Edgar Esquivel catalogues the rise, fall, and redemption of Ron Carey and his work with the Teamsters.
At a time when the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and its bureaucracy have reached an unprecedented low under the authoritarian, intolerant and incompetent “leadership” of Sean O’Brien’s conservative brand of pro-business unionism, Ken Reiman, a retired rank-and-file member, has written a valuable account on the legacy of the only reformist Teamsters General President (GP) the membership has enjoyed.
The book comes not only twenty-three years after the inefficient administration of James P. Hoffa Jr. witnessed endless corruption scandals, the hemorrhaging of hundreds of thousands of members, and a labor peace alliance with corporate America and Washington; it also comes two years after O’Brien swept into power with over two-thirds of his slate made up of old-guard hofficers,1 promising a new, “militant” era — only to see it continue Hoffa’s same top-down policies through the negotiations of concessionary contracts that have mostly delivered little to no pension improvements — an O’Brien administration trademark.
Reiman’s Ron Carey and the Teamsters is a much-needed assessment of a man no Teamster leader has come close to matching. The book is not only the first to be written on the legacy of Carey but, more importantly, it is written by a former Local 804 rank-and-file package car driver, who in 2009 was elected business agent on the reform “804 Members United” slate headed by Tim Sylvester—a student of Carey himself. As representative of Local 804, Reiman was also editor of their quarterly newsletter, The Local Agitator.
In over ten years, Reiman took on the difficult task of conducting independent research to produce this account of Carey—a leader too-often ostracized by corporate America and the union’s envious, pro-business old-guard. Unfortunately, recent reviews have incorrectly compared the current, pseudo-reform administration of O’Brien to that of Carey. By using empirical evidence, this review will dispel such myths and give the only true and genuine reform Teamster GP in the union’s 121-year history his place in the annals of American labor history.
Ron Carey’s Emergence in NYC’s Local 804
In 1967, the same year that the notorious Jimmy Hoffa was found guilty of jury tampering, embezzlement of union pension funds, and tax evasion, Ron Carey won his Local 804 election in New York City. In running, Carey not only took on a local loyal to the corrupt and mafia-tied Hoffa, but committed himself to defying Teamsters Joint Council (JC) 16 in NYC. Much like the union’s hierarchy in Washington and locals in most large metropolitan cities, JC 16 was controlled by organized crime.
Just five years prior, a twenty-six year old Carey had participated in a “vote NO” campaign against the 1962 sweet-heart deal that Hoffa had cut with UPS. The deal allowed the company to expand the part-time workforce at the cost of full-time jobs. Against Hoffa’s wishes, Local 804 members rejected the deal and hit the picket lines for seven weeks.
Carey’s election as head of Local 804 was a heavy blow to the pro-business old-guard and UPS. Upon taking office in 1968, Carey implemented reforms targeting the old-guard’s nepotism and profligate practices. For example, Carey banned the hiring of officers’ relatives, a very common practice of the old-guard then and today. He also banned the use of union credit cards, ended union-issued vehicles, and required all officers to pay for meals out-of-pocket. More importantly, he cut all Local 804 salaries including his own.
Shortly after, the Carey administration opened negotiations on a contract with UPS due to expire at the end of March. He was eager to deliver on his campaign promises, especially winning a true “25 and Out” pension clause regardless of retirement age. When negotiations stalled, GP Frank Fitzsimmons sent the corrupt leadership of JC 16 to try to bully Carey into settling. Defying the IBT bureaucracy, Carey took his members out on strike in May. The NYC media jumped to defend UPS by publishing a series of articles attacking Carey for the strike. During the work stoppage, he also received crank calls with threats to him and his family. After a nine-week strike, and without the support of the IBT apparatus, UPS capitulated to Carey’s demands. As head of Local 804, he went on to lead three more strikes against the package king.
Carey’s Candidacy for IBT General President
When the IBT was placed under federal trusteeship in 1989 because of its ties to organized crime, Ron Carey saw it as a golden opportunity to reform the entire structure of the Teamsters and dismantle the old-guard’s apparatus, which was rotten to its core. Reiman notes that the consent decree issued by the Southern District Court of New York (SDNY) would be Carey’s “vehicle” for reforming the union. After suggestions from multiple people and the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), in the presence of over 2,000 rank-and-file Teamster activists at a local NYC high school in September 1989, Carey announced he was seeking the IBT’s top office.
