question for Mr. Keegel from Tom Edsall.

MR. EDSALL: The Hoffa administration has publicly committed to a political policy of not being partisan in the sense of being absolutely Democratic or Republican. At the same time, the legislative priority has been in the main trade legislation.

Is it logical to support Republican candidates who may be on your side on a specific trade issue but when their party as a whole is going to push trade legislation that is just the opposite of what you are seeking?

MR. KEEGEL: The fact of the matter is we overwhelmingly do support Democratic candidates. Have we supported Republicans? Yes. We are going to support the people that support working families in our country. It is essential, it is important that we speak up for working people, as they have no voice. Certainly the trade agreements are not – have not been in the best interests of American workers in this country. There's no question about that.

We are going to hold everybody accountable for what we believe is the right thing to do. We are sick and tired of giving politicians money and taking us for granted and then voting for PNTR, voting for NAFTA, voting for CAFTA, voting for all of the things that are against workers. We will hold them accountable. We don't care what side of the aisle on. If they stand for working people, we'll take them, and we'll work with them. If they don't, we're going to find a way to take them out. (Applause.)

MR. LEEDHAM: I don't believe that our political action program is being used in the best interests of Teamster members. For the last 18 months, multiemployer pension relief, so-called multiemployer pension relief proposal that's been on the table, the Teamsters have been part of a committee, including – that included UPS, other employers and a few unions. Part of that proposal contains what's referred to as the Red Zone amendment, that for the first time in history means that union workers, Teamster members can lose vested benefits if a pension fund reaches a certain level of funding. That has been in the proposal from day one, and for the last 18 months, our union has supported that proposal. It was only until the 11th hour, two days before the vote came up, that the international put forth a message to the local saying that we were going to launch the largest mobilization in the history of the union two days before the vote. That is not effective political action on behalf of Teamster members. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay. Question from me to Mr. Leedham.

Critics have said that changes to the Central States Pension Fund now mean that a new member or even a newer – someone who's been there for a while, but not a very long while can no longer retire after 25 or 30 years of work and collect full retirement; that such a worker would have to work straight through pretty much age 62 to collect full retirement.

Do you think that's an accurate characterization? How did it happen? And if so, what can the Teamsters do about it?

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, I think it is an accurate characterization, and I think that we really need to level with Teamster members. In the Teamsters Union, we have not just one or two plans, we have the Central States which is a large plan; clearly, the Western Conference plan is 30 billion in assets. It is the largest of the plans. We need to take back control of our pension funds, however, and I think we need to level with Teamster members; meaning, we need to be straight with Teamster members.

Before the UPS agreement was negotiated in the – while it was in negotiations, and a year before the master freight negotiations and the Carhaul negotiations, a Saxbe report – and I'm talking about William Saxbe, the independent special counsel to the Central States Pension Fund – he published a report that indicated that the fund in Central States was in serious trouble and additional money would have to be negotiated in that fund. This report was kept secret from Teamster members. They were not – this was not shared with them.

And when Hoffa voted the UPS agreements and the freight agreements and the carhaul agreements, he promised Teamster members in writing that their funds would be protected, that their pension benefit would be protected. And shortly after, within six months, here comes the pension cuts – totally contrary to the promise from the General President.

They're not being straight with Teamster members. In fact, this just came out from Teamworks. It's a newsletter from Central States, and in it it indicates participants with national contracts receive a 43 percent combined increase, but in the small print, it tells you that you have to work another 30 years from today. So if you make it to 2036, you might see an increased benefit. (Applause.)

MR. KEEGEL: And I think Tom Leedham's got to stop lying about that. The fact is he made the statement that he's going to restore benefits. The fact is he has no authority to do that. The fact is that he knows that a consent decree federal judge oversees the Central States plan, and has for 25 years, and that judge ordered that reductions be made in the accruals. The fact is that every single member never lost one vested benefit. The fact is that the contribution rate has increased to $238, which produces a $126 multiplier, when under the old agreement it was $100. So the fact is that the member is not going to lose anything he's got.

The prudent thing to do, the prudent thing to do is to make sure that that pension fund is there for everybody. It's never missed a payment, never missed a payment to a retiree in its history, and it never will because it's handled professionally. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay, the next question to Mr. Keegel from Michelle Amber.

