International Brotherhood of Teamsters history

In 1905, teamsters aided striking employees of Montgomery Ward & Co.

When Shea was barely reelected at the IBT's 1906 convention, a number of local affiliates in Chicago, Joliet, St Louis, San Francisco, New York, and elsewhere seceded and formed a rival organization, the United Teamsters of America.

1907: Daniel J. Tobin is elected president.

Organized locally in 1912, Local 407 was chartered to unionize men employed as draymen and teamsters for hauling and delivery services.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters votes to affiliate with the Canadian Trades and Labor Congress and with the American Federation of Labor Building Trades Department (not seated until 1928).

By 1930, membership had reached 105,000, even though the IBT continued to ignore the drivers making long-distance hauls between cities.

By 1932 Local 407 was the largest in the country, and Murphy and Rohrich organized all area locals into District Council 41.

The Depression left thousands of drivers out of work, and in 1933 Teamster membership had dropped to 75,000.

In 1934, John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers, along with auto workers, garment workers, steel workers, and others founded the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

New Teamster Structures: 1936--38

After reincorporating the CTU locals in 1937, the IBT expanded by organizing transportation, clerical, retail, and manufacturing workers.

In 1938, Beck also introduced a new structure to the union, a multistate 'conference' divided into trade divisions to provide specialized organizing help to joint councils and local unions.

Presidents Ron Carey (1992–99) and James P. Hoffa (1999– ), son of a former president, focused on job security and family issues. It had become the nation’s largest union by 1940.

By 1947, gross operating revenues of the motor carriers had risen to $2.2 billion.

In 1948, 1,000 Macy’s warehouse workers voted to join Teamsters Local 804.

In 1951, workers at the City’s Department of Sanitation joined the Teamsters and formed Teamsters Local 831, the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association.

Indeed, Tobin was nearly beaten to death in New York by local officials outraged by his efforts to enforce an IBT executive board decision, though he survived and remained president of the IBT until 1952.

In 1955, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged to form the AFL-CIO. Meanwhile, various committees in Congress were holding hearings on labor racketeering, particularly within the Teamsters.

Although the early investigations ended with no findings, in 1957, the United States Senate created a bipartisan, special Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field.

In 1959, the Teamsters created DRIVE (Democrat, Republican, and Independent Voter Education), one of the first political action committees, to educate members, to get them to the polls, and to make political contributions to campaigns.

By 1960, there were 165,000 Teamsters in New York’s Joint Council 16, and 61 Teamster locals within the joint council.

By 1961, the trucking industry directly employed more than seven million people and its carriers available for public hire had gross revenues of $7.4 billion.

In 1964, Hoffa negotiated the first national bargaining agreement for the trucking industry, covering 400,000 intracity and over-the-road drivers employed by some 16,000 trucking companies.

After appeals, he went to federal prison in 1967, and general vice-president Frank Fitzsimmons assumed control in his absence.

In 1971, the Teamsters showed their power and solidarity by joining a city-wide strike of public sector workers.

After his release from prison, Hoffa disappeared in 1975; many believe he was killed by members of organized crime.

In 1976, the various groups came together to establish Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU).

The Teamsters Union was readmitted to the AFL–CIO in 1987.

If he wins, he’ll take control of a union that emerged only this February from a 1989 consent decree that settled a federal civil racketeering suit.

In 1991 Hoffa first sought the office of the Teamsters presidency, but federal officials ruled him ineligible because he had never officially worked as a Teamster.

In 1992, given their first chance to directly elect their national leaders, members chose as president Carey, the candidate supported by the reformist group Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

As a means of gaining on-the-job experience, Hoffa began working as an administrative assistant to Lawrence Brennan, president of Michigan Joint Council 43, in 1993.

Hoffa ran for president of the Teamsters in 1996 but lost the close bitter election to incumbent Ron Carey.

In 1997 the Teamsters galvanized media attention and public support when their strike against United Parcel Service (UPS) stopped the delivery of thousands of packages worldwide.

October: Carey’s election win is reversed due to charges of use of IBT funds by his campaign; a new election is set for 1998.

April 6: 2000 IBT member representatives meet at Washington conference to show support for Fitzsimmons and Schoessling, purposing to counter the onslaught of new media attacks on IBT.

The IBT celebrated its centennial in 2003.

In 2005 the Teamsters disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO and, with several other unions, helped establish the Change to Win coalition.

In 2006, he lined up enough support that the incumbent got cold feet about seeking another term, leaving O’Brien to run for the presidency without opposition.

In 2014, after years of Teamster advocacy, the governor signed legislation to end the misclassification of commercial drivers, which will stop the unfair use of underpaid and exploited independent contractors in the trucking industry.

He was one of the top fund-raisers for the IBT president’s most recent reelection bid, in 2016.

That allowed Hoffa to impose the agreement on the rank and file in October 2018.

In 2020, Hoffa announced he wouldn’t seek another term and instead endorsed Vairma.