My head hurts. No, not from over-imbibing during this long weekend. Your head would hurt too if you just finished reading through a ream of legal memos and memorandum mumbo-jumbo. But, I’m going to try to make this simple (and in doing so, I might oversimplify the story)—because it’s tale of a bitter dispute between the Teamsters and Machinists, and gives an insight into why the Teamsters might leave the AFL-CIO.

For the past 2-3 years, the Teamsters have been losing members in the part of the car-haul industry called “driveaway” (these are folks who drive newly-minted trucks from the manufacturer to the dealers). The top dog in this industry is a fellow named Dennis Troha, who is the CEO of an outfit called JHT. Troha found a way to eat away at the Teamsters’ membership: he began diverting the unionized work to a company called Auto Truck Transport (ATT).

Now, normally, this would be called double-breasting: meaning, operating a union company and a non-union company side-by-side, which allows a company to begin sucking the life out of the unionized part by moving work over to the non-union operation.

Here’s the hitch: ATT has a different union—the Machinists. The problem is that, as the Teamsters see it, the Machinists contract was substandard compared to the Teamsters deal, allowing the Troha-owned ATT to underbid and take away work from a sister company called Active Transportation, which operates under a Teamsters contract. According to the Teamsters, ATT has grown from 286 members to more than 1,351 workers—all at the expense of Teamsters’ members.

Sorry if you’re spinning already, but the story gets even more complicated. The Teamsters decided it was going to go after any work moving to ATT. But, because it would mean essentially raiding the Machinists, it had to ask for a special waiver under the AFL-CIO jurisdictional dispute mechanisms under Article XX.

Turns out (your intrepid correspondent had never heard of this little wrinkle) that if a union can show that a rival union’s actions undercut standards, the AFL-CIO can rule that, while raiding the rival union’s work technically violates Article XX, the raid is justified and no sanctions are brought against the raiding union.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council did vote in October 2003 and blessed the Teamsters raid by far more than the 2/3 vote needed. The dispute has gotten uglier because the Teamsters are now trying to organize additional units being moved to ATT. The Machinists have refused to back away from the organizing attempt, allowing Troha—that would be, the bad guy—to continue to move work from the Teamsters contract.

Recently, the plot thickened—and makes this story even more convoluted. When the Teamsters filed for elections at ATT facilities, it did not include one facility (the so-called Dublin facility)—which, oddly, the Machinists joined the employer and the National Labor Relations Board in arguing that it should be included.

When the Teamsters relented and re-filed its petition to include the Dublin facility, the Machinists filed a complaint with the AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO’s subcommittee on Article XX issues, headed by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, ruled on behalf of the Machinists—effectively overturning the full Executive Council’s December 2003 decision. Hoffa has now appealed the subcommittee’s decision. And the Teamsters has proposed a resolution on the whole affair for the July convention–which could trigger a bitter floor debate.

A momentary aside: this is what all this jurisdiction and industry focus hoo-hah is about in the battle over the labor movement. Sure, a lot of it is about how to strategically organize new workers. But, some of the bad feelings bubble up when one union makes a deal that sets up lower standards than those that already exist thanks to a different (usually, older) collective bargaining agreement. Unfortunately, this happens too often.

And if you want more spice: remember, Trumka was openly supporting then-incumbent Ron Carey when Hoffa ran against Carey and defeated him in 1998. Shall we say, these two guys aren’t drinking buddies.

I know most of you won’t want to bother with the intricacies of this feud. But, it has poisoned the well between the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO leadership. If the Teamsters do pull out, this dispute may play a key role.