Running on a reform platform, Carey stated he wanted to sell off the Teamsters’ jet planes and other luxuries. He was adamant about eliminating “double” and “triple-dipping,” which was the unjust practice of receiving multiple salaries and multiple pension contributions. Carey was making $45,000 per year as head of Local 804 while some old-guard officials were making $400,000. By the summer of 1990, old-guard opportunists began to turn on each other. IBT GP William McCarthy who, as head of the corrupt Teamsters Local 25 in Boston, had not only been under the control of New England’s Patriarca crime family, but also Sean O’Brien’s childhood hero – James “Whitey” Bulger’s hoodlum-infested Winter Hill Gang, fell out of popularity with the establishment.2 McCarthy was forced to announce he would not seek reelection. Two establishment factions led by R.V. Durham out of North Carolina and Virginia’s Walter Shea were formed.
Although Carey gladly accepted the endorsement of TDU and some of their members joined his 1991 slate, it is important to note that he never joined the organization. However, this has not kept most old-guard hofficers and their blind supporters from incorrectly implying otherwise over the past twenty-five years. In January 1990, Carey officially opened his campaign in Richfield, Ohio in front of a crowd of 300 members. Counter to the old-guard officers who surrounded themselves with an entourage of goons and thugs, Carey had a small group of campaigners. Unlike the opposition, the campaign hit as many worksites as possible, organized meetings, and — due to their shoestring budget – tackled 150,000 miles in a beat-up 1985 Dodge Diplomat, all while staying in the homes of rank-and-file reformers and in low-budget motels. His opponents did little to hit the gates, traveled first-class, and stayed at five-star hotels. Carey ran a grass-roots campaign, the likes of which had never been seen in Teamsters history.
Although Carey only took 15% of the total delegates at that summer’s 1991 Teamsters Convention, by the third day of the vote-count the following December it was clear that he would win the election by a landslide. When the vote tally was completed, Carey had taken 48.48% of the vote; Durham: 33.24%; and Shea: 18.28% — a clear sign of how divorced the old-guard was from the membership. Before the tally was completed, Carey promised to end corruption. Furthermore, he announced he would be cutting his own scheduled $225,000 salary down to $150,000.3 But more importantly, to show the old-guard he was serious about delivering on his campaign promises, Carey set out to eliminate the bloated and multiple salaries, multiple pension contributions, and other unnecessary expenditures they had exploited. In sum, the old-guard’s country club lifestyle was coming to an end under his leadership.
The Carey slate also elected Diana Kilmury out of Vancouver, Canada as the Teamster’s first woman Vice President, Leroy Ellis from Chicago as the Union’s first African-American officer; and San Antonio’s John Riojas as its first Latino officer. At his victory party, the fifty-five year old Carey delivered a speech transmitted to the American public by ABC during their Person of the Week segment: “It’s goodbye to the Mafia, it’s goodbye to concessionary contracts. And it’s goodbye to those who have lined their pockets and who have put the membership in last place!”
The New Teamsters
Upon taking office in 1992, Carey sold off two Gulfstream jets used to transport the GP and Secretary Treasurer, which had been purchased at approximately $19 million. He sold off the limousines and a vacation home in Puerto Rico that the unelected general executive board and their mob bosses had enjoyed at the expense of the rank-and-file. Carey also discontinued the Regional Teamster Conferences, which served no purpose to better membership conditions and simply worked to drain the union’s treasury. After taking a $75,000 pay cut himself, Carey pushed his own GEB members to cut their own pay by 14%. He ended the unlimited sick leave the prior administrations had exploited, free lunches for employees at the Marble Palace, and first-class travel. A special pension that paid twenty-two officers $5 million annually was also eliminated. The old-guard would never forgive Carey for stripping them of their grotesquely lavish lifestyles.
Under Carey’s watch from 1992 to 1997, sixty-seven locals out of 600 were placed into trusteeship by the Independent Review Board (IRB) for corruption scandals. The charges included: labor-peace payoffs, embezzlement of health, welfare or pension funds, extortion, hijacking, racketeering, robbery, gambling, drugs, prostitution and continued ties to the mafia. The IRB removed, banned or disciplined well over 200 officers during this time.
