After nearly six years as Teamsters president, Ron Carey has not cultivated a successor who might step into his job. That is why, with Carey’s departure from the union Tuesday, a vacuum exists at the top of the union’s so-called “reform” wing.
But Carey’s troubles have been worsening for months now, inspiring a flurry of talk within the giant union about who else might face James P. Hoffa, Carey’s foe in last year’s election and a candidate in a rerun election now scheduled for April. Possible candidates within the Carey camp include:
– Tom Leedham, 46, a 20-year union veteran who heads Local 206 in Portland, Ore., and leads the union’s warehouse division.
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He is a college dropout who took a job in a Portland warehouse and worked his way up the union’s ranks. Known as a workaholic, Leedham is considered successful at rallying members and waging tough bargaining efforts.
– Ken Hall, 40, head of a Local 175 in West Virginia and the director of the union’s small-parcel division.
A Carey confidant, Hall shared the spotlight with the union president as his right-hand man during the Teamsters’ successful strike last summer against United Parcel Service of America Inc.
– George Cashman, 48, a former truck driver who led an unprecedented reform drive at Local 25 in Boston in 1991, becoming the head of the union’s largest New England local, a stronghold of establishment union bosses.
The son of a union truck driver, Cashman has long made clear his ambition to move up within the union’s ranks. He has tried to bridge the gap between the union’s reformist wing and its old guard, which has hurt him among some reformers. But Cashman has shown his loyalty to Carey.
Other possible candidates are Richard Nelson, the head of Teamsters Local 886 in Oklahoma City, and Diana Kilmury of Vancouver, British Columbia, a longtime member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union reform group and pathbreaker for other women within the mostly male ranks of the union.