Teamster President James Hoffa’s October, 2008 decision to shut down a thriving 10,000 member Chicago local active in organizing drives and disband it at a time when many other locals are struggling and losing membership, sends an ominous message to those who believe in union democracy, due process or the traditional view that a union’s role is to defend and serve the needs of its members. Ironically, members of Local 714 are currently being parceled out to other Chicago locals that have been in decline and have failed to attract new members. Many former members of Local 714 are fed up with being deprived of the leaders they elected and plan to decertify from the Teamsters altogether.

The destruction of a Local 714, which was announced by Joint Council 25 President, is the shameful endgame of a political vendetta by Hoffa who joined forces with a controversial federal watchdog unit known as the Internal Review Board (IRB) which he has publicly criticized, to destroy a local whose leaders opposed the curtailment free speech, free assembly and due process for union officials who have found themselves unjustly targeted. The IRB’s mandate to remove mob influence was accomplished fifteen years ago, according to three major studies sited by the Detroit News. But to justify the continuing lavish salaries of its investigators — chief investigator Charles Carberry was paid $1.1 million in salary during a 2 ½ year period according to filing with the US Dept of Labor — the IRB take sides in internal union politics, targeting individuals on baseless charges that would be laughed out of a regular courtroom.

Under pressure from the (IRB), Hoffa had imposed a trusteeship earlier this year on the local because Local 714’s leader Robert Hogan failed to punish his highly respected Director of Organizing, Bob Riley for speaking with Hogan’s father Bill Hogan Jr., the former head of the local and Riley’s best friend of fifty five years. To punish this outbreak of free speech, Riley was expelled from the union 2005 and banned from speaking to other Teamster members, while Robert Hogan received six month suspension in December for not punishing Riley. To prevent Robert Hogan’s return to the leadership of Local 714 in May of this year, the local was placed in “emergency” trusteeship, though no one from the international could explain what the emergency was with a local that had cooperated with the International. Robert Hogan sent an angry letter to Hoffa criticizing the decision and five months later, Hoffa decided the local is being disbanded by the International Union and its building being sold.

The IRB has targeted Local 714 and the Hogan family for reasons that clearly have nothing to so with its long accomplished original mandate to remove mob influence and corruption which had plagued a number of locals when the IRB was imposed almost 20 years ago as part of a civil RICO lawsuit initiated by then US Attorney Rudy Giuliani. It is a matter of record that neither the IRB nor any federal agency has ever found evidence nor charged any Local 714 official with corruption or mob influence. Bill Hogan Jr., in particular, has been widely praised, not only by other union leaders and members who have worked with him, but is credited by leaders of the trade show industry for making Chicago a national leader in that business. His role in the growth of Chicago film productions was lauded by Lucy Salenger who headed the Illinois Office and says that “without Bill Hogan, there wouldn’t be a film business in Chicago.”

The destructive nature of this political vendetta can be seen in the sequence of events initiated by the IRB against the Local 714 and the Hogan family:

–In 1996, the IRB abruptly moved to force then International President Ron Carey to place Local 714 which was led by Bill Hogan Jr. into trusteeship along with the two other locals whose leaders had supported challenger James Hoffa. The action was taken because of vague, unspecified charges of political “corruption” by the IRB. However, after two years of investigation, neither the trustee nor the IRB were able to find any evidence of corruption. When the trustee organized a widely advertised hearing to take complaints about the former leadership, not a single union member showed up from this large local showed up to file a complaint. Unable to find any evidence of corruption, Bill Hogan’s son Robert sued in federal court in Chicago and a judge ordered that local be returned to the membership which then elected Robert as leader of the Local. Meanwhile, Bill Jr. was returned successfully to the Presidency of the large Joint Council 25 of Chicago.

–Having targeted the Hogan family, but unable to find any hint of corruption at Local 714, the IRB decided to pursue Bill Hogan’s efforts to organize temporary trade show workers into Las Vegas Teamster Local 631. Hogan had been asked by Hoffa’s special representative Dane Passo to assist in this effort and negotiations with management were at an early stage. The IRB, however, which is composed of former law enforcement types with little knowledge of labor negotiations, decided to charge Hogan and Passo of intending to negotiate a “substandard” labor agreement. It was a ludicrous charge because no contract had ever been signed and the sides were not close to agreement. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Juan Andrade asked the obvious question: “How can a non-existing contract be substandard?” Obviously, it can’t. Nevertheless, the IRB pressed the union to expel Bill Hogan and Passo for life and banned them from speaking to any Teamster Union official or member. Unfortunately, the New York federal court, which supervises the consent decree, and which has routinely rubber stamped decisions handed down by the IRB, upheld the baseless action to remove Hogan and Passo.