Carey’s mission was to win better contracts and the most important union benefit of all—pensions. Despite the old-guard officers’ bitterness towards him, Carey started his first year in office with victories. He personally negotiated a National Carhaul agreement for 16,000 members, which had been rejected twice by a membership enraged against the old administration. He stopped the mutiny of 8,500 Northwest Airline flight attendants, who had pushed to decertify from the Teamsters due to the previous administrations’ corruption and sweetheart contracts.
When Safeway Supermarket pushed to break the union in Northern California by transferring warehouse work at the largest distribution center on the West Coast to a non-union company, Carey immediately contacted Local 70 leader Chuck Mack with the full support of the IBT, and dispatched $30,000 in aid to lead a boycott against the grocery giant. The boycott worked and Safeway capitulated to the union’s demands as the new warehouse opened with new Teamster jobs, benefits and wages. Mack, who had run on the R.V. Durham slate, acknowledged that the old administration would have abandoned the fight in NorCal.
Carey’s win also signaled a shift in the Teamsters’ positions on national politics. The Union’s twenty-year marriage to the Republican party had started in 1972 with the endorsement of Richard Nixon in exchange for a presidential pardon for Jimmy Hoffa who had entered federal prison in 1967. Carey led a breakaway from the GOP when the Teamsters endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992. However, he would quickly learn that endorsing Clinton and the second corporate party of America was a mistake as American workers observed how the Democrats joined their Republican foes in pushing through the union-busting North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The 1993 UPS Contract, 1994 Safety Strike & National Master Freight Agreement
Carey inherited a union on the brink of financial collapse. But much to the dislike of the old-guard, Carey revived the Union through grassroots organizing that, for the first time, included rank-and-file involvement in the contract negotiation committees. For UPS, the election of Carey to the highest office of the Teamsters was like a nightmare come to life. The company did not react favorably to democracy coming to the union. Carey’s first battle was the 1993 negotiation of a UPS contract that covered 182,000 Teamsters. In the midst of negotiations, and fearing Carey, UPS presented a two-page letter to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), requesting their business operation be considered under the anti-worker Railway Labor Act (RLA). The RLA would have granted the government unlimited powers to block a work stoppage. With the support of the pro-business Teamster old-guard, UPS continued to push the NLRB to change their jurisdiction to the RLA, but in 1995 were denied.
When UPS offered a $2.10 raise spread over six years, Carey declared it “insulting and ridiculous,” and immediately called for a strike vote. After 94% of the members voted to strike, the company was forced to come up with more. While Hoffa had allowed UPS to create a part-time empire in the 1962 sweetheart deal, Carey and his Package Director Mario Perrucci, from New Jersey’s Local 177, were able to push the company to concede to the creation of 500 full-time jobs. This was the first time UPS agreed to add full-time positions since the 1979 NMA agreement. Carey was also able to reduce the original, six-year proposal from the company down to a four-year agreement, with wage increases of $2.25 over the life of the agreement. Crucially, the Union also won $1.80 toward Health & Welfare (H&W) per hour worked. The 1993 agreement had the highest wage and H&W increases for UPS Teamsters but, unfortunately for part-timers, the starting wage once again did not move from the $8 agreed upon under the 1982 contract.
However, in January 1994, UPS announced it would raise the weight limit of packages from the 70 pounds stipulated by the 1993 agreement to 150 pounds beginning on February 7, 1994. After talks between the Union and the company went nowhere over the contractual breach, Carey set the same day as a strike date. UPS immediately lobbied Washington and was awarded a five-day injunction against the IBT. This barred a work-stoppage from taking place, but a courageous Carey, who had broken with Clinton and the Democrats over their support of NAFTA, defied the government injunction and prepared the members to strike. The Teamsters had not defied an injunction since militant Trotskyists acting independently of the IBT bureaucracy had done so in the prelude to the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike.
Less than half of the 182,000 UPS Teamsters participated in Carey’s call to strike. In various parts of the country, local unions supporting Carey and standing against the bitter and corrupt old-guard locals took their members out on strike. Local 174 in Seattle, for example, led by newly-elected reformer Bob Hasegawa, was the only local in the entire Western Conference of Teamsters to strike. Carey won the strike after a day and UPS countered by filing a lawsuit for financial damages, but it was quickly dismissed by the same judge that had issued the five-day injunction.
