Virginian-Pilot (Hampton Roads, Virginia), February 12, 2006, Sunday

Mr. Wright (or more of the same?) for teamsters
By JEREMIAH MCWILLIAMS, The Virginian-Pilot © February 12, 2006
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=99468&ran=209323

At 7 on a brisk morning Tuesday, James Wright was at work, chatting with truck drivers milling around a Chesapeake parking lot full of big rigs near Ford Motor Co.’s assembly plant.
“I like to get started early,” he said.
That’s good, because Wright, 40, has a lot to do. He is the new president of Teamsters Local 822, one of the largest unions in Hampton Roads. After taking over on an interim basis, Wright is putting his stamp on the 2,300-member union local. Former President David Vinson resigned abruptly in October to take a labor relations position in California.
“It’s a quantum leap from any other position because you’re responsible for everybody,” said Wright, who has held a variety of elected offices at Local 822 since 1994. He sat among law books in the Teamsters’ nondescript building, tucked between a Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon and a Veterans of Foreign Wars post near The Gallery at Military Circle. “Night and day, it’s an uphill battle.
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-->“Fortunately, I have a very understanding wife,” he added.
It took a decade for Wright to reach the local union’s top spot. In 1994, he was one of seven candidates casting themselves as reformers who defeated Local 822’s old guard. Until last year, he filled a variety of support roles – trustee, vice president and, most recently, secretary/treasurer – as Vinson held onto the president’s office for three consecutive terms and part of a fourth.
Challengers to that 1994 slate came and went, and everyone else from the original crew faded from union leadership. Wright remained. Now, he’s trying to come to grips with the demands of his new job.
His top challenge is attracting new members amid a two-decade slide in unions’ share of the national work force.
He must also negotiate with representatives of formidable Fortune 500 companies, including UPS and Smithfield Foods, while preventing a repeat of an in-house financial fraud and staving off opponents determined to replace him in fall elections.
Some say Wright already shows a style different from that of his predecessor.
He’s “more visible, more accessible,” said Dwight Riddick, a Teamster shop steward at Allied Systems Ltd., which transports F-150 pickup trucks and other vehicles. “We’ve always seen James over here. Now that he took over as president, he’s over here even more. He will call you back if he’s busy.”
Said Wright: “It’s a 24-hour job … to the point where, at 11 or 12, I have to turn my phone off.”
Wright studied electrical engineering at Norfolk State University, but as a newlywed he stopped 19 credit-hours short of a degree and began work at UPS. He quickly became active in the Teamsters, becoming a shop steward in 1991 and moving up to trustee in 1994. Union bylaws make the secretary/treasurer and three trustees largely responsible for overseeing the union local’s finances.
“I’m still the kind of guy who likes to go out and see the membership and address people’s concerns,” he said.
According to longtime colleague Lisa DelDonna, Wright is quiet and self-controlled in labor-management bargaining sessions.
“He’s always very fair,” said DelDonna, who campaigned alongside Wright in 1994 and won her vice presidential race. “Sometimes you say, 'James, you’re a little too nice.’ I have no qualms with snapping and losing my cool. He doesn’t. When he goes in with management, he’s always very professional.”
Wright said that style reflects confidence in his abilities. “When I go to management, nine times out of 10 it gets resolved pretty quickly,” he said. His talks with managers cover issues such as pay, discipline, working hours and safety conditions.
“I understand the contract,” he added. “My thing is, you can disagree, but you don’t have to be disagreeable. When I’m right, they usually don’t buck me. It’s a respect factor. It’s a credibility factor.”
Wright is often at work at 6 a.m., driving to the union office or Teamsters’ workplaces from his home in Virginia Beach. He is directly involved as business agent, or contract negotiator, with a half-dozen companies, including UPS and Roadway Express.
“I’m going to have to retrain myself,” Wright said. “As a president you have to delegate stuff. Right now I don’t delegate anything.”
Teamsters Local 822 collected more than $745,000 in dues and agency fees in 2004 and spent about $256,000 on representational activities, according to filings with the U.S. Department of Labor. Wright, who puts his salary at $72,000, said the local has grown by about 600 members since 1994.
“Trying to grow, trying to get new members in” is one of the toughest challenges the Teamsters face, Wright said.