–Not satisfied to have removed Bill Hogan from the union he loved and served with distinction, the IRB continued to pursue its vendetta against his son Robert, who as leader of Local 714, had begun to repair the damage that occurred under the neglectful two year international trusteeship of the local. That damage including the loss of 3,000 members and a large budget shortfall. The younger Hogan had restored the union back to financial health and with the help of organizing director Bob Riley, signed up 3700 new members, helped bring major new film productions to Chicago (“Dark Knight,” “Eagle Eye”) and was repeatedly re-elected by the membership. The IRB, however, pressed the international union to expel Robert Hogan’s organizing director Bob Riley in 2005 for speaking to his long time friend Bill Hogan. In 2007, IRB charged Robert Hogan with failing to punish Riley for practicing free speech with his friend of 55 years. Earlier that same year, the IRB continued its campaign of harassment against Bill Hogan by filing a contempt charge for speaking to Bob Riley even though Hogan was no longer a union member or party (however reluctantly) to the consent decree.

– The Hoffa administration cautiously disagreed with the IRB’s recommendation to expel Robert Hogan from the union for not punishing Riley and stated that a six month suspension should be enough penalty for Hogan, so a hearing on the issue was held on April 8, 2008. Showing a casual contempt for the union members they are supposedly protecting, the IRB chose to hold its hearing on Bob Hogan’s toleration of free speech between his father and his father’s best friend at a non-union hotel in Schaumburg, Illinois where union members, who had previously picket that hotel, demonstrated outside. IRB investigator Charles Carberry demonstrated his contempt for free speech guarantees as he repeatedly hectored witnesses in his pursuit of further sanctions against Robert Hogan. (see short video of hearing and demonstration.) Hogan’s legal statement details how the IRB had, over time, methodically violated the law by expanding their original limited powers and mandate under the consent decree, even as the original purpose of the consent decree (to remove mob influence) had been accomplished a decade and a half ago.

–Despite its earlier statement that Robert Hogan’s six month sentence

was an adequate penalty for not punishing free speech by a union official, Robert Hogan’s imminent return to the local to serve the members who had elected him, created a dilemma for Hoffa. Despite his occasional public criticisms of the IRB, he abruptly decided to put the local into trusteeship as the IRB wanted. To justify this decision, the International union absurdly claimed that acting Local 714 leaders (who were desperate to avoid yet another politically motivated trusteeship of the local) had failed to “cooperate” with the international union. However, in a blistering letter to Hoffa, Robert Hogan pointed out that only a week before the trusteeship was imposed, “your General Counsel Brad Raymond told the acting Local 714 Secretary Treasurer Mick Vendafreddo that Local 714 was ‘doing a great job.’” Hogan also noted that the international union’s embedded international monitor, Brian Rainville, had sent a letter to IRB administrator John Cronin detailing the efforts of the local to comply with IRB recommendations including giving up its trade show and film production units, which had been organized by two successive generation of Hogans, to the much smaller Local 727 which was headed by John Coli, head of Joint Council 25.

–Despite the lack of any plausible emergency or even one single charge against any officer or employee of the local, the international union arrived one morning in June of 2008, changed the locks and fired every employee but one. (Describe this officer’s background in jail with Hoffa’s father.) Thereafter the International Union violated its own rules by not holding a hearing on the trusteeship within the thirty days as required. When the international union did hold a hearing in August, not surprisingly, international representatives failed to cite one single example of “corruption” in the local, although press statements from the union’s PR staff used this term as a justification for the trusteeship. Mick Vendafredo,

–Meanwhile, the IRB continued its campaign of harassment against Bill Hogan Jr., though he has not been a union member or official since 2002, by attempting to keep him from getting a job. In doing so, the IRB employed a double standard because other union officials who have been removed by the IRB, have routinely been permitted to have contact with Teamster members as part of their new jobs. Hogan who has incurred substantial legal bills in his fight against the IRB efforts to curtail his right of free speech, had accepted an offer to work for a transportation company which was reorganizing its operations. In this capacity, Hogan openly met with Teamster Joint Council 25 leader John Coli who had succeeded him in that post to discuss issues related to Continental Transportation. Had there been any ongoing restriction on such contact, Coli could not have met with Hogan, or he too would face a lifetime ban from the union. Yet the IRB, which has one set of rules for those it targets like the Hogans, and another for everyone else, responded by pursuing another contempt charge against Bill Hogan with Judge Preska in New York federal court where the older Hogan already faces a possible six month sentence for speaking to his best friend Bob Riley, though Hogan is no longer a union member or party to the consent decree.

–The IRB which clearly hoped to ban Robert Hogan for life for failing to punish his organizing director for practicing free speech. Instead, they made a clearly a political decision to simply ban Hogan from running for office for five years at Local 727 where he and others from the trade show unit of Local 714 were transferred as a result of IRB pressure. It appeared there were some internal divisions at the IRB about banning the younger Hogan for life, perhaps a recognition that it might be overreaching, even for this mandate-violating, lavishly paid “watchdog.” Former high ranking Justice Dept official Benjamin Civiletti, who sits on the Board of the IRB, chaired the April hearing for Robert Hogan and appeared uncomfortable at times as he overruled chief investigator Charles Carberry amidst his harangues and hectoring of witnesses. Nevertheless, the continuing IRB vendetta against the Hogan and its need to justify the $7 million it drains annually from the union treasury, combined with James Hoffa’s wish to eliminate potential rivals, led in October to the shameful decision to carve up Local 714 and deny the membership of the leaders they elected to represent them.