R.V. Durham, still bitter over losing the 1991 election to Carey, took the company’s side. Durham and over half of the old guard-led locals scared their members into submission by deceiving them with the false story they would be subject to termination for participating in what they deemed to be an illegal action. Even Northern California power broker Chuck Mack, forgetting that Carey had given him unconditional support and $30,000 to lead the Safeway boycott, turned his back on him and joined Durham and over half of the old-guard locals in scabbing during the strike. The collaborationist head of the AFL-CIO Lane Kirkland also failed to stand in solidarity with Carey for fear of breaking his long-time partnership with corporate America.
In April 1994, over 70,000 Teamsters covered by the National Master Freight Agreement went out on strike. It was the first freight strike since the 1979 walk-out where the Union protested the union-busting trucking deregulation bill introduced by Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy and backed by President Jimmy Carter. This time around, the Union struck against a total of 22 freight companies. The employers wanted to expand the use of part-time workers and increase the percentage of their goods transported by rail from 10% to 35%. Without the support of the old guard, Carey and his freight director Dennis Skelton led the fight. After 24 days on strike, an agreement was reached. Though it blocked the expansion of a new part-time workforce, it allowed the increase of volume being diverted to the rails from 10% to 28%. The old-guard and their rank-and-file supporters described this as a concession and used it against Carey in the 1996 election.
The 1996 Election, the 1997 UPS Strike and the Fall of Ron Carey
The 1994 Safety Strike that witnessed over half of the Teamster locals nationwide scab clearly exemplified the divisions between the Teamsters’ reform movement and the pro-business old-guard. In the Teamsters’ 1996 general election, the latter expressed their bitter discontentment by allying themselves behind the son of the Mafia-tied Jimmy Hoffa—James P. Hoffa Jr. The younger Hoffa was no working-class hero, and the old guard clearly knew that. He was what Carey referred to as an “empty suit” and was, in fact, a corporate lawyer fighting on the side of big business—just another nepoteamster with a very famous name aspiring to take the highest office of the union.4 In 1991, Hoffa Jr. had been ruled ineligible to run since he had not met the 24-month guidelines to qualify him.
Much like the Teamsters’ old-guard, the media also jumped on the Hoffa bandwagon and promoted him like he was the savior of corporate America. Unfortunately for a bitter and vindictive old-guard made up of many nepoteamsters and their entourage of blind cheerleaders, goons and thugs, the majority of rank-and-file members voted against going back to the misery and corruption of the past. They voted by a 52% to 48% margin to not only give Carey another five years, but for a chance to negotiate the important 1997 UPS contract. Carey, who distrusted Washington politicians, abstained from endorsing the reelection of the pro-NAFTA Clinton in 1996. Under his leadership, the Teamsters never donated any money to the GOP, either, because of their hostility to labor.
Upon winning reelection, Carey created the Field Service Department, which was designed to train a crew of Field Representatives to represent 185,000 members in contract negotiations. These “field reps,” as they were referred to, were sent into uncooperative locals. Carey began fighting a war on two fronts — against both UPS and the old-guard locals now under the clear leadership of Hoffa. In March 1997, negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS began. Carey made it clear in a press conference to the media that “UPS is a billion-dollar company that can afford to provide good full-time jobs with pension and healthcare.”5 A few days later, Carey and his new package director Ken Hall sat across the table to exchange proposals. Throughout the rounds of negotiations Carey did what no Teamster leader had done since the 1934 Trotskyist-led Minneapolis Teamsters Strike: he mobilized the membership.
During negotiations, it was revealed that top UPS executives were working in collusion with old-guard officers to undermine Carey’s efforts. It was clear that UPS and more than half of the old-guard locals were not going to the table to bargain in good faith. Carey countered by delivering a statement: “It has been called to my attention that some local unions are not complying with the negotiating committee’s policy and strategy.”6 Many of the field reps that were sent out to engage with members at the gates were often met by unpleasant business agents and a few shop-stewards loyal to their old-guard locals. These locals were uncooperative at every turn, and were clearly committed to sabotaging the union’s efforts at landing a strong contract.
