OFFICE OF THE ELECTION SUPERVISOR
for the
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS
IN RE: TEAMSTERS UNITED, ) Protest Decision 2015 ESD 24
) Issued: August 18, 2015
Protestor. ) OES Case No. P-030-080615-SO
____________________________________)
Teamsters United filed a pre-election protest pursuant to Article XIII, Section 2(b) of the Rules for the 2015-2016 IBT International Union Delegate and Officer Election (“Rules”). The protest alleged that Local Union 509 used union resources to distribute accreditation petitions for circulation.
Election Supervisor representative Dolores Hall investigated this protest.
Findings of Fact and Analysis
On July 22, 2015, John Collins solicited accreditation signatures before work in the employee parking lot at UPS’s Myrtle Beach facility, where he works and serves as a job steward for Local Union 509. He told our investigator he asked Mike Lineback to sign his petition. Lineback, also a steward, declined, stating that he had a petition for Hoffa-Hall 2016 to circulate.
When Collins saw Lineback next, on August 5, he asked Lineback if he had downloaded the petition from a campaign website, just as Collins had done to obtain the petitions he circulated for the rival campaign. According to Collins, Lineback told him he had received the petitions in the mail from the union hall, on union letterhead in a union envelope.
Collins reported this information to the Teamsters United campaign. This protest followed.
Investigation showed that the Hoffa-Hall 2016 petition campaign was coordinated in Local Union 509 by Powell Caldwell, the local union’s secretary-treasurer, and Mike Powers, a business agent. Caldwell told our investigator that he composed a letter to shop stewards asking their assistance in circulating the petitions, doing so on his home computer in the evening after work on July 17, 2015. The digital properties of the Word document substantiate that it was last modified on July 17, 2015, at 7:17 p.m. and last printed at 7:24 p.m. the same date.
According to Caldwell, he mailed the letter, a petition, an instruction sheet from the Hoffa-Hall 2016 website on how properly to circulate petitions, and a stamped return envelope to 26 stewards of the nearly 220 the local union has. He and Powers selected the stewards based on the fact that they knew them, had their addresses from previous occasions of sending them materials, and believed it was likely they would agree to help with the petition drive. Caldwell produced a complete copy of all documents sent to the select stewards.
Caldwell and Powers deny obtaining the steward addresses from the local union hall or the TITAN system. There is no contrary evidence.
Although the instructions from the campaign for circulating the petitions were part of the package Caldwell sent, he highlighted important rules in his cover letter, including that members should be off the clock or on break and not in a work area when signing. The letter was plain paper, not on any type of letterhead; it stated in capital letters at the bottom, “NO UNION FUNDS HAVE BEEN USED FOR THIS LETTER OR MAILING.”
The address used on the return envelope was a post office box. A post office receipt showed the box was first rented by Mike Powers’ wife in July 2004, and Powers supplied proof that the box was paid with personal funds.
Of the 26 packages he sent out, Caldwell said he received only 5 replies. He produced to our investigator the five return envelopes. They were postmarked as follows: one on July 21, three on July 25, and one on July 27. Two had no return address, two had handwritten return addresses, and one had a label return address that featured a color drawing of a toddler and an infant. None had union hall return addresses.
After the protest was filed, Caldwell contacted two stewards to whom he mailed petition packages but who had not responded. They returned the postmarked packages to Caldwell, who supplied them to our investigator. The postmarked packages were contained in plain white #10 business envelopes purchased from CVS, printed with Caldwell’s home address as the return address, and hand addressed to individuals. The envelopes bore self-stick Forever first-class flag stamps and were postmarked July 17, 2015. The envelope contents were the items Caldwell said he had sent, with no union letterhead or union envelope. The return envelope the stewards were to use to send back the petitions was the #10 business envelope printed with Mike Powers name and PO box number. The return envelope bore a Forever stamp.
Our investigator spoke with a steward who was sent a package but did not circulate petitions. He said neither the envelope he received nor the contents included any Local Union 509 letterhead or designation.
Caldwell also provided a USPS receipt dated July 17, 2015 for 80 Forever stamps, and proof that he overnighted the signed petitions he collected to Hoffa-Hall 2016 offices using a personal credit card on July 30, 2015.
Our investigator interviewed Lineback, the steward who Collins said had told him he received the petitions from the union hall on union letterhead in a union envelope. Lineback denied telling Collins that. Lineback stated that his wife opened the mail, saw the letter from Caldwell, a petition, a Hoffa flyer, and a return envelope, and saved it for her husband. Lineback said nothing in the mailing was on union letterhead.
The Rules prohibit use of union resources to support or oppose a candidate. Here, despite Collins’ assertion as to what Lineback told him, all credible evidence and documentation presented to our investigator demonstrates that union resources were not used to circulate Hoffa-Hall 2016 petitions at Local Union 509.
Accordingly, we DENY this protest.
Any interested party not satisfied with this determination may request a hearing before the Election Appeals Master within two (2) working days of receipt of this decision. The parties are reminded that, absent extraordinary circumstances, no party may rely upon evidence that was not presented to the Office of the Election Supervisor in any such appeal. Requests for a hearing shall be made in writing, shall specify the basis for the appeal, and shall be served upon:
Kathleen A. Roberts
Election Appeals Master
JAMS
620 Eighth Avenue, 34th floor
New York, NY 10018
kroberts@jamsadr.com
Copies of the request for hearing must be served upon the parties, as well as upon the Election Supervisor for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 1050 17th Street, N.W., Suite 375, Washington, D.C. 20036, all within the time prescribed above. A copy of the protest must accompany the request for hearing.
Richard W. Mark
Election Supervisor
cc: Kathleen A. Roberts
2015 ESD 24
DISTRIBUTION LIST (BY EMAIL UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED):
Bradley T. Raymond, General Counsel
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
25 Louisiana Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
braymond@teamster.org
David J. Hoffa
1701 K Street NW, Ste 350
Washington DC 20036
hoffadav@hotmail.com
Ken Paff
Teamsters for a Democratic Union
P.O. Box 10128
Detroit, MI 48210-0128
ken@tdu.org
Barbara Harvey
1394 E. Jefferson Avenue
Detroit, MI 48207
blmharvey@sbcglobal.net
Teamsters United
315 Flatbush Avenue, #501
Brooklyn, NY 11217
info@teamstersunited.org
Louie Nikolaidis
350 West 31st Street, Suite 40
New York, NY 10001
lnikolaidis@lcnlaw.com
Julian Gonzalez
350 West 31st Street, Suite 40
New York, NY 10001
jgonzalez@lcnlaw.com
David O’Brien Suetholz
515 Park Avenue
Louisville, KY 45202
dave@unionsidelawyers.com
Fred Zuckerman
P.O. Box 9493
Louisville, KY 40209
fredzuckerman@aol.com
Teamsters Local Union 509
2604 Fish Hatchery Road
West Columbia, SC 29172
teamsters509@bellsouth.net
Dolores Hall
1000 Belmont Pl
Metairie, LA 70001
dhall@ibtvote.org
Jeffrey Ellison
214 S. Main Street, Suite 210
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
EllisonEsq@aol.com