MS. AMBER: At the Teamsters convention in June, President Hoffa, with great fanfare, announced a card-check agreement at UPS Freight that would lead to the organization of 12,000 workers. The agreement, however, only applied to one facility of the union's choice. And earlier this month, the union achieved recognition for 125 workers in Indianapolis. How does this agreement provide leverage to organize 12,000 workers?

MR. KEEGEL: Certainly we're going to use the leverage of our 200,000 workers at UPS.

I'd like to remind Tom – I'd like to remind Tom Leedham that the 1997 negotiations for UPS, which resulted in a strike, and by the bravery of our members and our local unions, we won that strike. But he didn't tell you that they gave UPS a hundred million dollar break. He didn't tell you that they allowed UPS to not pay contributions to Central States from August to December of 1997. He didn't tell you that, but that happened.

We will get a contract at UPS Freight, and I'll tell you why, because we have a model already. We did it with Menlo. When they bought Menlo, we took that contract, we took it and brought it across the system and we doubled the membership at Menlo.

We have the leverage at UPS. They know that. We know that. We will negotiate an industry contract on Local 135 in Indianapolis, and instead of trying to organize 300 individual terminals, we will take that contract and we will apply it everywhere, and we'll have 15,000 Teamsters working for UPS – the first time that we've been able to organize a freight company in I can't remember when. That's what we're going to do. Tom Leedham can't do that. (Applause.)

MR. LEEDHAM: Transport Topics, or one of the other trade publications, I'm not sure which, just announced too that that deal was over, that it applied to the one operation and it's now over. We had 37 Overnite terminals organized and Hoffa was unable to get a contract. Now with one terminal organized, he claims that he's going to get a contract nationwide.

In addition to that, two months ago, the UPS Freight, old Overnite, put out the most vicious anti-union video that I've seen in some time, encouraging people to stay away from the Teamsters, and just discouraging them from being part of the Teamsters Union. The featured speaker in that video was a vice president by the name of McKenzie, that for his trouble has just now been promoted to CEO at UPS Freight.

We all have to work together to organize UPS Freight, but this is not the strategy to do it. We need to take this company on system-wide. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Time.

MR. EDSALL: This is to Mr. Keegel.

MR. MEYERSON: Leedham.

MR. EDSALL: There's been a lot of allegations back and forth of the corruption in –the alleged corruption in the current administration, in the Carey administration, and before that. Could you rank the level of corruption now compared to Carey, compared to pre-Carey?

MR. KEEGEL: I think the level of corruption–

MR. MEYERSON: This goes to Mr. Leedham and then Mr. Keegel.

MR. KEEGEL: I'm sorry. I apologize.

MR. EDSALL: Oh, it's to Mr. Leedham?

MR. MEYERSON: Yes, sir.

MR. LEEDHAM: I would certainly defer to Ed Stier, who was hired by our union with a reputation as being, you know, one of the most effective crime fighters in the country. And certainly our RISE program, the RISE program of the Hoffa administration, was released with a lot of PR, lots of glitzy material and a lot of fanfare. And Ed Stier, the entire committee, the entire staff of ex-FBI agents, in addition to an advisory committee of professionals and ethical experts, resigned on the same day because they felt that their investigations were being blocked the closer they got to Hoffa's office.

In addition to that, if you look at the slate that Hoffa has put together, we have John Coli, who was part of that investigation in Chicago that led Stier to make his decision. The Coli family has been – many members have been barred from our union, and John Coli, I believe, is under investigation. And now finds his way onto the Hoffa slate.

So I – I you know, I have not done that investigation, but I would certainly defer to Ed Stier on that question. (Applause.)

MR. KEEGEL: Just as Tom has no vision for the future about UPS Freight, we're seeing it here again, because the reality is that Ed Stier did a book on corruption in our International Union. He spent resources and time and investigators. And the overall result was that there was virtually no corruption in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which I'm proud of, because I believe in that. I believe in throwing those kind of bums out of our union and if they're there.

