Opinion: End Teamsters Oversight
After 10 years of oversight and millions of dollars in legal fees, the union has largely escaped the clutches of organized crime, and new General President James P. Hoffa needs room to do the job he was elected to do.
On March 14, 1989, the union signed a consent decree with the Justice Department to avoid being sued under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Since then, Judge David H. Edelstein of the Southern District of New York has overseen an exhaustive probe of corruption in Teamsters leadership, resulting in hundreds of individuals being expelled and scores of local unions being placed in trusteeship.
A court-appointed election overseer set up the first secret-ballot, direct election by rank-and-file union members in 1991, a democratic process that is part of the union constitution that Hoffa has pledged to uphold.
While deplorable, Carey’s campaign misdeeds were, in part, a consequence of severe restrictions placed on contributions by government overseers. These arbitrary rules, designed to limit the influence of outsiders on the election process, apply to no other union, or for that matter, any political party in America.
In a recent report on the financial, operating and political affairs of the Teamsters, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of a House subcommittee on oversight and investigations, asked the question: After nearly 10 years of close government involvement in the Teamsters, is the union better off?
“The answer to that question certainly is yes,” the report stated. “Organized crime presence in the union . . . is far less than it was in the years leading up to the consent order. Today, high-ranking union officials are no longer members or notorious associates of organized crime.”
The report also said the consent order “is not the only required path to reform at the IBT.”
Hoesktra’s panel urged greater oversight by Justice and the Department of Labor, and suggested changes in the law to make unions more accountable to members. But in the end, the subcommittee concluded that the success of reforms ultimately will depend on the union’s leadership.
Hoffa “has the opportunity and responsibility to change and evolve both the existing culture and management structures . . . and demonstrate an unqualified willingness to be held accountable to integrity and democracy within the union,” the subcommittee report said.
Amid the hoopla of his inaugural reception May 1, Hoffa attempted to show that he is capable of taking on this responsibility.
A major question is how he chooses to deal with dissent. It’s discouraging to hear Hoffa’s people disparage Teamsters for a Democratic Union, for instance. The desire for unity is understandable, but it should not come at the expense of free expression of opinion. I recall that it was Hoffa who declared after narrowly losing to Carey in the 1996 election that the Teamsters had a two-party system.
As for oversight, Hoffa says he wants a “dialogue” with the government over its withdrawal from union affairs. He should be taken seriously. The union’s members elected Hoffa as their president and he should be allowed to represent them without interference.
If you need a precedent, consider what happened in March at Local 560 in Union City, N.J.
According to an article in the New York Times, Local 560 once was one of the most corrupt in the country. It also was the first union local in the nation to be put into trusteeship under racketeering laws in 1986.
Under the control of Anthony Provenzano, an associate of the Genovese crime family, union officials looted pension and welfare funds, extorted money from employers and intimidated dissenters at union meetings and in truck barns, the article stated. Provenzano died in prison in 1988 after being convicted of murder and extortion and being linked to the 1975 disappearance of former Teamsters President James R. Hoffa.
It was more than symbolic, then, that Jim Hoffa went there to swear in Peter Brown, a truck driver, as the newly elected president of Local 560. Having concluded that Brown won a clean election in December and that the union was free of mob influence, Judge Harold A. Ackerman of the U.S. District Court in Newark officially ended 13 years of government oversight of the local.
Local 560 represents 4,400 truck drivers, warehouse workers and factory employees.
“The members of this local have spoken,” Hoffa was quoted as saying. “They said with a loud, clear voice that there is no place in their local for the mob. I say that there is no room anywhere in the Teamsters union for the mob.”
