U.S. Will Let Top Teamster Leaders Retain Their Posts : 3-Member Panel to Review Acts

Prosecutors trying to seize the Teamsters union to rid it of alleged mob influence reached a tentative settlement with the union today that would allow its leaders to remain in office, a union lawyer said.

The agreement was reached hours before the Justice Department’s civil racketeering lawsuit against the nation’s biggest union was to go to trial.

The lawsuit, in which the government had sought to oust the Teamsters’ leadership and have a trustee or committee appointed to oversee elections, represents the first time the government has tried to seize an entire union.

Just before he was to give his opening statement today, Assistant U.S. Atty. Randy Mastro said the Teamsters had agreed to a settlement proposal at 1:30 a.m.

Mastro said that in addition to the 1.6-million-member union itself, the 11 individual defendants--the executive board of the union--had signed the agreement.

Outside the courtroom, Mastro declined to give the terms of the agreement.

However, James T. Grady, the union’s general counsel, said that no administrator would be appointed by the court to oversee the union and none of the 11 executive board members would be required to resign.

Grady said a three-member panel chosen by the government and the union would investigate alleged union misdeeds and review local elections, and reform amendments to the union constitution would be voted on at the Teamsters’ 1991 convention.

Thornburgh to Act

U.S. District Judge David N. Edelstein, who was to have presided over the non-jury trial, granted an adjournment to allow time for the settlement to be reviewed and approved by U.S. Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh.

In Washington, the Justice Department said Thornburgh would announce a settlement in the Teamsters case at an afternoon news conference, indicating the attorney general had approved the agreement.

On Sunday, the union ran a full page ad in The New York Times, condemning the government lawsuit. “Teamsters are not the only ones on trial,” the ad asserted. “So is the American system of Justice.”

“Our union is about to face its greatest challenge--a challenge that could set a dangerous precedent for the entire American labor movement,” it said.

Last week, three members of the Teamsters executive board, including Weldon Mathis, the union’s No. 2 official, agreed to a settlement. Three other vice presidents reached settlements last month. That left just 11 board members, including President William J. McCarthy, and the union itself as defendants.

When he filed the lawsuit in June, then-U.S. Atty. Rudolph Giuliani accused the Teamsters’ leadership of making a “devil’s pact” with organized crime. Giuliani said the lawsuit was an attempt to take back the union from the Mafia.

The government’s move was roundly criticized by congressmen and labor leaders. The AFL-CIO, which allowed the Teamsters to rejoin in 1987 after a 30-year rift over corruption, called the lawsuit “a clear abuse of the government’s prosecutorial power.”