Hoffa touts union organizing efforts to gain members

David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Teamsters President James P. Hoffa said Friday the union recruited 23,000 new members in 2007 and ended the year with membership above where it was in 2006.

"That might not sound like a lot, but it is a lot," Hoffa told reporters at a lunch at the National Press Club. "We are out organizing every day."

Despite some layoffs, the Teamsters will end 2007 up roughly 13,000 members to nearly 1.45 million, spokesman Bret Caldwell said.

The Teamsters had 1,398,573 members as of the end of 2006, according to a report filed with the Department of Labor in April. The union mostly represents truckers, including 240,000 UPS drivers.

Hoffa said the new union members included bus drivers, police officers, corrections officers, hotel workers, supermarket employees and local government employees. The union has already gained another 5,000 members in 2008 — most of them at UPS Freight.

"It’s so tough out there," he said. "If you’re in one industry and you don’t change and you don’t find new areas to organize, you’re going to have a very hard time growing."

The United Auto Workers has seen its membership decline repeatedly in recent years, as Detroit’s Big Three automakers and Delphi Corp. have eliminated more than 100,000 UAW-hourly positions since 2005.

The U.S. Labor Department said overall union membership edged up in 2007 for the first time since the 1970s, up 2 percent, or 311,000, to 15.7 million. Final 2007 numbers won’t be filed until April.

Hoffa also talked about the union’s aggressive campaign to oust Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, including launching a Web site and posting a billboard at a subway stop frequented by Transportation Department workers. The Teamsters are upset that Peters OK’d a pilot program that allows Mexican trucks and drivers to cross into the United States. The Teamsters will challenge the decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Feb. 12.

Peters’ spokesman Brian Turmail called the Teamsters’ campaign sad.

"This is the kind of thing people do when they don’t have the facts on their side, when they keep losing in court," he said.

In an interview after the lunch, Hoffa, who splits time between his home in Oakland County and Washington, D.C., also said:

• The Teamsters are talking with two small unions about merging, including one with about 60,000 members.

• The union is committed to helping companies with union drivers compete with non-union companies. Yet some union members have complained about the contracts Hoffa has negotiated, suggesting he could have gotten better deals for truckers at UPS and other large shippers.

• Like the UAW, the Teamsters will not endorse Barack Obama, D-Ill., or Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for president. Instead, the union will wait until after the Democratic nominee is determined. The union has won a pledge from both candidates on several key issues.