Teamster Trouble I
* USA The leader of North America's biggest trade union has been disbarred by a state-appointed election officer. Dianne Feeley explains how this came about, and how the left in the union is reacting. Dianne Feeley Ten years ago the U.S. Justice Department filed a civil suit against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), North America's largest trade union, with 1.4 million members, representing workers in both the United States and Canada. The Justice Department charged that organised crime deprived union members of their rights through a pattern of racketeering which included 20 murders, number of shootings, bombings, beatings, bribes, extortion, theft, and misuse of union funds. Since 1957, every IBT president, except Billy McCarthy, had been convicted and sentenced for one or another federal offence.
Originally the Justice Department announced it would indict and remove the president of the IBT and impose a trusteeship on the union under the provisions of the Rico Act, an anti-racketeering law. This meant complete supervision of union affairs, including finances, until a free and fair union election could be held. The IBT denounced the government action as a tactic of "fascists or communists" and said implementing the trusteeship would lead to the destruction of free trade unions.
"No mob control, No government control Teamsters need the Right to Vote."
Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), a rank-and-file movement within the Teamsters, opposed trusteeship with the slogan "No mob control, No government control, Teamsters need the Right to Vote." TDU launched a national right-tovote petition that gathered 100,000 signatures and elected 275 reform delegates to the 1991 IBT convention (15% of the total).
By the time the Justice Department filed its suit in summer 1988, it had backed off from the trusteeship idea. Instead it indicted 48IBT officials for illegal activities and ordered the election of new officers.
The 1989 consent decree - an agree18 International Viewpoint #297 ment between the Justice Department and the IBT officials - created an Independent Review Board to investigate corruption in the union and provided for impartially supervised elections of all convention delegates and International union officers for the next two elections, 1991 and 1996. It didn't even ban the practice of multiple job and pension holding that brought 134 IBT officials salaries in excess of US$100,000. Mere corruption could be tolerated as long there was no outright violation of the law or open connection to The new leadership
The 1991 government-supervised election saw the underdog, Ron Carey, a TDU-backed candidate for president, beat the two old guard candidates even though the latter had far more financial resources. The reform slate of top officers included working teamsters as well as local union officials. It included the first woman and Latino to sit on a teamsters executive board, and also included an African
It would be a big mistake to see Carey as the person who singlehandedly transformed the union. While Carey never joined TDU nor shared its vision of a radically restructured and democratic union, he was an effective ally. As TDU explained it, there was now a sympathetic and militant leadership that fought for change at the same time that the rank-and-file movement continued to push for
The IBT, however, is quite a decentralised union and the continued domination of corrupt officials at the regional and local level impacted heavily on the life of the union. TDU ran opposition slates and won a number of important locals to a reform perspective. In 70 cases, Carey removed corrupt officials and placed the locals in receivership. In other locals, officials who had at least gone along with the old guard began to co-operate with the Carey leadership.
Carey used his presidency to utilise the resources of the union, build the IBT's new organising and strategic campaigns departments, remove corrupt local officers, cut wasteful spending, and eliminate the regional conferences, a whole level of parasitic bureaucracy.
He opposed union participation in
"team concept" programs and carried out effective mobilisations of the membership, most notably in a one-day wildcat against United Parcel Service in 1994 and the 16day UPS strike in 1997, but also a 24-day strike in 1994 to maintain full-time jobs in the freight industry.
Mis-use of union funds?
Now Carey stands accused of improper swap schemes that donated IBT dues money to organisations that, in turn, had individuals write checks to his campaign. These organisations have close ties to the Democratic Party. "Donorgate" was first uncovered by a Hoffa supporter, who doggedly sifted through the Carey campaign's financial statements, then alerted the election officer of his findings. What was first unearthed suggested a kickback-the wife of political consultant Michael Ansara donated $95,000 to the Carey campaign. The election officer ordered a thorough investigation. As a result, the election was voided and a rerun
On September 18, 1997 three political consultants' with ties to the Democratic Party pleaded guilty to crimes: Jere Nash, to one count of conspiracy and one count of making false statements; Martin Davis, to one count of conspiracy, one count of embezzling union funds, and one count of mail fraud; and Michael Ansara, to one count of conspiracy. As part of their plea bargains, each agreed to co-operate fully with the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Carey himself has not been accused of personal corruption (taking money for his own personal gain). Yet after months of investigation, it has been established that between October 17 and November 1, 1996, Carey authorised $885,000 from the IBT general treasury for political contributions. He did so in a year in which the IBT was suffering a negative cash flow and its net assets had been halved.
