“We can no longer wait as Hoffa’s inaction and inability destroys the Teamsters,” says Sean O’Brien, the head of the Boston’s powerful Teamster local who is challenging James Hoffa for the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Sean O’Brien, the president of Teamsters’ Boston-area Local 25, has announced he will be challenging James P. Hoffa, the president of the international union in the union’s election, nearly three years away.
“We can no longer wait as Hoffa’s inaction and inability destroys the Teamsters,” O’Brien said in a release published on the Teamsters for a Democratic Union‘s website.
A one-time Hoffa ally, O’Brien has become Hoffa’s primary rival after the elder Hoffa dismissed O’Brien from the union’s UPS negotiating committee.
Last September, O’Brien told a local radio host that he may challenge Hoffa but, at the time, he was still considering it.
Hoffa, who will be nearly 80 years old when the next election for Teamsters to choose their union’s leadership takes place, has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months.
In May, an independent investigator “ratcheted up his probe into whether top Teamsters leaders accepted undisclosed gifts from a business that brokered health benefits for the union,” according to the Seattle Times.
The subpoena seeks records showing whether Teamsters officials were given undisclosed golf outings, expensive meals or tickets to sporting events. It also seeks any evidence that may exist about whether Teamsters officers were hired by the providers or broker and whether payments were made to Teamsters officials, including its top leader, James Hoffa, or their relatives.
Although the findings have not been released as of yet, if Hoffa and his top lieutenants are found to have accepted gifts, more improprieties found against Hoffa will be another arrow in O’Brien’s quiver to use against the aged labor boss.
Sean O'Brien Announcement To Run For Teamsters Presidency on Scribd
