As the labor union representing immigrant workers at Silver Capital Corp., a mirror factory in Bedford Park, the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 743 was supposed to fight for the workers' rights -- specifically, to oppose the sudden massive lay-offs with few severance benefits that the company proposed this summer. Instead, the mostly immigrant workers at Silver Capital feel the leadership of the union, which is one of the largest Teamsters locals in the country, workers say the union leadership cooperated with the
Silver Capital owners and left the employees out to dry.

Marcela Garcia, one of the about 175 workers who were laid off from Silver Capital in September, decided to take matters into her own hands and run for office as part of a seven-person 'New Leadership Slate' (NLS) running against the incumbent officers for Teamsters Local 743. The elections are being done by mail, and the ballots will be counted Oct 16.

The NLS, whose supporters include the group Teamsters for a Democratic Union, ran a similar reform slate against the entrenched Local 743 leadership in the last Local union election in 2001. Bringing up memories of the US presidential election the previous year, NLS supporters say the election was stolen from them. About a thousand ballots turned up missing, and later it was discovered union Secretary-Treasurer Diane Strickland, one of the candidates on the incumbent slate, had a key to the PO box where the undeliverable ballots were returned. Hundreds of ballots for the reform slate were also invalidated, they say wrongfully.

This time, Garcia and her supporters charge, Local 743 leaders are trying to do a similar thing. The ballots are sent out to the about 11,500 members in workplaces around the region including the University of Chicago hospital, Provident Hospital and nursing homes and other health care facilities. Especially because of the high population of undocumented immigrant members, many of the addresses on the union's membership list are outdated or invalid. These ballots are returned to a specific PO
box for undeliverable ballots.

But, NLS supporters charge, both in the last election and in this one Local 743 officials took the undeliverable ballots and falsified votes on them for themselves. Richard Berg, a housekeeper at the University of Chicago who is running for Local president on the reform slate, noted that in late September NLS sent a mailing on the same day to the same list of addresses
that the Local administration used for sending ballots. When Berg and other NLS supporters went to the post office on Sep. 29, they had 295 pieces of mail returned, while there were only 58 returned ballots in the election PO box. On Oct. 4, the NLS supporters had 291 returns, while there were 205 ballots returned.

The numbers should have been virtually the same -- so where did the others go? Berg notes that again candidate Diane Strickland had a key to the PO box, even though it should have been a neutral elections officer, not a candidate, who had access to the box and returned ballots. The reform slate has filed a complaint with the national Teamsters administration
about the missing ballots.

"So they took them and will vote for themselves," said Berg. "They're doing the same thing they did last time. They have a history of being thieves, of connections to organized crime, of doing things to enrich themselves.

Berg's are not idle charges; there has been substantial publicity about Local 743's questionable activity and connections, including a long history of connections to organized crime.

One man, Don Peters, served as president of Local 743 for over 40 years until the federal government ordered him to step down and have no further involvement in union leadership in 1988, because of proof of his involvement in organized crime. The Chicago-based "Police and Sheriff's News Service" describes Peters' time with Local 743 including his connections to known Mob businessman Allen Dorfman: "[Peters'] automobile was parked in the driveway of Dorfman's residence in Riverwoods, Illinois, hours after Dorfman was shot and killed in the parking lot of the Lincolnwood Hyatt Hotel in 1983. What the vehicle was doing there at the time of Dorfman's demise, one can only surmise. The two men were known to be close personal friends, and Peters assisted Allen's continuance as the health and welfare fund's administrator even after Dorfman was convicted of conspiracy and wire fraud in 1972. Dorfman was always recognized as a man to be seen when it came to pension loans and manipulative activities within the
[Teamsters] Fund."

After Peters was removed from office, he continued to exercise control over Local 743 through his hand-picked successor, Robert Simpson, who became president. After reformer Ron Carey was elected the national Teamsters head in 1991, he removed Simpson and placed Local 743 in trusteeship, allowing the first democratic elections for the Local to be held.

But even with elections, members say, Local 743 has continued to be controlled by corrupt officials who use unethical and illegal tactics to win elections. They want to change that, to see Local 743 led by workers who will genuinely act in the best interest of the workers they represent.

Marcela Garcia, 47, is helping lead the effort. Garcia had worked at Silver Capital for 17 years when she got the notice in August telling her she had only two more weeks to work. In order to get any severance payments, she was told she'd have to sign a letter promising not to sue or make any complaints against the company -- or the union. Feeling she was being cheated, she refused. Now she is running for secretary on the reform slate, along with workers from the University of Chicago, Providence Hospital and Frederick Cooper, a Chicago lamp factory where workers also felt betrayed by Local
743.

Garcia's husband was also among the about 125 workers, almost all Mexican immigrants, who were laid off from Silver Capital. Their last day of work was Sept. 10, as the company vastly downsized the factory to compete with products made in China and move most of its production to another facility in Arizona. Garcia noted that many of the laid off workers were those with the most seniority, like her with 16 or more years service. Now the about 25 workers still at Silver Capital are primarily hired through a day labor agency.

Workers filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board charging that Local 743 violated its duty to fairly represent them by failing to negotiate a decent severance package.

"There was a lot of tension there," said Garcia, in Spanish. "There was a lot of intimidation. They would say you're going to work faster, and if you don't, you'll get less pay. The union didn't support or advise the employees, they were working with the owners."

Workers say Local 743 vice president Jose Galvan, who is running for vice president again, actually threatened to call immigration officials to report that many of the workers are undocumented if they didn't cooperate. Other union members point out that this is the same tactic Local 743 has used in the past to influence undocumented workers.

"When we talk to people at different workplaces [represented by Local 743] they're not surprised to hear about Galvan threatening to call immigration," said Berg, who also ran for president on the reform slate in 2001. "They know he does that and they're glad we're going after him."

(Representatives from Local 743 failed to return calls for this story.)

"Every contract negotiation they'd say, 'Sorry, we have to take [the company's offer], if you don't, they'll call immigration,'" said Esmeralda Cuevas, part of the reform slate and a worker at Frederick Cooper. "They're corrupt, they don't do anything for the members of the union, only for the owners."

For results of the Teamsters Local 743 election and more on this story, see the November issue of Third Coast Press.