Anniversary: Teamsters Goons Ice Pick Persuasion

A United Parcel Service driver who was beaten and stabbed with an ice pick after crossing a picket line during a 1997 strike won an undisclosed settlement in a civil suit against a Teamsters union local in Miami, his lawyers said. Rod Carter, a UPS driver and former linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys football team, was pulled from his UPS truck by a group of men, beaten and stabbed six times with an ice pick Aug. 7, 1997. The attack came during a 15-day Teamsters strike against the package delivery giant. It came one day after Carter was interviewed on a television news broadcast and said he kept working during the strike in order to provide for his family. Carter, 35, filed a civil lawsuit accusing the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 769 of racketeering, conspiracy, assault and battery, and infliction of emotional distress, alleging union leaders encouraged members to harass and threaten employees who worked during the strike. The suit, which was pending in state circuit court, was settled in an agreement that bars the parties from revealing details.

The attack came during a 15-day Teamsters strike against the package delivery giant. It came one day after Carter was interviewed on a television news broadcast and said he kept working during the strike in order to provide for his family. Carter, 35, filed a civil lawsuit accusing the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 769 of racketeering, conspiracy, assault and battery, and infliction of emotional distress, alleging union leaders encouraged members to harass and threaten employees who worked during the strike. The suit, which was pending in state circuit court, was settled in an agreement that bars the parties from revealing details

“Does Rod Carter live there?” snarled a man who called himself “Benny” and hung up the phone.

Hours later, Rod Carter lay bleeding in a Florida street after being drawn from his UPS truck, beaten, kicked, and stabbed six times with an ice pick by Benigno “Benny” Rojas and five other Teamsters union hit men.

These thugs may have hoped to get away with it; however, they made some mistakes.

First, the threatening call has been traced to the home of Anthony Cannestro Sr., president of Teamsters Local 769.

Second, evidence links top union officials to the pattern of violence that engulfed the 1997 UPS strike, including the attack on Rod Carter.

Third, they picked on the wrong guy.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys representing Rod Carter filed suit in Florida, throwing the book at the thugs, local union bosses, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The suit charged civil conspiracy, assault and battery, and racketeering. Foundation staff attorneys intended to prove in court that the Teamsters union bosses involved are corrupt, vicious, and violent.

A UPS Security Manager — a 14-year police officer — summed up in a sworn affidavit the situation engineered by Teamsters bosses in the days before the attack:

“…an orchestrated, organized series of events led by prominent union members to destroy the lives, health and safety of all of our working employees…I have personally observed…[union boss] threats…to rape their wives…to kill children…to maim working employees.”

Time and time again, union kingpins encouraged strikers to engage in “ambulatory pickets;” in other words, to stalk non-striking drivers like Rod Carter on the job.

They told workers, “…be polite on the picket lines if the police are looking, but when you get the son-of-a-bitches on the street do whatever it takes.”

The bloody attack on Rod Carter was the all-too-predictable result.

Equally predictable was the Teamsters czars’ response.

Teamsters top-brass mouthpiece Rand Wilson laughed off the strike violence, snickering “…that escalates the mix and you’re gonna have some [expletive] happen.”

Too many workers’ lives have been ruined, too many spouses left in tears, too many children’s sleep shattered with nightmares by Big Labor’s terror. Big Labor Bosses’s have a loophole that nobody else has, it is the Hobbs Act Loophole created by court ruling giving union bosses the freedom coordinate crimes and even murder without fear of federal prosecution and conviction under the Hobbs Act. 

If you want to help end this union mayhem loophole, then click here to contact your elected officials and tell them to co-sponsor the Freedom Form Union Violence Act and end this get-out-of-jail-free-card for Big Labor Bosses.