In May 1997, UPS proposed the complete takeover of health, welfare, and pension funds, a seven-year agreement, and the expansion of all aspects of their Air Operations to part-time employees. They also demanded that starting pay not be increased, and asserted the right to force workers to cross picket lines. On the third day of that round of negotiations, it became clear to Carey and Hall that the company was not budging on their demands, so Hall made the call to leave the table. In July, locals across the nation held strike authorization votes where members voted between 90% to 95% in favor.
Despite raking in $1 billion in 1996, UPS made the claim they could not afford to create the “large” number of full-time jobs Carey was demanding. In July, the company made its “last, best and final offer.”7 UPS proposed a lower wage increase than the $2.25 from the 1993 agreement, the creation of only 200 full-time jobs, the expansion of subcontracting, and full control of full-time employees’ pension funds. On Thursday, July 31st federal mediators forced two representatives from each side to meet. Members were ready to walk the picket lines, but the action was halted. On Sunday, August 3rd, Carey addressed the media over UPS’s reluctance to meet the union’s key issues and said, “I assure you at 12:01, we’ll be on strike.”8
UPS never believed Carey would take his membership out on strike so it failed to develop a Plan B. They lobbied the Clinton administration to halt the strike using powers from the Taft-Hartley Act, but the president refused. The strike, organized around the slogan “Part-Time America Doesn’t Work,” lasted 15 days and cost UPS more than $600 million. Fears of even larger losses finally led management to concede defeat. Carey’s action against “Big Brown” paralyzed the greater part of the company’s international and U.S. distribution services at the time. So the package-handling giant had to agree to the central demands of the union. UPS agreed to union control of its own pension funds, committed to address unsafe working conditions, and agreed to create an unheard-of 10,000 full-time jobs. Carey also landed the largest wage increases in UPS history: $3.10 over five years for full-timers, $4.10 for part-timers and $1.05 in pension contributions. He also succeeded in raising the starting wage from $8 to $8.50 per hour for the first time since 1982.
In an interview with Deepa Kumar, author of Outside the Box, Carey recalled that when a settlement was reached to end the strike, UPS’s top negotiator Dave Murray got up and said: “You will be sorry till the day you die.”9
While for some on the left Carey’s victory did not go far enough, for others it was the largest labor victory in a generation. It came after decades of crushing defeats that emerged as a result of deregulation in the 1970s, the defeat of 13,000 Professional Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) in 1981, and the destruction of unionized manufacturing jobs across the Rust Belt states in the 1980s due to outsourcing.
In 1996, TDU had again helped Carey win reelection, but Carey committed the mistake of not running a grassroots campaign like he did in 1991. Instead of having the then-credible TDU run his reelection campaign, he opted to hire Jere Nash as his campaign manager alongside two Democratic party operatives: Martin Davis of November Group Political Consultants and Michael Ansara of Share Group Telemarketing. Together, they illegally funneled more than $200,000 into Carey’s reelection campaign. The election supervisor Barbara Zack Quindel found that Carey was not personally involved, nor did he have any knowledge of the transaction. But following the victorious UPS strike, Quindel nullified the 1996 election and called for a new one because Carey had benefited from illegal campaign contributions. In November 1997, angered by the Teamsters winning the strike against UPS, newly-appointed election supervisor Kenneth Conboy disqualified Carey from the rerun election. Was this a corporate-Washington conspiracy, and a witch-hunt against a unionist who didn’t compromise?
In the 1998 special election, Washington’s plan worked to help restore the old-guard to power with the election of James P. Hoffa Jr., son of the notorious and mafia-tied Jimmy Hoffa who in the 1950s and 1960s had invited the most infamous members of La Cosa Nostra family to infiltrate the halls of the IBT and loot it.10 The election of Hoffa Jr. ushered in an era of labor peace, the return of extra perks such as multiple salaries, multiple pension contributions, thuggery, and endless corruption scandals. Under his leadership, UPS and corporate America triumphed through a flood of concessionary contracts with every employer.
The Vindication of Ron Carey
In January 2001 a federal grand jury under the direction of the SDNY indicted Carey on charges that he had lied in the investigation of the 1996 election. He was accused of five counts of violating the federal false statement statute, and two counts of perjury. Each of the seven charges carried a five-year prison sentence. When his trial started in April, Carey’s defense managed to dissect and destroy the credibility of the prosecution’s two main witnesses: Jere Nash and Monie Simpkins who, in fear of facing prison-time, systematically lied about Carey’s involvement in their scheme.
