Guilt by association.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Old-style union label causes R. V. Durham's shot at leading the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to misfire - Profile

Despite his white-hat reputation, an old-style union label caused R.V. Durham's shot at leading the Teamsters to misfire.

It's been two years since members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America chose a brash New Yorker over a quiet-spoken North Carolinian as president in the first democratic election in the union's history.

While firebrand Ron Carey gets the headlines, R.V. Durham is back in Winston-Salem, living in a two-story brick traditional, to all appearances a senior corporate executive treading water until retirement.

Durham, 62, doesn't second-guess himself during daily commutes to his Kernersville office. He's got more time now to focus on the future of Local 391, with 8,000 members the largest union local in the state, whose president he has been since 1969. Improved wages and benefits are tough to come by in an economy squeezed by slow growth and international competition.

He lets labor scholars analyze why Carey whipped him in the government-ordered leadership shakeup. Overconfidence? Rank-and-file perception of him as defender of the crooked status quo? A new and unfamiliar type of national election in which only about 28% of members voted? Durham's proper, intellectual, Southern demeanor that sets the Local 391 tone?

"They said everything they could derogatory about the South," Durham recalls. "If you were from the South, you couldn't represent trade unions. It was the kind of thing I wanted to lead our union away from. I didn't succeed."

The different direction is apparent in his style of dress. He and other Local 391 officers "all look like bankers," says Sue Shaw, a Farmville, Va., independent labor arbitrator. "They've gotten away from the rough, tough Hoffa image. R.V. has modeled it in his own image."

Under Durham, Local 391, which covers most of the eastern two-thirds of the state, has tripled in size during a period when Teamsters membership nationwide has declined 18%. His basic view is that militant demands for higher wages and benefits without accompanying productivity gains jeopardize the future of both worker and employer. But practicing labor moderation bombed when Durham missed his historic chance to lead the national Teamsters out of the mess left by corrupt union bosses.

His lengthy tenure in the union's upper echelon made him an easy target of the clean-the-mess-up faction. For nearly 20 years, Durham had been IBT safety and health director, executive board member and international trustee. He worked alongside Jackie Presser and other notorious Teamsters leaders, who had created the job in 1973 as a concession to the reformers. Durham testified before Congress, lectured at various universities and, so far as is known, kept his...