Labor Revving Up For a Cleanup?

By RICHARD BEHAR

In a fitting stroke of symbolism, next week's Teamsters convention will take place in Orlando instead of its familiar site: Las Vegas -- the magic kingdom that was built illegally with the union's money. The Teamsters are putting on a new face. Even the workers at Disney World who walk around wearing Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck or Pluto costumes are card-carrying members of the International Brotherhood. More important, the union is at last cleaning up its act, thanks to the prodding of court-appointed officers who have forced dozens of Mob-connected officials out of the union.

The sweeping change is the result of a deal the government cut with the Teamsters in 1989 to settle a massive racketeering suit alleging that the union's leadership had made a "devil's pact" with the Cosa Nostra. To avoid a costly trial and the threat of a government trusteeship, Teamsters leaders agreed to major reforms. If the Orlando convention follows the new rules, in December the 1.6 million members of the most powerful U.S. union will freely elect their president and 17-member executive board for the first time. That's good news for the rank and file, whose pooh-bahs have been ripping them off for decades. The bad news is that none of the viable presidential candidates are completely free of old Teamster associations or questionable past performances.

The winner will have the historic challenge of recasting a union that the President's Commission on Organized Crime in 1986 tagged the "most controlled" by the Mafia, notably by New York City's Genovese family. Four of the union's past seven presidents have been indicted on criminal charges; three of them (Dave Beck, James R. Hoffa and Roy Williams) went to prison. "The Teamsters are probably the most Mob-controlled union in the country's history," says Joseph Coffey, a top investigator at the New York State Organized Crime Task Force. "And they could still tie the nation up in knots if they wanted to."

People tend to think only of truckers when they hear the word Teamster, but the union today embraces workers from all walks of life -- hospital and brewery laborers, librarians, schoolteachers, even state troopers and sheriff's deputies -- in more than 600 locals scattered as far as Guam and the Yukon Territory. Despite a membership erosion caused mostly by trucking deregulation (the Teamsters peaked in 1978 at 2.3 million), the union boasts the largest U.S. political-action committee. Last year it raised $10.5 million, nearly twice as much as the runner-up, the American Medical Association. That money buys plenty of political influence. More than half the members of the House of Representatives urged the Justice Department not to file the racketeering suit that paved the way for next week's free convention.

That power has not always translated into prosperity for the workers, whose paychecks did not even keep up with inflation throughout the 1980s as their contracts granted huge concessions to employers. Meanwhile, Teamster leaders enjoyed free rides on four union-owned jets, and more than 150 officers reaped six-figure salaries. Aging Teamster president William (Billy) McCarthy is viewed by many dues-paying members as corrupt and ineffective. "I don't advocate the death penalty for anyone, but I think he should be removed from office," says Susan Jennik, head of the Association for Union Democracy, a reform group that has monitored the Teamsters since 1969.

In settling the racketeering suit two years ago, McCarthy and his cronies agreed to a consent order under which Frederick Lacey, a former federal judge, was assigned as an overseer to remove corrupt officials and lead the way to free elections. Teamster leaders were enjoined from "knowingly associating" with mobsters, but McCarthy was officially accused in May of bringing reproach upon the union by inviting an embezzler and a Mob-linked Teamster to sit on a convention committee (he withdrew the nominations). Lacey also vetoed a lucrative printing contract that McCarthy had handed to his own son-in-law.

Old-school Teamsters sometimes grumble that McCarthy sold them out to the feds to save his own skin. Maybe so, but he and his cohort have nonetheless spent $12 million of the union's money to litigate the settlement at each step -- even to the point of preventing a court-appointed elections officer from getting office space in their Washington headquarters.

Whichever candidates come out of the convention with 5% or more of the delegate votes will be on the ballot in December for election by the rank and file. (In the past, unelected delegates chose the president directly.) Of the six men seeking the top spot, only three have reasonable odds. The front runner, R.V. Durham, 59, is a national vice president of the Teamsters who is running with the blessing of McCarthy and a majority of the executive board. "We're attempting to move this union away from the status quo," says Durham.

But Durham is the status quo. Lacey has barred three other Teamsters from running for lesser posts on Durham's ticket because of Mob ties, embezzlement and failing to take action against corruption. While no one has accused Durham of racketeering, he never challenged the leadership on any issues of principle until the campaign. Earlier this year Durham voted against holding a board meeting (a "kangaroo court," he calls it) to decide whether to investigate McCarthy's involvement in the printing-contract scandal.

