Ex-Teamsters Officials Endorse Reforms

Three Teamsters vice presidents, who resigned recently, have endorsed major union reforms in agreements with the government that dismiss them as defendants in a massive racketeering case filed against the union last year.

The officials--Robert Holmes of Detroit, John H. Cleveland of Washington and Maurice R. Schurr of Philadelphia--agreed that the way the union conducts its elections should be reformed and that an independent disciplinary commission should be created in the union, according to court documents released Wednesday. They also endorsed the objective of “preventing La Cosa Nostra corruption of any elements” of the union, while admitting no personal guilt.

The three men, all of whom have been Teamster officials for many years, have agreed to retire from their offices and any other positions they hold in the union.

U.S. District Judge David N. Edelstein in New York entered consent judgments Wednesday in all three cases. While it removes them from the case filed under the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against the Teamsters, it has no immediate effect on the other defendants in the suit.

Asked if similar settlements with other members of the Teamsters executive board are pending, Randy M. Mastro, the assistant U.S. attorney in New York, who is in charge of the suit, responded: “No comment.”

On Saturday, the executive board of the 1.6 million-member union unanimously rejected a government proposal for settling the suit, according to James T. Grady, the union’s general counsel. Sources close to the union said that the settlement would have imposed a board of monitors on the union until the year 2011, required the union to admit that it had been dominated by the Mafia and instituted major changes in its election procedures.

The Times was unable to reach Grady or other union officials for comment Wednesday on the consent judgments.

The government’s case against the Teamsters is scheduled to go to trial in New York Feb. 27. The suit, filed June 28, 1988, asserts that the union is dominated by organized crime and seeks court supervision until new officers can be elected in a “free and fair election.”

In the consent agreements, Cleveland, Holmes and Schurr all call for changing the union’s constitution to mandate the secret election of top union officers, either by “direct rank-and-file voting” or by a convention at which all delegates have been elected by secret ballot shortly before the convention.

The settlements also endorse changing the union’s constitution to establish an independent disciplinary official or committee to initiate and resolve disciplinary and trusteeship proceedings.

Additionally, the agreements say that Judge Edelstein should appoint an individual or committee, affiliated with the union, to conduct elections for the union’s top officers “to ensure that the selection processes are not vulnerable to forms of intimidation.”

The three virtually identical settlements acknowledge that “the President’s Commission on Organized Crime found in a 1986 report that organized crime has exerted substantial influence over elements of the IBT (International Brotherhood of Teamsters).”

And the agreements acknowledge that “Cleveland La Cosa Nostra underboss Angelo Lonardo has testified in this case and elsewhere that he and other La Cosa Nostra bosses supported the election of IBT Presidents Roy L. Williams and Jackie Presser.”

The retirements of Cleveland, 76, who has been in ill health for some time, and Schurr, 72, were not unexpected. Holmes, 76, was second in seniority on the executive board and the most influential of the three. He has been a Teamster for 52 years.

The settlements provide that none of the three men will be called as witnesses in the case.

Henry Weinstein reported from Los Angeles and Ronald J. Ostrow from Washington.