Rank & file Teamsters say: 'Probe Hoffa finances


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

Fri, 24 Oct 97 13:36:40 CDT
source:scott@rednet.org (Peoples Weekly World)


**Rank & file Teamsters say: 'Probe Hoffa finances'**

(Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 1997 issue of the People's
Weekly World. May be reprinted or reposted with PWW credit.
For subscription information see below)

By Fred Gaboury

NEW YORK - Republicans and other right-wing forces have
targeted Teamster President Ron Carey with charges of
campaign irregularities and have ordered a new election for
later next winter.

But rank-and-file union members like Darryl Sullivan have
turned the tables with the demand for a federal probe of
contributions to the campaign of James P. Hoffa Jr. in his
unsuccessful bid to win the presidency of the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters last year.

In a sworn statement before the House Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigation on Oct. 14, Sullivan, a member
of Teamsters Local 745 in Dallas, Texas, said local
officers had channeled thousands of dollars from union
funds to the Real Teamsters Caucus, a part of Hoffa's
campaign apparatus.

Sullivan said that T.C. Stone, then the chief officer of
Local 745, had been caught funneling "another $45,000 of
our dues money to the Hoffa slate's campaign." All in all,
Sullivan said, more than $100,000 of union money had been
"misused."

Sullivan hit a nerve when he told Subcommittee Chair Paul
Hoekstra (R-Mich.) that he was concerned about the
willingness of the subcommittee to be objective in
examining issues resulting from the election.

He charged the GOP leadership in Congress of displaying "a
consistent pattern of representing the interest of big
corporations against working people like me."

Sullivan added that the House leadership had tried to block
federal supervision designed to ensure a fair rerun
election.

"These facts," he said, "make me concerned about whether
this committee will examine issues surrounding the
Teamsters election in a fair and balanced way."

Hoekstra, with an 80 percent voting record on behalf of
conservative issues and zero on labor issues, enjoys a "you
scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" relationship with UPS
and other employers with whom the Teamsters have contracts
or where the union is conducting organizing campaigns.

He and other GOP members of the Oversight and Investigation
Subcommittee received more than a quarter million dollars
in campaign contributions from outfits like Fedex, the
American Trucking Associations, Northwest Airlines and the
Big Business-supported Americans for Free International
Trade.

In an Oct. 20 speech to the National Press Club, Carey said
it was not surprising that the politicians UPS finances
want to prevent fair union elections.

"In addition to getting corporate money, anti-labor
Republicans used to receive millions of dollars from the
corrupt old guard leadership [of the Teamsters union].
Since reform began, that pipeline has been cut off."

Carey told members of the Washington press corps that his
campaign manager and two others who worked in his 1996
election campaign were guilty of the misuse of dues money.
"What they did was a betrayal of all I have worked for
since I ... went to work for UPS in 1955."

Hoffa's bobbing and weaving in a so-far-successful effort
to keep the government from investigating his campaign was
given a boost by a recent front-page article in the New
York Times. While admitting that many of Hoffa's closest
associates inside and outside the union have been sent to
prison, the Times declared Hoffa the front-runner in a new
election.

In a further attempt to prettify a man whose connections
with "the mob" are well documented, the article quotes
Arthur Sloane, a biographer of Hoffa Sr. who, while
admitting Hoffa's gangster ties, said it's "unlikely" that
Hoffa will "bring back the old guard and some unsavory
characters."

George Meyers, who knew and liked Hoffa Sr., described him
as "an outstanding fighter for his members. I respected him
for that while, at the same time, disagreeing with his
approach to business unionism. The son cannot be compared
to his father in any way. He's never held a union office.
For that matter, he's never even worked as a Teamster."

Meyers, chair of the Labor Department of the Communist
Party USA, sees the attack on Carey as an attack on the
entire labor movement.

"Last month the AFL-CIO convention refused to allow itself
to be side-tracked by these attacks and, instead, mapped
out campaigns to continue the work of rebuilding. This was
a direct challenge to Corporate America, just as the attack
on Carey is a direct attack on the entire labor movement."
##30##

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