Federal Intervention in Teamsters Union Has Storied 11 Year History
Related Stories
|
The suit would have to wait, however; Teamsters General President Jackie Presser already was under indictment for corruption charges.
The announcement was met by fierce opposition from many fronts. Mr. Presser decried the suit as strongly as he denied any corruption on his part. The AFL-CIO stood by its brother union and in October 1987 reunited with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Ironically, AFL-CIO President George Meany had ousted the Teamsters 30 years earlier for the same problem of mob influence that prompted the lawsuit.
Congress also was on the side of the union — 247 members sent a letter to Attorney General Edwin Meese seeking clarification of the Justice Department’s aims and condemning the suit.
Pre-trial wrangling went on for some time. U.S. Judge David Edelstein denied a motion by the Justice Department to oversee the union pending the trial, but he upheld a restraining order that barred contact between union officials and several mob figures named in the suit.
In July 1988, Mr. Presser died and was succeeded by William McCarthy.
The union rejected an offer to settle the suit out of court, but its position was weakening. Three vice presidents resigned and signed a statement saying they endorsed the aims of reform in exchange for having their names removed from the suit.
A splinter group, the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, led by Ken Paff, opposed the suit but supported the idea of reform.
In March 1989, three more members of the union’s executive board jumped ship, prompting Mr. McCarthy to accelerate his negotiations for a settlement. The union reached an agreement with the Justice Department and signed a consent decree to settle the lawsuit.
(Mr. McCarthy died last month in Arlington, Va., at the age of 79.)
Under the agreement, the court would appoint a three-member independent review board to oversee the union’s administration, root out the influence of organized crime and supervise the elections in 1991. In June, former judge Frederick B. Lacey was appointed administrator of the board, while Charles Carberry, a former prosecutor, was named investigations officer and labor lawyer Michael Holland was charged with overseeing elections.
Despite agreeing to the settlement, Teamster leaders still were rankled by the suit, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the union’s appeal in June 1990.
Corruption remained a problem. After being appointed to the union’s executive board in May, Jack Yager was removed in December for failing to cut ties with a suspected mobster.
The union held its first open election by mail in December 1991. Ron Carey, a reformer who headed a UPS local in New York, was seen as a dark horse, but he overcame favorite R.V. Durham and longtime executive Walter Shea to claim the presidency.
The rank and file seemed bent on reform, as Mr. Carey’s running mate, Tom Sever, also was elected, along with their entire supporting ticket.
Mr. Carey promised to “clean house” and rehabilitate the union’s mob-tainted reputation. He cut his salary from $250,000 to $175,000 and established an Ethical Practices Committee.
But his victory was not without some questions. Mr. Holland upheld the results despite charges by Mr. Durham that the Carey campaign had won by engaging in financial improprieties. But the election supervisor noted some “reporting irregularities” by the victor and ordered him to repay $28,000 in Teamsters money used for postage in the campaign.
Mr. Carey did away with many of the excesses of the unions’ past, selling the corporate jet and refusing use of a limousine and a Caribbean vacation home. But during his tenure, the union was plagued by two problems: financial woes and continuing corruption.