Earlier in its history, Local 822 was not afraid to flex its muscle, even when it boasted fewer members. In 1975, the union and 11 Portsmouth police officers sued the city in an attempt to cut off its supply of federal money unless officials agreed to collective bargaining.
In 1976, the local grabbed headlines for calling a strike among Norfolk school bus drivers that turned violent. The strike led to allegations of assault and felony charges against two individuals for throwing rocks at a moving bus.
In 1997, local Teamsters participated in a massive national strike at UPS, pushing for higher wages, health and safety improvements and more control over the company’s pension plan. As business agent, Wright worked to keep picketing workers under control, making sure they weren’t obstructing traffic or drinking alcohol. Even in the thick of the two-week strike, DelDonna remembered, Wright urged demonstrators to keep their cool against strike-breakers.
“He would tell you in a gentlemanly manner, 'You should watch what you say to those people,’” she said. “'Remember, you will have to go back and work with those people.’”
Now, with no major labor-management battles brewing, Teamsters Local 822 has settled into a quiet period. Wright estimates that a union meeting might attract 40 or 45 people – better than last year but still only about 2 percent of members.
“There’s a lot of apathy out there,” Wright said. “It’s sad.”
The fortunes of unions in the United States have declined in recent decades. The share of workers represented by unions dropped from 20.1 percent in 1983 to 12.5 percent last year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unions have been affected by the loss of manufacturing jobs and outsourcing of work to nations that pay lower wages.
With unions representing 4.8 percent of workers in the state, Virginia tied with Arkansas for the third-lowest-percentage in the nation last year, behind South Carolina and North Carolina.
James P. Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, has called unions’ losses an “annual hemorrhaging.”
“It’s a huge problem,” said Lee H. Adler, who teaches labor and employment law at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Ithaca, N.Y. “It’s been on a steady downhill decline from 1953 to now. It’s a different picture you see … in terms of power, in terms of ability to control labor markets, in terms of ability to influence politicians.”
Not everyone is pleased with Local 822’s leadership. A group of opposition candidates is trying to capitalize on frustrations with the leadership of David Vinson, who was criticized by some union members as aloof to their interests and sometimes overbearing on a personal level.
They portray Wright’s presidency as more of the same.
Ray Hardison, a package car and feeder driver who has worked at UPS for 17 years, is spearheading the “Rank and File Slate.” The group is preparing to run a full-fledged campaign to unseat Wright this fall.
“We’re in this because we’re all disgusted with the lack of representation and the weakness that this union has produced in the last decade,” Hardison said. “I don’t think the companies have ever been more confident than they are now in their ability to reign over the local, and that’s got to be turned around.”
Hardison says he doesn’t want to get involved in “James-bashing.” Still, he points out that Wright was an elected union official when Marcia Huizenga, a former bookkeeper and office manager, stole more than $47,000 from the local by writing 77 extra paychecks to herself between 1999 and 2003. She pleaded guilty to embezzlement in November. Her sentencing in federal court is scheduled for Thursday.
The scam wasn’t discovered until an auditor from the international union found it during a regularly scheduled audit in July 2003.
Wright was vice president when the fraud occurred.
“Oh, you had to ask me about that,” Wright said when asked how Huizenga pulled it off. “It was a huge surprise. I don’t know.”
Wright said that all the money has been recouped, and that payroll check-writing is now done by an outside firm. The union local has replaced its outside auditor as well.
“I was working here at the time, and I’ve taken full responsibility,” Wright said. “But we’ve put those safeguards in place, and I’ve aggressively pursued it.”
Wright has had some success in winning over some one-time opponents. Robert Candler, who ran unsuccessfully against Wright for the vice presidency in 2000, now sings Wright’s praises.
“I wish the best for James,” he said. “I hope he can throw a ticket together that will keep him in there.”
Wright said his competitors underestimate the challenges of leading the union, comparing the coming race to his first one.
“The opponents we beat said, 'You just don’t know what you’re doing.’ To some extent, they were right,” he said. “You can’t just wake up in the morning and say you want to be president of the union. It’s like me saying I want to be a heart surgeon.”
News researcher Jakon Hays contributed to this report.
Reach Jeremiah McWilliams at (757) 446-2344 or jeremiah.mcwilliams@pilotonline.com.