Longtime Joint Council 7 President Chuck Mack steps down

CHUCK MACK BEGAN HIS CAREER as a Teamster in 1962, loading trucks and driving. He spent the next 47 years working to ensure that Teamster drivers—in Local 70, in the western region and across the nation— maintained excellent benefits and meaningful work. He will step down at the end of May from all of his Teamster positions to become the union co-chair of the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust.

Sit down with Chuck and he can tell you stories about struggles with employers, politics and the way the industry has changed. But what gets him most charged up is his devotion to the membership. “It’s always been about the members—that’s been what’s made the job fun,” he says.

“The most rewarding part of the job is that I meet with members on company time and listen to what they have to say. All my career, I’ve kept responsibility for terminals; currently, I have Mills College and Rodgers Trucking. That contact with members keeps me grounded and reminds me why I got in this. Unfortunately, the higher you go with the Teamsters, the farther away you get from the members.”

Mack says he’s had numerous opportunities to watch how having a union improves people’s lives. “When we first organized Oakland Scavenger, now Waste Management, most of the workers were from Mexico and their main interest was just getting money to send back to Mexico. They didn’t really care about the jobs. But we gave those jobs value. We got those workers health benefits and pensions, the ability to provide for their families and dignity for their work. They soon became the union’s strongest supporters.”

Making life better for the members has been Chuck’s charge through his entire Teamster career. “Our members have better health care coverage than most CEOs and 90% of the workers in this country. I’m proud of that.” That’s why he’s worked so hard for the port drivers to organize, not only in Oakland, but across the nation.

Chuck was first elected as a business agent in 1966. Three years later, he was re-elected with the largest number of votes in Local 70’s history.

In 1971, he was asked to go to Sacramento to work with the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council to lobby the legislature. “This was a fascinating learning experience about how government worked, but I knew it wasn’t the career direction for me. I was following policy, not setting it,” he said. That experience proved useful, however, when Chuck became chair of the Teamsters Public Affairs Council.

As soon as the 1971 legislative session was over—and it turned out to be the longest in history—Mack made his way back to the East Bay and ran for the position of Secretary-Treasurer of Local 70. He won the four-way race handily, and has maintained the position ever since.

“Jimmy Muniz was president of the local and frankly, we had been rivals. But once I was elected, we forged a bond out of our differences that ultimately held the union together. Our strength was our militant support of our members, getting good contracts, and being progressive. We brought stability to the local that it hadn’t seen for 20 years.”

Mack was elected to serve on the Joint Council in 1972, and became President in 1982. He was elected Western Region Vice President in 1996 on the Hoffa ticket. These positions expanded the reach of his work for Teamsters.

He talks with pride of the fourmonth strike at Fleming Foods in 1989, when 4,000 Teamsters across the nation were mobilized to go out in support of Local 70 members, who saw their contract gutted. “This showed us the power of acting jointly. Ultimately, an arbitrator restored what the company had taken away and everyone could hold their heads high.”

With the Watsonville Canning/ Richard Shaw fight on behalf of Local 912, Mack says he saw firsthand, the power of money. “We learned that the company wanted refinancing from Wells Fargo so they could keep the strike going. We informed the bank that the pension plan, which had billions invested at the time, might move those investments if the financing went through. Suddenly, after the members had been on strike for two years, we had a new contract in two days. It was Teamsters at our best.”

Some of the biggest challenges that Mack faced during his tenure were the deregulation of the trucking industry, which made good union employers uncompetitive and put them out of business, and the trade agreements, like NAFTA and the WTO, which were neither free nor fair. “The common thread was that these basically changed the rules of the game to the advantage of those with money. And they were both supported by the Democrats. That was the most frustrating aspect.”

Mack says that the biggest challenge he sees in the future will be passing the Employee Free Choice Act. “It’s our turn to change the rules of the game, because the system, as it’s evolved, is decidedly in favor of management. Passing EFCA will have consequences for the labor movement and for the middle class.”

Due to the sudden death of longtime pension trust chair Tony Lock, Mack decided that the time was right to make a move, and he will become pension trust chair on June 1. Chuck is coming to the position with some experience; as a trustee since 1981, he’s the longest-serving trustee on the union side.

“It’s going to be a challenge. Certainly, we need a turnaround in the economy to reverse the disastrous outcomes of 2008. The Western Conference Fund got hit in 2008 like every other plan, but not as hard as some of the others. We have to watch it closely to protect the interests of our members and their families.

“Chuck Mack is one of the most dedicated and engaged labor leaders I have ever worked with and I will miss his counsel and friendship,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters General President. “I wish him well in his future endeavors.”

The Joint Council Executive Board met on April 22 and elected Local 853 Secretary-Treasurer Rome Aloise to become Joint Council 7 President as of June 1. Aloise was also named to the IBT Vice Presidential slot until the next election.