New York Times – Sandy Pope acknowledges straightaway that she faces an uphill battle — she is the first woman to run for the presidency of the very macho Teamsters union, and she is running against a three-term incumbent, James P. Hoffa, who has the most famous last name in American labor.

But Ms. Pope, president of the Teamsters Local 805 in Queens since 2005, insists that she can pull off an upset. She argues that the rank and file are tired of Mr. Hoffa and fed up with contracts packed with concessions.

“The anger among the membership is at an all-time high,” said Ms. Pope, who ran unsuccessfully for the union’s No. 2 spot, secretary-treasurer, in 2006 as part of a dissident slate that lost by a ratio of nearly 2 to 1. “The members are much more willing to look for change than five years ago.”

Although the mob influence that once pervaded the Teamsters has been largely rooted out thanks to two decades of federal supervision and scores of indictments and expulsions, the union and its 1.4 million members face other problems. Membership has steadily declined as nonunion trucking companies have taken over much of the market, and the economic downturn has made it hard to negotiate sizable wage increases or in some cases, to avoid contract concessions.

Ms. Pope’s campaign will move into a higher gear after Thursday, when she expects to be officially nominated as a candidate for the presidency at the Teamsters convention in Las Vegas. A third candidate, Fred Gegare, a former supporter of Mr. Hoffa and leader of a Teamsters local in Wisconsin, is also expected to be nominated. The members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are scheduled to vote this fall.

Like many political candidates, Ms. Pope hopes to capitalize on an anti-incumbent fever that has been fueled by the weak economy, and she says she thinks the three-person race will give her an edge as the person least identified with the old guard and a problem-plagued status quo.

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