The reality of life with Mr. Stier is that he overstayed his welcome. He continued to try to do things that we were not able to do. He continued to draw money from our International Union after the fact that we could not get rid of the IRB. We did not need him there.

In fact, a study was done and found that he was completely off base. Nothing came out of that. It's three years ago. Nothing happened. We did the right thing. We take care of corruption. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Let me follow that with a question for Mr. Keegel. By one estimate I've seen, there are 148 officials of the International Union who hold multiple jobs – not just the International, but joint councils or locals or what have you – and collect multiple salaries.

I would think, with 1.4 million members, there would be enough talented Teamsters around to fill those slots without having to have some officers hold down more than one. Should there be a ban on Teamster officials earning multiple salaries?

MR. KEEGEL: You know, that's a question that really deserves a good answer, and the answer's very simple to me. Rather than have people on a bloated payroll, like happened in the previous administration, that had very little duties, we take our talented Teamsters, our talented Teamsters, and we ask them to do special duties for us. I see nothing wrong with that. I believe that people that work should be paid. I know that when other people work, they get paid.

And so the result is, we have talent, we have strength, and they don't have to devote their full-time resources. They work all the hours necessary to get their job done. I think it's a very important asset to our International Union.

And quite frankly, I remember when Tom said, you know, nobody should make more than what our members make. We do have pilots that make 225 [thousand], 250,000 [dollars].

I don't take a multiple salary. I don't take anything from my local union joint council, which I am president of.

But I'm telling you, I want the best possible people doing the best possible work for Teamsters, and that's the talented Teamsters that we have out in the field. And I'm proud of what they do. (Applause.)

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, things look pretty good from the penthouse where Keegel and Hoffa live. They're both bringing in more than a quarter million dollars of our members' dues money every year.

When Hoffa took office, there were 16 International employees that were on multiple salaries; now there's 163. I just don't believe this the best way to use Teamster resources.

You know, we're not out there manufacturing refrigerators. We don't make cars. This money comes from Teamster members. This is their hard-earned dues money that we're talking about here, and these outrageous salaries have got to end. We've got to redirect the resources of this union. We've got to grow this union, and we've got to get serious about it. We've got to roll up our sleeves. And these people that don't want to make any sacrifices for their union – I think they should get out of the way for those of us that do. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay. Now we have a question from Michelle Amber to Mr. Leedham.

MS. AMBER: The Teamsters has major contracts coming up in 2008 with UPS, Freight and Carhaul. How can the union best prepare for these upcoming talks?

MR. LEEDHAM: By being straight with Teamster members, by communicating with Teamster members in an honest way, by telling them the real situations with their pensions and what it's going to take to turn it around, and by organizing Teamster members, by mobilizing and using the model that was used in the 1997 UPS strike, where Teamster members were the spokespeople, where they were involved in every aspect of the campaign, including the design of the campaign, and not just sitting at the back room at a bargaining table, but clear participants in every aspect of their union.

We have to start now. And we have to put pressure on the non-union competition as well. We are down in Freight now to somewhere less than 35 percent of LTL trucking, which is Less-Than-Truckload Trucking. We really don't even have a presence in Truck Load. We have to organize and we have to educate Teamsters. We have to involve them in the organizing process so that they're out there convincing the non-union competition to join with us, the workers from the non-union competition. That's the best way is involving Teamster members and getting them involved in their own union.

I know how this union was organized. I'm a warehouseman. But I believe that we should focus on our core industries of transportation, trucking, the non-union competition to UPS, including DHL and FedEx, because I know that Teamster drivers – who are proud of their union – will be on those docks organizing warehousemen. That's how we built our union. It wasn't these expensive organizers and fat cat officers; it was Teamster members who were proud of their union. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay.

MR. KEEGEL: Same old rhetoric, no vision. The fact of the matter is that in 2002, when we negotiated the UPS contract, we negotiated a $10 billion contract, 5 billion [dollars] more than the '97 contract. We enhanced the grievance procedure. We got them long-term disability. We got things they were never able to get in the past because you know what? We mobilized the membership. We mobilized the local union leadership, we mobilized the membership and we know how to do it.

