When 1800 delegates descended on Philadelphia in mid-July for the Teamster Union's national convention, the battle that has been raging in local chapters across the country over rank-and-file versus top down control escalated into full-scale warfare. That battle itself is a more potent sign of American labor's resurgence than the AFL-CIO advertising blitz that has captured so much media attention. PNS associate editor David Bacon, a veteran labor organizer, writes on immigration and labor issues.

PHILADELPHIA -- While the news media cites the AFL-CIO's election-year advertising blitz as proof of labor's resurgence, a more telling sign is the growing struggle for rank-and-file control of the Teamsters Union. At stake is not just the leadership of the Teamsters but the direction of U.S. labor itself.

Five years ago the Teamsters Union was forced by the government to conduct a rank-and-file ballot to choose its international president. The unexpected happened. The head of the New York local for drivers at United Parcel Service, Ron Carey, was chosen directly by members to head the country's largest and most powerful union. Last week, some 1800 delegates to the union's national convention fought over whether to limit his authority and restore the Teamsters to a period when ordinary workers paid the freight but had no control.

The reform movement which swept Carey into office shifted the center of gravity in American labor. Last October the new Teamsters Union threw its support to John Sweeney, who successfully challenged the old guard in the AFL-CIO itself, and won election as the federation's new president. Sweeney could not have won without Teamster support, which Carey's predecessors would never have given.

Sweeney spoke to the hopes of millions of American union members. After four decades of ineffective national leadership, more and more workers want their unions to undertake new membership drives aimed at hundreds of thousands of non-union workers; they want leaders who mirror the diversity of the American workplace; and they want a labor movement which challenges corporate downsizing and the erosion of living standards by the global economy.

While the AFL-CIO has stepped hesitantly in these directions, the new Teamsters have come out swinging. When Sweeney urged leaders of U.S. unions to endorse President Clinton this spring, Carey was one of only two votes against the proposal. Carey and longshore leader Brian McWilliams both felt the president's economic policies, especially NAFTA, have hurt workers. The AFL-CIO, they argued, should have required some commitment to changing those policies as the price for the endorsement.

Carey sets a stark contrast with his predecessors who gained notoriety for endorsing Ronald Reagan and George Bush; one president, Jackie Presser, was an informant for the FBI.

Under Carey the Teamsters backed carhaulers, long distance truckers, food processing workers and many others when they went on strike to defend their wages and conditions. When UPS tried to impose new job requirements hazardous to its employees' health and safety, Carey backed the workers in a mid-contract walkout.

In the new free trade era the Teamsters are also forging transnational relationships with Mexican workers -- one of the few unions to do so. The union's organizing drives, in industries where the union already has contracts, have improved conditions for newly organized workers while defending those of long-standing members.

And Carey has gone after the mob. In local after local, the international has moved to replace leaders accused of misusing members' dues money to line the pockets of themselves and their friends.

This process of change has been anything but peaceful. The Union has been racked by struggles to eliminate multiple salaries for union officers and trim back excessive expenses. The union's strike fund was exhausted. Members have fought over control of local unions and district councils.

The national convention, whose 1800 delegates were mostly local officers and staff rather than ordinary members, was almost evenly split. Its opening sessions were so disruptive that police were called. The convention wound up curbing Carey's authority as president. But a new election is scheduled for December when the membership will have a chance to choose between Carey and James Hoffa Jr., whose strength lies almost entirely in the name recognition he inherits from his father, Jimmy Hoffa. Carey is more popular with rank-and-file members than among convention delegates.

If Carey wins that election, reformers will move to restore the damaged power of the national leadership. If he loses, it will set back the effort to transform the Teamsters, and weaken the progressive direction of American unions generally.

But it will not put the genie back in the bottle. The demands raised by the reform movement in the Teamsters -- democratic control of the union, a militant defense of living standards, organizing and diversity, ending corruption and support for global unionism -- are now supported even by many of Carey's critics.

These ideas represent the thinking of a growing number of American workers. Their pressure from below is changing the face of American labor.