The Teamster Swamp

The federal government’s 30-year effort to clean up the International Brotherhood of Teamsters sometimes seems like something out of mythology--perhaps the tale of Sisyphus. Like the king of Corinth, doomed forever in Hades to roll a heavy stone uphill only to see it roll back down, the government has found real progress elusive. It has indicted four Teamster presidents, sent three of them to jail, ousted dozens of crooked local leaders and replaced them with outside trustees, prosecuted hundreds of gangsters with their hooks into the Teamsters--all to no avail. Despite these heroic moves, the Teamsters’ leadership today seems as corrupt, as tolerant of La Cosa Nostra’s influence, as it was when a Senate committee first documented that unsavory relationship in 1957.

Now the Justice Department proposes to take over the nation’s largest union. Invoking the sweeping powers of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the government wants to “break the devil’s pact” between the Teamsters and organized crime by dismissing anyone on the 18-member executive board with mob connections as well as anyone, however untainted himself, who failed to act against the mob’s influence. Court-appointed trustees would take charge of the union’s daily operations, doing everything from negotiating contracts to processing grievances, until new officials could be elected. The legal theory is novel, as U.S. District Judge David Edelstein indicated Thursday in refusing to appoint a temporary watchdog for the union until the case can go to trial.

To some extent the RICO suit reflects the prosecutors’ frustration. Only two months ago a federal jury in New York rejected charges in a criminal case that the last two Teamster elections had been rigged by Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno, a reputed Mafia boss. Now, by filing a suit to put the Teamsters into trusteeship, U.S. Atty. Rudolph W. Giuliani wants to retry that case but in a civil court, where he will need to prove his allegations only “by a preponderance of the evidence” instead of the sterner standard--”beyond a reasonable doubt”--required in criminal proceedings. Giuliani’s inability to accept a jury’s verdict naturally rankles organized labor, as does the spectacle of the Reagan Administration’s elbowing its way into union business. This is, after all, the Administration that fired air-traffic controllers after their illegal 1981 strike, declined to enforce work-place safety laws and still opposes measures requiring notice to workers of plant closings. But, despite dark suggestions from Teamster lawyers that the rights of American workers hang in the balance, we don’t regard the RICO suit as the first step toward government domination of unions.

Our primary objection is that, like earlier government moves against the Teamsters, the RICO suit seems doomed. As Times labor columnist Harry Bernstein has reported, the government encountered formidable problems when it invoked RICO just to take over one small Teamster local in New Jersey where crooks had used patronage, threats and even murder to stay in office. Three years later a court-appointed trustee says that decent elements might win a closely supervised election but that the mob remains active in the local--though on the fringes. On a national scale it is unlikely that the government has either the resources to mount the same all-out effort or the patience to wait for a payoff that may be decades away.

More modest steps might be more fruitful. Currently the Teamsters’ president and executive board are elected by delegates at the national convention, many of them representing thoroughly corrupt locals. Closer government scrutiny of these local elections might root out some corruption. The government could also encourage the efforts of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, the dissidents who may intervene in the RICO suit to urge the court to do what the U.S. Department of Labor should have done long ago--order the direct election of national leaders. Such an election, in which the rank-and-file could cast secret ballots, would still favor the well-financed incumbents, but it might restore some democracy, reduce the mob’s influence and, once and for all, test the conventional wisdom that most Teamsters are good guys who resent La Cosa Nostra’s grip.