During the trial it was revealed that Nash, a con artist, had cheated the IRS by not reporting a $50,000 bonus which November Group had paid him in 1996. Nash finally admitted that Carey was not involved in any way in any of the illegal transactions. When Simpkins’ turn to testify came, it was revealed that she had altered her story multiple times. She also admitted that Carey had never approved any of the transactions. Other witnesses testified that all illegal activity had been conducted without Carey’s knowledge.
On October 12, 2001, after deliberating for three days, the jury returned to the courtroom with the verdict. They found Ron Carey not guilty on all seven counts. Reiman adds: “The twelve jurors rejected the government’s case that Ron lied to government officials in order to cover up an illegal swap scheme” and furthermore that his defense team, headed by Reid Weingarten, exposed a “rotten conspiracy” by the government and its agents to go after an incorruptible unionist.11 Other staffers, like Bill Hamilton, who lied to stay out of prison were, indeed, sentenced to three years in prison.
Conclusion
In the twenty-five years since the old-guard returned to power with the election of Hoffa Jr., he and his blind supporters have made it a point to label Carey as corrupt. Although O’Brien took over the union leadership just over two-years ago, he has been mute about Carey since entering into an alliance with the now discredited TDU.12 It is unlikely he is a fan. Carey’s resilience on reforming the most bureaucratized and corrupt union in North America by ending the grotesque, thuggish and lavish lifestyles of the old-guard does not sit well with O’Brien, who has maintained the same, old-guard policies reintroduced by Hoffa in 1999. The bloated and multiple salaries, multiple pension contributions, nepotism, thuggish behavior, and unending attacks against genuine reformers who question concessionary contracts, lack of pension improvements, and aspire for a true, militant union continue to be the norm under O’Brien.
According to the “$200K Club” report by the most credible Teamsters reform source, the T-union Link, a total of 160 Teamster officers raked in over $200,000 in total compensation in 2023. Hoffa left-over and Amazon Teamster Director Randy Korgan leads the list at over $502,000. This would be unfathomable under Carey. Note that this does not include the multiple pension contributions most of them enjoy.
Reiman’s book is a wonderful testimony to the life and struggles of Ron Carey. The book resuscitates the life and story of not only an honest and incorruptible man, but by far the most accomplished Teamster leader in history— a leader who refused to entertain politicians he had grown to distrust, especially those with a history of anti-worker ideas. Carey would never have entertained meeting with far-right election deniers and anti-science warriors with anti-union records such as Donald Trump’s, or conspiracy-spewing QAnon Republicans such as Ohio’s J.D. Vance and Missouri’s Josh Hawley. Rather, Carey worked to better the lives of American workers through strong contracts and pension improvements. Unlike O’Brien, Carey never cared about his own personal image or gaining the spotlight. The book should be read by all Teamsters, union members, labor students and all those interested in transforming the course of labor history.
Furthermore, to compare an opportunist and thug to the very marrow of his bones like Sean O’Brien to Ron Carey today is not only morally wrong, but an insult to the legacy of Carey and union militancy around the globe.
- “Hofficer” is a term coined by rank-and-file reformer Larry Parker, describing the most ardent old-guard officers blindly loyal to Hoffa.
- Edgar Esquivel, “The Forgotten History of William McCarthy and Boston Teamsters Local 25,” New Politics, September 20, 2021.
- James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman, Breaking the Devil’s Pact: The Battle to Free the Teamsters from the Mob, (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 123.
- Nepoteamsters are those who were accommodated with cozy union jobs through family lineage, close friendships and/or favoritism.
- Joe Allen, The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS, (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020), 111.
- Ibid., 113.
- “America’s Victory: The 1997 UPS Strike,” Youtube, July 27, 2007.
- Allen, 120.
- Deepa Kumar, Outside the Box, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 192.
- Barry Eidlin, “We Shouldn’t Be Nostalgic for Jimmy Hoffa,” Jacobin, January 2, 2020.
- Ken Reiman, Ron Carey and the Teamsters: How a UPS Driver Became the Greatest Union Reformer of the 20th Century by Putting Members First, (New York: Monthly Review, Press, 2014), 247.
- Tom Leedham and Dan La Botz, “What’s Really Going On with the Teamsters and TDU?,” Counter Punch, May 9, 2024.