April 19, 1996
VIA UPS OVERNIGHT
Richard Lopez
606 N. 6th Avenue
Maywood, IL 60153
Eddie Kornegay, Trustee
Teamsters Local Union 743
300 S. Ashland Avenue
Chicago, IL 60607
Re: Election Office Case No. P-715-LU743-CHI
Gentlemen:
A pre-election protest was filed pursuant to Article XIV, Section 2(b) of the Rules for the IBT International Union Delegate and Officer Election (“Rules”) by Richard Lopez, a member of Local Union 743. Mr. Lopez alleges that when the Take Back Local 743 slate attempted to distribute its campaign material to the membership through a mailhouse assigned it by the local union the local union provided the mailhouse with a membership list containing only 14,787 names. The protester alleges that this list is incomplete because the leadership of Local Union 743 has consistently reported that the local union had 20,000 active members.
Richard Lopez
April 19, 1996
Page 1
The local union responds that because of the relocation of a large employer of Local Union 743 members the approximate number of local union members has fallen from 20,000 to 17,700. According to the local union, the remaining discrepancy results from the fact that the local union did not have current addresses for many members. If materials mailed by the local union to a member are returned as undeliverable, the local union’s processing department makes a note of the return. After this note has been made, the defective address no longer appears on mailing lists or labels printed by the local union. The local union states that it has been trying to obtain current address information but that some portion of its records will always by out of date.
Adjunct Regional Coordinator Dennis Sarsany investigated the protest.
The investigation revealed that the membership labels provided to the mail house were prepared by the IBT at the request of Local Union 743 Trustee Eddie Kornegay. The labels were printed from the TITAN system but did not include the addresses of members whose records contained a notation indicating that the address was incorrect or incomplete. An examination of the local union’s monthly per capita reports for the five months from October 1995 to February 1996 reveals that the local union reported its active membership to be, on average, 17,300 per month.
On April 2, 1996, Adjunct Regional Coordinator Dennis Sarsany discussed the discrepancy between the reported number of members and the number of labels printed with Robert Walston, the representative for the protester’s slate. Mr. Sarsany explained that addresses noted as incorrect would not be included but that he could have the IBT provide these addresses to the mail house in time for the slate mailing. Mr. Walston, who professed to be familiar with the TITAN system and the practice of coding defective addresses, refused this offer. He responded that it would be an ineffective use of his slate’s resources to distribute campaign material to addresses known to be incorrect.
The mail house was provided an edited set of labels with the approval of the slate representative. As a result, Mr. Lopez’s protest is without merit. Accordingly, his protest is DENIED.
Any interested party not satisfied with this determination may request a hearing before the Election Appeals Master within one day of receipt of this letter. The parties are reminded that, absent extraordinary circumstances, no party may rely upon evidence that was not presented to the Office of the Election Officer in any such appeal. Requests for a hearing shall be made in writing and shall be served on:
Kenneth Conboy, Esq.
Latham & Watkins
885 Third Avenue, Suite 1000
New York, NY 10022
Fax (212) 751-4864
Richard Lopez
April 19, 1996
Page 1
Copies of the request for hearing must be served on the parties listed above as well as upon the Election Officer, 400 N. Capitol Street, Suite 855, Washington, D.C. 20001, Facsimile (202) 624-3525. A copy of the protest must accompany the request for a hearing.
Sincerely,
Barbara Zack Quindel
Election Officer
cc: Kenneth Conboy, Election Appeals Master
Julie Hamos, Regional Coordinator
Dennis Sarsany, Adjunct Regional Coordinator