Jackie Presser - Major Presidential Milestones

Major Presidential Milestones

On May 5, 1983, the U.S. Department of Labor settled a portion of its case against the former trustees of the Central States Pension Fund. Several insurance companies agreed to pay more than $6.75 million to the fund. Presser was not involved in the settlement, and the civil suit against him continued. But the same day DOL claimed victory against pension fund graft, Presser told FBI agents that organized crime still controlled the pension fund. In 1984, Presser and the remaining trustees settled their personal liability suit for $2 million.

Three years later, the U.S. Department of Labor settled its final civil case against Presser and the other Central States Pension Fund trustees. The agreement, which included Presser, turned operation of the pension fund over to a federal court until the year 2007. In addition, Presser and the other 17 trustees paid an additional $175,000 to reimburse the fund for certain other costs. It was the first time the Labor Department won restitution from individual pension fund trustees under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

Presser quickly established his control over the Teamsters during his first six months in office. He appointed Robert Holmes, a Detroit Teamster leader, as director of the Central Conference of Teamsters; Paul Locigno, a Teamster staffer from Ohio, as director of government affairs; Wallace Clements, a staff political coordinator in the Deep South, as political director; and Vicki Saporta, a longtime organizer, as organizing director. Presser also strengthened the union's research and lobbying shops and established the Titan System, a computer networking system which established email communication throughout the union for the first time. He also began a major lobbying effort, particularly against a proposed labor racketeering bill.

In October 1983, the TDU announced a slate of candidates to try to oust Presser.

On November 8, 1983, Presser underwent triple bypass heart surgery in Cleveland.

By the end of 1983, Presser was making $755,474 a year.

On October 24, 1984, Presser named Weldon Mathis secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters. Mathis replaced Ray Schoessling, who retired effective January 1, 1986.

In 1984, Presser received more than $530,000 in pay. Presser was paid $224,000 in salary by Local 507, $59,500 by Teamsters Joint Council 41, $18,100 by the Ohio Conference of Teamsters, and $229,000 by the international union.

In April 1986, as Presser's legal woes worsened, C. Sam Theodus, leader of Teamster Local 407 in Cleveland, announced he would run as the TDU candidate against Presser. Presser's legal problems, however, seemed unlikely to harm his chances for re-election.

At the regularly scheduled Teamsters convention in May 1986, Presser was elected to a full five-year term as Teamsters president. Presser arrived in the ballroom accompanied by composer Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. Four muscular men dressed as Roman centurions bearing him on a golden sedan chair. Despite being indicted days before on embezzlement and racketeering charges, Presser received 1,729 votes to Theodus' 24 votes. Theodus conceded after the first hour of balloting, but Presser ordered the roll call to continue to the end (it lasted another three-and-a-half hours) to humiliate Theodus. After the balloting, delegates defeated proposals to cut the president's salary by $100,000 and to prohibit national leaders from collecting multiple union salaries.

A month later, the press reported that Presser had received a total income of $588,353 from his four union positions.

In October 1987, Presser led the Teamsters back in to the AFL-CIO. Presser had repeatedly said he was uninterested in reaffiliation, and AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland had been deeply angered by Presser's attempt to merge with the ITU and to raid AFL-CIO affiliated unions with members in the publishing industry. But as Presser's legal problems mounted and a federal takeover of the union appeared more and more likely, Presser sought reaffiliation as a means of shielding the Teamsters from the government. In August and September 1987, leaders of the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters secretly worked out a tentative reaffiliation agreement—exactly 30 years after the Teamsters were first expelled for corruption. Pushing reaffiliation on the AFL-CIO side were Robert Georgine, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, and William H. Wynn, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers. Law enforcement officials said the reaffiliation undercut their effort to put the Teamsters under federal control.