In Freight, when we got our ass kicked in 1994 by this inept administration, when they took away the hammer to strike over grievances, when they took away the 40-hour work week for dock workers and out, we restored that, we put it back. We are the only ones that had the ability, the fortitude and the vision to do what's necessary.

Tom Leedham doesn’t. (Applause).

MR. MEYERSON: Question for Tom Leedham. You have spoken somewhat critically of the 25 percent dues increase that the members have absorbed. Wasn't that increase necessary to restore the union's finances and to build back the strike fund and more money for organizing?

MR. LEEDHAM: I think that any time that we have a dues increase we also have an opportunity, and that is to present it to Teamster members and allow them to make the decision. By presenting it to Teamster members and putting it out for a vote, we have an opportunity to educate them on exactly where their money is going, how every dollar is spent. And I do not find Teamster members that oppose dues increases when they feel that it's in their interest and it's to build power in the union. They all want the same thing, and that is a strong union, and they're willing to pay for it as long as they know their money isn't being wasted.

You know, Hoffa and Keegel talk about that they solved the problems of the finances of the union. Well, Teamster members did. They doubled, without a membership vote, in one move they doubled the income of the International Union. Now, if you're a Teamster out there working in a plant, if you could double your income you'd solve a lot of problems too. It's just not quite that easy for them. This was done without a membership vote. They had no input in it. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Keegel.

MR. KEEGEL: I certainly remember when the Cary/Leedham administration put out a vote for dues increase, a significant dues increase, and it was rejected because they had no plan. They had absolutely no plan. We're not going to put the politics in it when our International Union is at stake. We're going to do what's the right thing to do, and we did that. We created a blue-ribbon committee composed of local union leaders, joint council leaders, stewards, rank-and-file. We sat for days and we came up with the program. We went back to the 2002 Convention. All the delegates were elected by rank-and-file, and we did the hard thing we had to do.

But you know what? We gave them something. We gave them a strike fund. We told them we would. We gave them an organizing fund. We told them we would. We've saved them on many, many strikes. That has never been able to happen before. They didn't have to sit out there worrying about whether their employer was going to get the best of them because they had no strike fund coming in. We solved that. We restored it. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Tom Edsall for Tom Keegel.

MR. EDSALL: There's been a lot of talk in the Change to Win coalition about organizing, focusing the organizing on core industries, but Jimmy Hoffa has talked about the Teamsters being a union from A to Z. "Z" is zookeepers. I forget what the "A" is. What do you think the policy should be? Should the focus of this new money you've got be on organizing your core industries, or should it be on police and nurses and public employees?

MR. KEEGEL: There is no question that the International Union is focusing on core industries. What Tom didn't tell you is that of new money that was generated based on the dues increase, which our brothers and sisters truly did understand, he got 56 percent of that money in his local union. And I don't know what he's doing with it. I hope he's got an organizer on it. I don't think he does.

But the reality of life is we are organizing in our core industries. We are organizing in freight for DHL. The integrators are going to control the LTL freight in this country. The integrators are DHL, UPS and FedEx, and our next target is FedEx. We are going to organize like we have never been able to organize the freight industry. His administration couldn't either. We have a plan. We know what we're doing. We're going to organize in waste, we're going to organize in freight, we're going to organize in carhaul. We got a mighty army that's motivated, that's going to organize, and we believe that with the leadership of the Change to Win, we cannot miss. We have a program. We're excited about it. We're going to devote resources to it. Unlike his administration that did not, we will. We will be successful. We know what we're doing. (Applause.)

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, talk is cheap. And we've heard this talk for seven years now, and we've lost 150,000 members as a result.

I found it interesting as well that the Change to Win philosophy was to focus on specific industries. They called it core industries. But initially they were assigning industry segments to different unions and so forth. Teamsters, it's hard to say what our core industry is, because we represent workers everywhere. Our money and our organizing needs to focus on support for our existing contracts, and that's in – you know, that's everything from nurses to truck drivers and warehouse workers. We have to support our existing contracts. We have great opportunities. With a tremendous driver shortage out there, we have opportunities to organize in transportation.

MR. MEYERSON: Let me – (applause). Let me ask another organizing question, this for Mr. Leedham.

