For the past 18 years, the GCC has been in steady decline going from more than 70,000 dues-paying members in 2004 to less than 17,000 today. Members never see their International leadership, receive no services or resources and, unlike real unions, have a retirement plan that is funded by the members not employers. GCC has proven it is incapable of surviving on its own and is not capable of providing its members top-level representation.

The 2004 GCC-IBT Merger Agreement negotiated between Jim Hoffa and George Tedeschi was supposed to create a conference within the IBT that would become successful using the power of the Teamsters union. But the reality was that the Merger Agreement only resulted in inflated legal fees for the conference, exorbitant salaries for its leaders and staff. And the result was the weakened, ineffective conference that the GCC is today. Current GCC president Kurt Freeman, like Tedeschi before him, has stood by and watched the conference continue to lose members, money and power while doing nothing.