Teeth for the Monitors

Cocksure in his position as boss of the nation's biggest, toughest union, President James Riddle Hoffa of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters cared not a nit about the 1958 order handed down by Washington's Federal District Judge F. Dickinson Letts. That order, arising from a suit against Hoffa by 13 rank-and-file Teamsters, placed the racket-ridden, goon-directed union under the supervision of a three-member board of court-appointed monitors. But Hoffa blithely declared that the monitors' recommendations were purely advisory, ignored them completely ("O.K., you've advised me; I reject your advice"), looked forward confidently to the day when Judge Letts's order would be dissolved by an appellate court. Last week Jimmy Hoffa got the shock of his busy life: three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals not only upheld the bulk of Judge Letts's order, but gave it teeth that seemed likely to take a big bite out of Hoffa in his ruthless drive for power.

Effective immediately, the Court of Appeals empowered the monitors to take any recommendations rejected by the Teamsters into federal court. The court would examine the recommendations, modify them if necessary, then pass them on as formal court orders. Failure to comply could bring Hoffa in contempt of court. Specifically, the appeals court required Hoffa to get hopping on a score of reforms. Among them:

P:Hoffa must investigate and take disciplinary measures against Owen ("Bert") Brennan of Detroit, an international vice president of the Teamsters and one of Hoffa's closest cronies, accused of using union welfare funds to pay a prize fighter he once managed.

P:The Teamsters must recommend for adoption by the union's locals a "model code of bylaws, or model provisions for inclusion in the bylaws, to be drafted by the monitors."

P: The Teamsters must "protect the constitutional rights of individual members and locals in regard to elections, qualifications for office, and freedom to express views at meetings." (In the past, dissenting Teamster members have often suffered beatings and other reprisals at the hands of Hoffa bullyboys.) P: The Teamsters must clean up the administration and counting of union funds and properties.

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