The other establishment candidate is Walter Shea, who served as assistant and gatekeeper for four Teamster presidents, including Roy Williams, who admitted to taking orders from the Kansas City Mob. Shea, who was named a defendant in the feds' racketeering case, insists that he did not know about Williams' Mafia ties. Shea has the backing of a faction led by Joseph (Joe T.) Trerotola, a powerful and feared Teamster vice president who was accused last month by a court-appointed officer of failing to investigate allegations that some of his colleagues are Mob-linked. Trerotola is fighting the charges.

The cleanest candidate with a chance of winning the election, though a slight one, is Ronald Carey, president of a United Parcel Service local in Queens, N.Y. Carey is widely regarded as a reformer running with a small power base and a shoestring campaign chest of $300,000. "The others have access to all the Teamster resources," he gripes. "They could raise $1 million in one day if they needed to. They think they're in a corporate country club."

Critics, however, insist that Carey stood by while his own local was infiltrated by the Mob. His secretary-treasurer, John Long, was convicted in 1988 for embezzlement (the conviction was reversed on procedural grounds). Carey says he did nothing wrong, but the scandal has raised questions about his ability to monitor underlings. Last month a major reform group, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, was censured for making illegal contributions to Carey's campaign.

The wild card at the convention will be labor lawyer James P. Hoffa, 50, son of the legendary Teamster leader who disappeared in 1975, eight years after he went to jail for jury tampering. A federal judge barred Hoffa last month from running for office because he has held a job "in the craft" for only half of the required two years. Even so, Hoffa aims to line up enough delegate votes to amend the union's constitution to allow him to seek the presidency. Meanwhile, jackets emblazoned with the phrase FRIENDS OF HOFFA, the slogan used by his father, have begun spreading across the country.

Hoffa's father may have been a crook, but he looked out for the members' interests (and paychecks) like no Teamster president who followed him. He died, most federal agents believe, because he finally stood up to the Mob after years of acquiescing. "When Jimmy Jr. walks out on that floor, there will be a revival that only his father could command," says an FBI agent who is close to the scene. "Just the mention of his charismatic name may generate a groundswell of support."

Hoffa's son has pledged to root out the Mob, and his attacks on the current Teamster leadership have been fiery. But last week Hoffa sounded highly conciliatory as he pondered whether he will have to grovel for support from the Durham or Shea camps for a rules change to allow him to run. "Everyone's heart is in the right place," Hoffa says now about his opponents, sounding more and more like the consummate politician his father was.

One thing that deeply troubles reformers about Hoffa is his unwillingness to accept the evidence that his father was Mob-tied, an impediment that raises questions about his ability to see the enemy. "I think Jimmy Jr. is the best man for this union," says Daniel Sullivan, a union official and a source on the Mafia for the FBI. "But the evidence on his father is overwhelming. He knew how to say no to the Mob, but he just should have started doing it sooner." Hoffa admits that "my father knew some of these guys ((mobsters)). But I don't accept any of this stuff about the Mob. I don't have to clear his name. But we have to restore the greatness of the Hoffa years. It was the Mob that killed my father, so I'm dedicated to purging it from the union."

One difficulty in purging organized crime is that the Mob remains very efficient at ironing out labor disputes. In 1986, for example, local Teamster officials brought a beef to former Philadelphia mobster Nicholas ("the Crow") Caramandi. The officials, Caramandi recalls today, were upset because a Laborers Union local was monopolizing certain work at Philadelphia's Civic Center. The Mob warned the Laborers to back off, and they did. "If they don't listen, you might have to whack ((execute)) them, maybe throw someone out a window," explains Caramandi, who has since entered the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Even though delegates at next week's convention will have to choose from a slate of flawed candidates, the Teamsters have come a long way in two years. More than 100 leaders have been charged with crimes, and nearly half of them have already quit or been forced out. "I don't think it will ever again be business as usual," says labor reformer Jennik. Or as administrator Lacey puts it, "Who emerges victorious is really not our concern as long as it's done fairly and honestly." In this case, the uncertainty of the outcome is evidence that America's most notorious union is well on the road to democracy.