Mr. Ron Carey I fear for the future of our Union. My only hope is that good Teamsters will have the courage to stand up, speak out and fight for the members. Despite all your rhetoric, that's one thing you've never done. As I leave this great Union, my wish is that God will help the members fight back and restore the Union to its earlier position of strength and leadership in the American trade union movement. With regret, Robert G. Defusha Robert G. DeRusha APPENDIX D - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF ROBERT SIMPSON, FORMER INTERNATIONAL TRUSTEE, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS STATEMENT OF ROBERT T. SIMPSON PRESENTED TO THE OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE Thank you for the opportunity to share my case with the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. I am glad you are looking into the mismanagement of Teamsters' finances by former President Ron Carey. I tried to investigate this exact issue in 1993 and my career was destroyed as a result. More specifically, after over 40 years of impeccable service to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ("IBT") and Local 743, the largest local in the IBT, I now come before you having been wrongfully found guilty of bringing reproach upon the one and only union I ever loved and still love, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. To understand why I have pursued this case to the verge of personal bankruptcy, it is necessary for me to explain my distinguished history of service to the IBT. I am a 63-year-old African-American man who pulled myself up by my own bootstraps from being a Montgomery Ward warehouse worker to become the president of Local 743, the largest local in the IBT. I obtained this position by working 75 to 80 hours a week up to the time I was removed from office by then IBT President Ron Carey on August 22, 1994. I have never been accused of having ties to any organized crime organization. I have never associated in any manner with any member of organized crime. Neither the Chief Investigator nor the Independent Review Board ("IRB") alleged or presented a single piece of evidence to the contrary. In fact, I have undergone and cleared two FBI investigations initiated by Arbitrator Lacey, the head of the IRB, in connection with my becoming an International Trustee. I became an International Trustee at the 1991 IBT Convention when I was elected by the delegates to the convention with the highest vote total of any person running for any office at the Convention. Until I was charged and removed from office for these bogus charges I had never even been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with my service to the IBT or otherwise. The only time I have ever been charged with anything was when I was arrested on union picket lines fighting for the rights of my fellow Teamster members. For almost four decades I have been, and still an, a well-respected labor leader and was one of the highest-ranking African-American labor leaders in the country. The former Attorney General of Illinois, Roland Burris, and the former Mayor of Chicago, Eugene Sawyer, testified at the IRB hearing that I am a man of impeccable character and honesty who has spent his entire adult life fighting for the rights of working men and women. I was chosen by the United States State Department to oversee the recent history-making elections in South Africa. The City Council of Chicago unanimously passed a Resolution, that was sent to the IRB, demanding that I be given my job back. But most importantly, I am a man dedicated to serving the members of the IBT and Local 743, who desperately wants and deserves my job back. |