The Insurgent Slate Just Won the Teamsters Election. Here’s What’s at Stake.

The Teamsters United slate has just won the election for the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. As Labor Notes reports, ​“It’s the first time in almost a quarter-century that a coalition backed by Teamsters for a Democratic Union has taken the driver’s seat in the international union.” This election officially marks the end of the Hoffa era as James P. Hoffa, son of Jimmy Hoffa, is retiring as Teamsters General President. Members have cast their votes for who they want to head the union in the new era. 

We will be bringing you a rank-and-file breakdown of the election in the coming weeks, but for now we are releasing one of our recent bonus episodes on the public feed so listeners can have some context and understand the importance of this election. In this episode, we talk with journalist Indigo Olivier about the Teamsters leadership election and the 46^th annual Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) convention, which was held in Chicago on October 1-3. Olivier is a 2020 – 2021 fellow with In These Times’ Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting and her writing has been featured at outlets like Jacobin, In These Times, and The Nation. She is also a member of NYC-DSA.