Ronald Robert Carey (March 22, 1936 – December 11, 2008) was an American labor leader who served as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1991 to 1997. He was the first Teamster General President elected by a direct vote of the membership. He ran for re-election in 1996 and won, but in 1997 federal investigators discovered that the Carey campaign had engaged in an illegal donation kickback scheme to raise more than $700,000 for the 1996 re-election effort. His re-election was overturned, Carey was disqualified from running for Teamsters president again, and he was subsequently expelled from the union for life. Although a federal jury ultimately cleared him of all wrongdoing in the scandal, the lifetime ban remained in place until his death. Early life Carey, the second of six children (all of them boys), was born in Long Island City in March 1936 to Joseph and Loretta Carey. His father was a driver for United Parcel Service (UPS). Carey's father had to work Sundays and Christmas Day (often without pay), which taught Ron about workplace injustice, but his father also took him to union meetings where Ron learned about workplace change and how to run a democratic union. Raised in Astoria and Long Island City, he graduated from Haaren High School in Manhattan and was offered entry into St. John's University on a swimming scholarship. But he turned down college, enlisting in the Marines in 1953 and serving until 1955. At the age of 18, he married Barbara Murphy, a girl who lived in the apartment above him. The Careys remained married until Ron's death; they had five children. Carey became a UPS driver and joined the Teamsters in 1956. He and his father pooled their money and bought a home for both families in Kew Gardens, Queens. He ran for and was elected shop steward of the 7,000-member Local 804 in 1958 because he felt members weren't getting the services their dues paid for. He was elected secretary of the local in 1965. After several unsuccessful campaigns, Carey was elected Local 804 president in November 1967. He earned a reputation as a hard bargainer (by 1977, he had negotiated salary increases which doubled his members' 1968 hourly wages) and for being free from graft and the influence of organized crime. Under his leadership, in November 1967 Local 804 became one of the first Teamster locals whose