Although it had been usual IBT procedure to seek General Executive Board approval for general treasury expenses in excess of $10,000, such procedures were not followed with these contributions. In addition, the contributions themselves were controversial: Aaron Belk, Carey's Executive Assistant, felt that funds for political or advocacy groups should be donated from DRIVE, the Teamster' political action fund. Yet by October this fund was depleted. Further, Belk believed it was unreasonable to make contributions at the very end of the 1996 congressional campaigns, when the outcome would not Carey barred from re-election
On November 17, 1997 -nearly one year after Carey won his bid for reelection- Judge Kenneth Conboy - the court-appointed election officer in charge of investigating Carey - disqualified the IBT president from participating in the court-ordered rerun. In his decision ruling Carey ineligible, Conboy concluded that Carey approved expenditures of at least
$735,000 "based on his understanding that those contributions would assist his campaign's fund-raising efforts" and that this represented a clear and serious violation of the election rules.?
Carey took an unpaid leave of absence to appeal Conboy's decision, but the appeal has already been rejected (Secretary and Treasurer Tom Sever is acting General President.) Meanwhile, the date for the IBT rerun election has been suspended, to allow for an investigation into James Hoffa, Jr.'s fund-raising . The initial delay was for 45 days, but Election Officer Michael Cherkasky has asked for, and been granted, an additional 30 days. The union left's response
For its part, TDU has circulated a petition calling for a thorough investigation of Hoffa and demanding that the election officer be provided with all the necessary resources to conduct a full inquiry. TDU is particularly concerned with Hoffa's ties to the Mafia and with pension fund transfers that may have aided his campaign. Disqualification is a long shot, but if it could happen, rank-and-file Teamsters would have levelled the playing field of the elections, and would have a greatly improved chance at campaigning, and electing, a reformer.
While acknowledging the role Carey has played in helping to implement change, I would suggest that the reform movement is much broader than the elected officials who identify with those reforms. In fact, this situation reconfirms the importance of a rank-and-file movement that can fight to transform the union.
There is no evidence that the Clinton administration or the oversight committee singled out Carey. IBT election processes have been closely monitored by government-appointed officers since the 1989 consent decree. It's not that the federal government has suddenly become convinced of fair elections, either, but it has made a calculated decision to rid the union of the Mafia.
For its part, however, TDU is convinced of the importance of a free and open election process. In contrast, some on the left point to the media and right-wing attacks on Carey, particularly for the role he played in the UPS strike. They draw the conclusion that the government and the right wing are out to destroy Carey because he led militant strikes. They denounce "government intervention," forgetting that there would not have been a procedure to elect the International officers had it not been for the consent decree, and Carey wouldn't have been elected to office
It's clear the Wall Street Journal, the right wing of the Republican Party, and several corporations that employ teamsters are delighted Carey is now barred from reelection. The right intends to continue its investigation through the use of congressional hearings organised by Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra. Certainly the right has taken advantage of the situation, but they didn't create it. Carey's big mistake
Clearly Carey made the wrong political choice when he hired political consultants tied to the Democratic Party. They bring with them the sleaze of mainstream politics: "test marketing," direct mailings, and "soft money" donations to the Democratic National Committee. Not only are such things costly, but they do what union members should be doing, whether that's phoning the membership or planning the campaign. While several of
USA * the left groups that defend Carey are for independent political action, they fail to understand how the IBT president's use of these political consultants created a direct pipeline to the Democratic Party and its methods of operation.
As long as one accepts the "rules of the game" that the mainstream politicians set up, a union or an individual is almost inevitably led into corruption. After all, the rules mean you have to come up with the big bucks to finance a campaign, and the only place there's money is around the mainstream parties. A rank-and-file strategy presents the only viable alternative: it suggests that a mobilised membership can carry out an effective campaign even without the big bucks-and the 1991 IBT election is the proof. The unrealistic far-left
Denouncing "government intervention" may be a quick fix for some of the left, - who were never very much involved in Teamster politics to begin with -but it doesn't mean much to workers who have been fighting for democracy inside their union. They've won the right to honest, open, and informed elections by making demands on the government.
The fact is that U.S. unions have to comply with government regulations all the time. (U.S. labour law is more restrictive than in most OECD countries.) Some of the laws are relatively straightforward and reasonable, some are less so.
In other words, the issue here isn't protecting the IBT from the government. Rather it is to maintain and extend the gains of union democracy that made the IBT qualitatively more independent of both organised crime and the employers.
Some leftists predict that if the progressive movement doesn't unite to fight against "government intervention," unions will be transformed into little more than company unions. That view seriously misrepresents the state of the labour movement today, where most unions readily collaborate with both government and employer. The government report ruling Carey out of the rerun election contains serious charges against AFL-CIO Secretary and Treasurer Richard Trumka and AFSCME President Gerald McEntee. Indictments are possible. Don't touch the money
But diverting the members' dues money is a serious offence against the democratic rights of the membership. How can radicals and progressives defend such practices? Only by overlooking the actual evidence. If they actually discuss Conboy's decision, they confine themselves to challenging Jere Nash's testimony (which is admittedly dubious, since if the government deems him to have become an uncooperative witness, Nash will face a heavier sentence).
It's as if many left-wingers don't think the actual charges, the actual evidence, matters. I believe that's a profound mis-
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