The fastest growing union in the United States over the last couple decades is Service Employees International Union. Now it spends roughly 50 percent of its dues money on organizing. The Teamster organizing department certainly has grown considerably in recent years, but the best estimates I've heard about the percentage of Teamster dues money spent on organizing is way less than 50, considerably less than 50.

Is it necessary to increase the share of Teamster money going into organizing? And how best could the Teamsters do that?

MR. LEEDHAM: We need to redirect our resources. We need to redirect the way our resources are spent. We spend somewhere between 10 and 15 percent on organizing. It's much lower than SEIU and other unions and I have to tell you, though, I'm not comparing the Teamsters to SEIU. We're an entirely different union. Our union is structured bottom-up. It's not a top-down structure.

Now, I believe that President Hoffa would like to see it as a top-down structure. He doesn't want an election. He wants a coronation.

But SEIU is nothing like the Teamsters Union. Our strength has always come from the local union. We have – we should have and we seem to be losing local autonomy, but our strength has come from the bottom-up. We're a bottom-up union, and I think more resources need to go back to those locals so that they can invest it in their community, and the locals have more of a decision-making capability of how the money on organizing gets spent.

Now, clearly, we need coordination. We're dealing with multinational corporations. We're dealing with large greedy corporations. We can coordinate those activities from the international without dictating to the local unions what their target should be and how they should spend their money and who they should hire. I don't think it works to have a paid organizer fly in from Washington, D.C., say what needs to be done and then fly out again. We have a lot of talent at the local level, and that's where we should be putting our resources. (Applause.)

MR. KEEGEL: This goes to show that Tom doesn't know what he's talking about. We have built a mighty army. The local unions get 78 cents of every dues dollar that comes in, the International 22 cents. We have built a mighty army. We spend 15 million-17 million dollars this year on organizing at the International. But the reality of life is, is that we have joint councils and the local unions to put on organizers so you can triple the amount of money that's spent. We have hundreds of organizers out there. We coordinate with local unions and joint councils.

What Tom didn't tell you is he voted against Joint Council 37 putting on an organizer. What Tom probably didn't tell you is he doesn't have an organizer on staff in his local union. We believe in organizing. We know there are international multinational corporations, and we can't win unless we’re successful from the top and the bottom working together. And we will be successful. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay. Michelle for Tom Keegel.

MS. AMBER: In 2003, a unit of 11,000 flight attendants at Northwest Airlines voted to leave the Teamsters and become an independent union after the International told the local to accept a contract with the airline rather than take a strike.

Today, there's only 9,000 flight attendants. They're part of another international union, and they're threatening to strike with the support of their international union.

In hindsight, should the International have gotten involved in the 2003 dispute, or should it have let the members make up their own decision?

MR. KEEGEL: We were involved in the 2003 dispute. And the flight attendants – I feel sorry for them, being in the legacy carriers, they are going through a dramatic change where they have to take unbelievable amounts of reductions in pay. I feel sorry for what they're going through and the strain and the pain that they're having on a daily basis. They left our International Union, and the reason they did that is their leadership that was elected were TDU, they were TDU, Tom Leedham's friends. They took them to the AFA – they didn't take them to the AFA, they created their own organization where they were powerless against Northwest, PFA, an organization called PFA. That leadership sent out a letter urging their members to move, they were TDU members, to move to PFA, and PFA almost destroyed that unit. I feel sorry for them. They recognized the error of their ways after it was done. We encouraged them to go with AFA. We will do everything we can to help them because they should not be having to go through what they are going through today. I feel sorry for them. I'll do everything I possibly can to help them. (Applause.)

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, I'm sure that Brother Keegel and Brother Hoffa's sympathy goes a long way with the flight attendants who are fighting for their jobs and their very lives. We need to be more than sympathetic. We have an obligation to the membership to fight for their contracts, to not just be sympathetic. We have to use our resources to fight and build power so that they can take on these greedy corporations like Northwest Airlines. We can't just be sympathetic, we have to spend our money to build power so that they can fight back. (Applause.)

