Presser’s Handpicked Heir Upset in Teamster Election : McCarthy of Boston Gets Helm

William J. McCarthy, the Teamsters’ top man in New England for two decades, today upset the late Jackie Presser’s handpicked choice to succeed him as president of the nation’s largest union.

The Teamsters’ 17-member General Executive Board elected McCarthy, 69, of Boston over Secretary-Treasurer Weldon Mathis, whom Presser had named acting president on May 4.

Asked what his major challenge would be in leading the union, McCarthy told a packed news conference: “I’ve got loads of them. I’ve got a tough job ahead of me. It should be condolences, not congratulations.”

McCarthy will earn a six-figure salary as the highest-paid union official in the country.

While several of the Teamsters’ 16 regional vice presidents had jockeyed for position to succeed Presser, the race had narrowed to McCarthy and Mathis in the last week.

Known to Be Tough

McCarthy, who has a reputation of being a tough negotiator with a quick temper, will serve out Presser’s five-year term, which expires in 1991, when the union holds its next international convention in Las Vegas.

The conventions are held only every five years, a practice that strengthens the grip of incumbent officers.

Presser, 61, had been president of the 1.6-million-member union since 1983. At the time of his death from cancer last Saturday, he was under federal indictment on charges of labor racketeering and embezzlement.

Asked what Presser’s reaction to his election would have been, McCarthy said, “Maybe he rolled over in his grave.”

The government is attempting to seize control of the union through a court-appointed trustee, claiming that its entire leadership is either under the control of organized crime figures or incapable of removing their influence from Teamster affairs.

History of Influence

Among the allegations in the government takeover suit filed two weeks ago is that mob bosses in Chicago and New York were behind elevating Roy Williams to the union’s presidency in 1981 and Presser to the post in 1983.

A federal criminal court jury in May found that the government lacked sufficient proof, and attorneys for the union have vehemently argued that there is no organized crime influence at the top of the union.

McCarthy, a Teamsters vice president since 1969, said: “I have no illusions about how tough this job will be. I do not have all the answers to this union’s problems.”

Mathis, 62, was picked by Presser in 1985 to be the Teamsters’ No. 2 official. A year later, Presser engineered a change in the union’s constitution so that Mathis, rather than First Vice President Joseph Trerotola of New York, would fill his shoes if he were incapacitated.

Break With Tradition

Breaking a long-held tradition to keep internal disputes among Teamster leaders behind closed doors, McCarthy has spoken out in local union halls condemning the union’s new three-year National Master Freight Agreement with the trucking industry.

The contract covering about 200,000 members was rejected in May by 64% of those voting. However, Mathis declared it ratified under the union’s constitution, which requires a two-thirds no vote for disapproval.

According to one source, Mathis offered during a board meeting two weeks ago in Montreal to support McCarthy for the No. 2, job but McCarthy declined.

Ten days after he was named acting president, Mathis resigned as president of Teamsters Local 728 in Atlanta, his base of power in the union. The Labor Department is investigating allegations of vote fraud made by dissidents who had challenged Mathis’ reelection as the local’s president last fall.