Chicago Tribune, October 9, 2009, Friday

Chicago Tribune

October 9, 2009, Friday

Chicago Tribune

As membership declines, Teamsters moving into unlikely territory

Union working its way into health care and public sector jobs

The word "Teamsters" typically conjures up images of burly guys driving beer trucks or puttering around on forklifts in warehouses redolent of diesel fumes. But how about a Teamsters member staffing the checkout desk at a library, or processing an eviction notice at a county courthouse?

Well, the Teamsters union is in fights to represent workers at the Oak Brook Public Library and the Lake County Circuit Court. And these are the sort of nontraditional battles that increasingly have become common in the past decade or so as traditional industrial unions, their membership rolls depleting, aggressively court service workers.

The Steelworkers union has organized many a nursing home, particularly in Minnesota. The United Electrical Workers represents social service workers in Iowa. And the United Autoworkers even has a local that represents freelance writers.

"It's pretty widespread, and the reason they do it is because the sectors they represent have suffered significant job losses," said Robert Bruno, associate professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

It's a well-told tale: Organized labor has been in a free-fall for the past three decades, with 24 percent of workers counting themselves as union members in 1973, but only about 12 percent saying the same last year, according to federal data compiled by Barry Hirsch, a professor at Georgia State University.

Unions saw one bright spot. Membership levels -- as a percent of all workers -- hit a nadir in 2006 but bounced back slightly by the end of 2008. And the areas that have shown the most promise for unions are services such as health care and the public employment sector.

In Chicago, Teamsters' Local 714 is heavy on representing public employees, and its membership includes 3,200 Cook County corrections officers and about 1,800 clerks in Cook County Circuit Court.

About a year ago, Local 714 organized more than 120 clerks in Lake County Circuit Court. It normally takes several weeks or months to negotiate a first contract, said Will Petty, a representative of Local 714.

But after a year, the union still hasn't nailed down a first contract with the Lake County Circuit Court, so the Teamsters filed unfair labor practices charges with the state.

Among other things, the Teamsters alleged that County Clerk Sally Coffelt threatened to discipline workers who support the union.

Coffelt declined to comment.

Meanwhile in Oak Brook, the Teamsters are involved in what appears to be their first attempt to organize librarians in the Chicago area.

The organizing drive, which involves about 10 librarians, comes amid the backdrop of cost cutting in Oak Brook, which reportedly included four layoffs at the library.

So how would the Teamsters be able to organize professionals and white-collar workers?

After all, this is the union synonymous with Jimmy Hoffa, the onetime Teamsters leader convicted of bribery and jury tampering in the 1960s who disappeared in 1975 and has long been presumed dead.

Then there are incidents such as when the Teamsters union in 1996 ousted the leader of Chicago's Local 714 and put it under trusteeship, saying it was run for the benefit of the Hogan family, which had run the local for decades.

"It makes a good sound bite, 'Teamsters are thugs,' " said Brian Rainville, a spokesman for Teamsters Council 25, which encompasses more than 20 Chicago-area locals.

And particularly when the Teamsters organize professionals, naysayers typically pipe in with, " 'These are truck drivers; what do they know about your issues?' " Rainville said.

The union's answer: It has a good track record delivering contracts that lead to better pay and working conditions, he said.

Whether the Teamsters will succeed remains to be seen. But the union has clout on its side. It's one of the largest and most powerful unions in the country. And while it has clearly lost significant membership in trucking, its core sector, it was one of the first unions to realize it needed to diversify, said Rick Hurd, a labor expert at Cornell University.

"The Teamsters have a long history of organizing workers in a lot of different settings," Hurd said. "Who was the biggest, baddest union? The Teamsters, so workers would call them."

In the past decade or so, many industrial unions also have gotten much more aggressive in going beyond their traditional boundaries as their core industries have withered.

For instance, the Auto Workers and Steelworkers have met success in organizing public workers in Michigan and Pennsylvania, respectively, states where both unions are well-known and have political power, Hurd said.

The Steelworkers also went on a tear organizing the health care industry in northeastern Minnesota beginning in the 1990s as the region's traditional bedrock -- iron ore mines -- shed workers.

The union organized about a dozen nursing homes and scored a huge coup by winning over scores of workers at several of the region's largest hospitals and health care networks.

The key to success: The union was well-woven into the fabric of northeastern Minnesota culture, said Dave Foster, who led the Steelworkers district that included Minnesota until 2006.

"We were kind of known in the area and had a good reputation," he said.

mhughlett@tribune.com
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