MR. EDSALL: Mr. Leedham, your adversaries have raised a couple of questions about your leadership, and I was wondering if you could answer them. One is, in their literature they cite a decline in the number of members in your local, from, I think, 3,200 to 2,600. Secondly, during this debate, Mr. Keegel has contended you have no organizer. Could you answer those questions?

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, let me take the first – the last one first. Brother Keegel is correct, I voted against the Joint Council hiring an organizer because I knew that the individual was not going to perform and it was just a crony appointment, which "Mr. Stand-in" is so familiar with. The fact of the matter is, that organizer has been on staff now for three years; has not organized one single member in three years. We've spent more than $350,000 on that organizing position with not one dues-paying Teamster to show for. That's why I was in opposition to that, I felt that that would be the result of that move.

In terms of the membership lost, these are not "lost" Teamsters, these are Teamsters that moved out of Local 206's geographic jurisdiction into the geographic jurisdiction of another local and are still proud Teamsters. Other members, part of that group, moved out of the jurisdiction – the employer moved work out of the jurisdiction under other Teamster contracts that weren't quite as good as the contracts that 206 members have been able to negotiate over the years.

But I – you know, many local unions have had membership losses, including Local 120 that Brother Keegel is the principal officer of, losing several hundred members in just the last year.

This is a problem with all of the organized labor. We are down to 7 percent of the private sector workforce. And that's why we need more coordination and more resources to flow back to the local unions from the International Union. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Keegel.

MR. KEEGEL: Well, the reality is very simple. Tom doesn't believe in organizing culture the way we do. I have 11,000 members in Local 120 and three full-time organizers. That is the lifeblood of what we do. That is the lifeblood of where we're going to maintain our contracts. Where we can improve our contracts is by organizing new workers. I'm proud of that fact. I'm proud of the fact that we’re able to do that. I've made a commitment to do that, whatever it takes. My membership knows that. My membership has trusted me for 30 years, and I’ve always delivered for my membership. I'm not a stand-in. I'm a stand-up Teamster, and I'll always be a stand-up Teamster. I don't – (applause).

MR. MEYERSON: I think we have time for just one or two more questions, and I'll ask the timekeeper for guidance in a minute.

But this is my question to Mr. Keegel. What are the Teamsters getting for the dues that they pay to Change to Win, and is it worth it?

And then to Mr. Leedham, can you clarify a little bit as to whether, if you're elected president, you would want to keep the Teamsters in Change to Win or move them out?

But this is a question first to Mr. Keegel. What –

MR. KEEGEL: What we contribute to Change to Win on a per cap basis to run the organization is a third of what we paid to the AFL-CIO. Honestly we really received hardly any services whatsoever.

We are a large union, and we provide departments and services for our local unions and our members. We have the ability to do that.

What we've gotten from the Change to Win is a coordinated effort to take industries, to take core industries and analyze them. We have gotten a grant for a million dollars to organize port drivers. We've put a team together to do that. We've put together a capital strategies team – which I'm very proud of – capital strategies using the hundred billion dollars in Teamsters assets to fight for our members, to go into the boardroom, to make them accountable. We have exercised that right. We have grown that right with the CTW. We've been very successful in standing up for our members in the boardroom because we demand the respect of having all those assets in the pension fund that should be and will be used for the benefit of the membership.

Change to Win has changed the direction of where these unions are going. We're unified; we're strong. We get along with the AFL-CIO. We have our solidarity charters. We're working together politically, but we're focused and focused on organizing, using our strength, using our power to build better contracts, to organize and make sure that our members get the best of what they deserve. That's what we're doing. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Mr. Leedham.

MR. LEEDHAM: Well, it's too bad that Mr. Hoffa isn't here to answer that question himself. I would have liked to have heard his views on Change to Win. I would have liked to have heard his views on Change to Win and the AFL-CIO prior to the Teamsters removing themselves from the AFL-CIO.

I believe that we have to work with all of organized labor. I would like to sit down with the leadership of Change to Win and the leadership of the AFL-CIO. When the split happened a year ago – if you look at the positions of the two parties on – the two groups on why the positions that they were taking and – which led to the split – you look at the positions, and they were very similar. There was just very little difference, and it leads one to believe that it really wasn't a split based on policy considerations or on practical considerations, and one has to wonder, well, what was it based on? Because the two positions were remarkably similar, and I think there's an opportunity there to reunite the labor movement.

