Bevona, Cioa, the old DC 37 crowd, and the pre-Carey Teamsters, among others: these are a special class of entirely useless labor "leaders," who want to retain their sinecures simply because it allows them to "live high on the hog." They are so into what is outright thievery [hence, their alliances with organized crime], that they have been absolute disasters in advocating for and representing their members. There is nothing redeeming about their presence in the labor movement.
One "smears" Carey and the Teamster reformers by classifying them in the same category as these corrupt specimens. One of the reasons why Carey had such a difficult reelection fight on his hands was that he had moved in dramatic ways to clean out such elements from the Teamsters, the international union in which they were most heavily entrenched; the hangman's noose had brought incredible clarity and unity to these corrupt elements which are generally so purely self-interested as to make cooperation impossible, and they were all behind Hoffa Jr. Carey was also a faithful and forceful advocate of his members' interests, and notwithstanding the usual ultra-left critiques of the UPS strike, it was a major victory for the UPS workforce and the Teamsters.
But it is wrong, to suggest as Jason did, that Carey "_did_ break the law, but it wasn't very awful as these things go." There was something quite awful about what Carey, Ansara and, it seems, Trumka did, and not because it was illegal, but because it went straight to the core of union democracy. When you take members' dues and use them, as an incumbent, for your own reelection campaign, you have violated one of the primary precepts of union democracy. It is just as if the incumbent in the White House took a billion or so dollars out of the national treasury and funneled them into his reelection campaign. It is simply unacceptable.
There are violations of the law regarding union elections which one might argue, plausibly, are not a "big thing." For example, it is clear that McEntee of AFSCME, Stern of SEIU and Trumka of the AFL-CIO all raised money [independently of the scandal surrounding the theft of members' dues] that was given to the Carey campaign. Now there were legal prohibitions on such outside donations, and there is no doubt that the law was violated in this respect too. But one can make arguments both ways on the validity of the law. Some point out that it is designed to keep employers from interfering in union elections, and that no outside union official or politician should be interfering in the democratic process through which the members elect their leadership -- especially when, as in the case of the AFL-CIO and Trumka, you are talking about an affiliate which elects you. On the other hand, insurgents have claimed, with some justification, that such measures tie their hands, making it virtually impossible to raise enough money to conduct a serious campaign. Of course, as incumbents, this was not the problem of the Carey-reformer slate, as they could rely upon donations from many Teamster officials and locals.
But what Carey, Ansara and, almost certainly, Trumka did was not a close call, not an issue on which there are two sides one could argue. It was plain and simple theft of the members' dues to use in the reelection campaign. We would not stand for it for a minute if it was done by Hoffa Jr., and we should not equivocate because it was done by "our guy."
BTW, Nathan and Doug, I don't think you generally get to choose who ends up in a foxhole with you. So get ready to hug.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20010130/d99b2998/attachment.htm>