(The Associated Press circulated the following story on September 2.)
DETROIT — The 1.4 million-member Teamsters union is stepping up its recruiting efforts among unrepresented workers and is seeking mergers with other unions, President James P. Hoffa says.
The nation’s largest private-sector union marks its 100th anniversary this week.
“Organizing is our new priority,” Hoffa said. “We are at 1.4 million members. We want to stay there. The future of the Teamsters Union is bright and robust and we’re on the verge of an organizing revolution.”
The union has added 100 professional organizers to its staff, Hoffa told The Detroit News for a Sunday story. He said they will seek new members in the trucking industry as well as among health care and other public sector workers.
The Teamsters are merging with the 40,000-member Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Hoffa said his union is considering other mergers but will not say what they are because “somebody else might go after them.”
Hoffa has said that the Teamsters and the federal government are in negotiations that could result in the end of government supervision.
The government has run much of the Teamsters’ operations since 1989, when the union signed a consent decree to settle a civil racketeering suit that accused the union of being under organized crime control.
Michael Cherkasky, who was appointed by the government to supervise the 1998 Teamster election won by Hoffa, said it is time for the government to step aside.
“I think that all the government can do, it has done,” he said. “It is now time for the Teamsters union, for good or ill, to be on their own.”