MR. MEYERSON: Okay. Can I just get – (applause) – go to the closing and just – yes, okay.

All right. We now have closing statements from our two debaters, each of two minutes in length, and the first comes from Mr. Keegel.

MR. KEEGEL: Thank you.

This is a union that I truly love. I've learned that from the brothers and sisters that I've with over the years. It's done so much good for so many people.

And personally I'm getting tired of having Tom Leedham try to tear down our union. I'm getting sick and tired of him never saying a damn thing about – good about our union. Him and TDU always attack, attack, attack. These attacks are being used by non-union employers, by companies that we're trying to organize, and they're used against us. I urge him to tell TDU to stop using that garbage. It's the wrong thing to do. It's a negative attitude about this great union.

I am excited about my union. I love my union. We – the reality is that this Leedham administration was never successful. They had their chance in the `90s. They couldn't get the job done. The members recognized that. The members put the right team in. The members understand that we are going to do what's best – in their best interests, and I'm excited about that as well.

I am very excited about the fact that the Hoffa-Keegel administration took a union that was falling to pieces, falling apart and – divided – it was hopelessly divided. We united that tremendous union. We united it. We straightened out the finances. It's something that we believe in. We fight for the members. We fight for what's right. We fight to make sure that their contracts are the best negotiated in the industry.

I am excited about that. We have a future that's unparalleled, where we can organize and we are going to organize; when we can rebuild our freight division like we haven't had the ability in the past. It can't be done under Leedham. He's proven his leadership in the past administration. He has none. The members understand that. The members know what they want. The members know what's right, because this is all about the members.

And I'll never forget my association with those brave people from 1934 that stood out and made the Teamsters what they are today; the dedication and the love they had for the union. They wouldn't even think about attacking it this way.

Dissent? Yes. I have no problem with dissent. For criticism, I have no problem sitting down. But to let every single person out there believe that this is a bad union because Tom Leedham and TDU says it is, is the wrong thing to do. It is not right.

I love my union. We're going forward. We're strong, and together we're going to make this union the strongest, most powerful union in the free world. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: Okay. Now, we have a two-minute closing statement from Mr. Leedham.

MR. LEEDHAM: Tonight's debate has given Teamsters the chance to hear from both campaigns, even if Mr. Hoffa chose to duck out on the debate. The record and positions of the two campaigns are clear. We have different ideas about our – where our union stands and where we need to go.

The Tom Leedham slate stands for mobilizing members to win strong contracts and good pensions, like we did in the 1997 UPS strike. Our opponents say they negotiated the best contracts ever, even though they delivered the worst pension and benefit cuts in Teamster history.

The Tom Leedham slate stands for auditing the funds, winning higher employer contributions, organizing new members into the funds, and reversing the benefit cuts.

Our opponents make excuses, point fingers and use personal attacks to avoid answering for their failed record.

Tom Leedham slate stands for putting Teamster power to work for Teamster members by training, and hiring members to organize the non-union competition and fight for strong contracts nationally and at the local level.

Our opponents talk about power, but they spent the dues increase on bloated salaries for themselves. Hoffa has never won a strike. Under his watch, our union has lost 150,000 Teamsters. Teamster pensions and benefits have been devastated. That's the Hoffa record.

If, like me, you're a Teamster who believes our union needs a new direction, then I'm asking for more than your vote, I'm asking you to get involved in the campaign to rebuild Teamster power. Visit our website at leedham2006.org, or call us at 718-287-6156. Get information and spread the word to Teamster members. Help turn out the vote. This election is about your union, your future. Together we can rebuild Teamster power. (Applause.)

MR. MEYERSON: I want to thank both our debaters. I certainly want to thank both my fellow panelists. The ballots get mailed out, I think, on October 10th (Election Supervisor’s Note: Ballots are Expected to be Mailed on October 6, 2006, and the ballot count is expected to commence on November 14, 2006). And that should do it from here. Thank you all, and good evening.

MR. KEEGEL: Thank you.

MR. LEEDHAM: Thank you.

(END)