Ron Carey (labor leader)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ronald Robert Carey (b. March 22, 1936, New York City) is a former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Carey became a soldier in the U.S. Army and served from 1953 - 1955. Then he became a UPS deliveryman in 1955 and a shop steward in the IBT in 1958. Also in 1958 he married his high school girlfriend Barbara Murphy and are married today. In 1963, he ran for business agent of Local 804.

Carey was elected general president of the Teamsters in 1991, in the first secret ballot rank and file election in the history of the union. In 1996 he was narrowly re-elected ahead of James P. Hoffa. Carey led the 15-day strike against United Parcel Service in August 1997 over the issue of the use of part-time workers, but was then disqualified from serving as union president by a federal oversight panel, in relation to a scheme known as Teamstergate, in which funds from the Teamsters were donated in 1996 to political organisations in return for contributions to Carey's re-election campaign^[1]. Carey was expelled from the union, but denied knowledge of the transfers and repeatedly proclaimed his innocence to grand juries and court-appointed monitors.

Carey was charged with perjury for his proclamations of innocence in court. On October 12, 2001, Carey was found not guilty of seven counts of perjury and making false statements to a grand jury and a variety of court-appointed monitors^[2].

In 2007, Ron Carey was researching and writing a book based on his experiences. ^[3]. He is critical of the policies of his successor, Hoffa, particularly centralization of authority, business-model organizing, and the restoration of multiple salaries for IBT officials.