Hoffa's support endures

Union leaders praise Teamsters president

By ANGIE WAGNER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two years after James P. Hoffa was swept into office on promises of ridding his father's old union of corruption and government oversight, the Teamsters president was nominated for another term Thursday as allegations of wrongdoing swirled around his top aide.

"We're on a real good path with Mr. Hoffa," said Loyd Kirk, a Teamsters organizer from Rialto, Calif. "What he has done in a little over two years in amazing."

A convention hall inside the Paris Las Vegas turned into a sea of gold vests with Hoffa printed on their backs. The boisterous crowd of 7,000 Teamsters and their families chanted "Hof-fa," "Hof-fa" and gave their leader a standing ovation.

Tom Leedham of Portland, Ore., also was nominated, but to the sounds of boos and jeers.

"It's not unexpected," he said.

Some 1.4 million Teamster members in the United States and Canada will vote for the union's president in October.

Later Thursday, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao was scheduled to speak to the 26th International Convention of the Teamsters, who were meeting in Las Vegas for the first time since 1986.

Hoffa was elected in 1999 when he defeated Ron Carey, who is under indictment for lying during an investigation into how $885,000 in union funds were diverted to his 1996 re-election campaign against Hoffa. The union is prohibited from using its money to fund elections for union members.

Hoffa promised to clean up the union. Most members believe he did, and they seemed uninterested Thursday in the problems surrounding Hoffa's special personal assistant, Dane Passo.

Last month the top investigator for a government oversight board filed internal union charges saying Passo and Chicago Teamster leader William T. Hogan Jr. tried to undercut Teamster members in Las Vegas by giving jobs to hundreds of nonunion workers at conventions.

The two also are accused of agreeing to let a Chicago employment agency, United Service Companies, provide the nonunion workers and pay them about half of the $20-an-hour wage, with benefits, that union workers were receiving under their contract.

Hoffa had sent Passo to Las Vegas to help oversee the union's operations here.

Passo and Hogan have denied any wrongdoing.

Leedham is hoping to capitalize on the accusations, but the cheers of his few supporters were drowned out Thursday by the pro-Hoffa crowd. He accused Hoffa of telling Teamsters to boo him and block microphones so his supporters couldn't be heard.

"That is the record Hoffa will have to live with," Leedham said, adding that he has more support with union rank-and-file members than the union officers who dominated the convention.

Several Teamsters said Leedham has lost support because he crosses picket lines. Still the challenger's call for reform struck a chord with some backers.

"We need somebody that's not going to be corrupt in office," Leedham supporter James Langer said. "I think it's because of his dad. I think it's the name," the truck driver from Milwaukee said, linking Hoffa's popularity to his famous father.

His long-missing father, Jimmy Hoffa, was the union's most famous leader.

Jimmy Hoffa, the legendary Teamsters president from 1957 until 1971, disappeared from an Oakland County, Mich., restaurant in 1975 and is presumed dead. The elder Hoffa had been trying to regain control of the union after serving a three-year prison sentence for jury tampering, fraud and conspiracy.

"He's got the same blood running through him his father does," said an approving Tony Villegas, 30, a Teamsters business agent from Rialto, Calif.

The last time the Teamsters held their convention in Las Vegas, 15 years ago, union President Jackie Presser -- a 350-pound behemoth indicted by the Justice Department on corruption charges -- was paraded through Caesars Palace in a gilded sedan chair by four men clad as Roman gladiators. "Hail Caesar," they chanted.

On Thursday, Hoffa's supporters lifted him up with their praise.