By
Milt Neidenberg
Retired Teamster
New York Sept. 3, 2001
It's a tragic irony of history that during the Labor Day season, when tens of thousands of labor unionists are marching, one of the most outstanding labor leaders of this stormy period is standing in the dock, innocent and alone, defending himself against a powerful array of government inquisitors who are charging him with crimes he never committed.
It's a frame-up!
Ron Carey, former president of the powerful 1.4 million-member Teamsters union, is currently on trial in U.S. Federal District Court in New York. He was indicted on seven counts, charged with fundraising improprieties during his 1996 campaign for re-election.
Conviction could mean a sentence of 35 years on each count.
He is not charged with personally embezzling any union funds. The allegation is that he knew of a laundering scheme to aid his re-election campaign and lied to federal investigators, election monitors and a federal grand jury about it.
Carey passionately denies that he knew about such a scheme.
Progressive labor unionists should recognize what happened for what it was: a plan figured out by a few non-Teamster promoters, hired to run Carey's 1996 presidential campaign, to use union funds as seed money to get contributions from the Democratic Party.
Carey says he did not know the laundered money came originally from the union treasury. The promoters are now serving jail time.
Gov't intervention began in 1989
Who is behind these trumped-up charges against Carey? The U.S. government began hounding the Teamsters union in 1989. The campaign was launched by Judge David Edelstein and the federal district court in New York, then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, the FBI, and a battery of prosecutors and investigators.
It began with a full-court press by the government to take over the union. They used the infamous anti-union racketeering and corruption statute known as RICO to force the Teamsters to sign a consent decree.
The decree granted the government and the courts unprecedented power to take over the union and its then-1.5 million members. The enforcement language included changing the Teamster constitution to give the government far-reaching powers over elected Teamster officials--from local unions all the way up to the president and the General Executive Board.
The government representatives had the right to discipline union officers and rank-and-file members, and appoint trustees over local unions. They had the power to veto any union expenditures and contracts, except collective bargaining agreements.
They had the right to take over union meetings and conferences, seize the minutes, examine the books and records, and bring in "independent" auditors.
To add insult to this unprecedented and dangerous intrusion, over the last decade the Teamsters have had to pay the government puppets more than $100 million from the members' dues for these "services."
Herein lie the Teamsters' nightmare and the background behind the Carey frame-up. The relentless pursuit of Carey is a warning to the entire labor movement.
If they can do it to the Teamsters and get away with it, any union is fair game for these repressive state forces.
Carey
won office
as
a militant
reformer
Carey won the 1996 presidential contest against James P. Hoffa fair and square. Even the election officer appointed under the decree said so. She was later forced to resign when the government overturned the results.
Carey, now banned by the government for life from any contact with the union, began his Teamster career over 45 years ago when he took a job with United Parcel Service. In 1968, he was elected president of the 7,000-member Local 804.
He ran the local for over 20 years. He earned a well-deserved reputation as a militant. He led the local in several strikes that won higher wages and better conditions.
And he became a bitter opponent of the entrenched top leaders when they developed a cozy relationship with UPS bosses during regional and national contract negotiations. He was a rebel with a cause when it came to representing the rank and file.
What irked the government most was that later, when he became Teamster international president in 1991, he opened a scathing attack to end the consent decree. He waged an ongoing campaign throughout his tenure to get the government off the union's back.
Instead it intensified its control. The government ordered Carey to accept the appointment of William Webster, a former CIA and FBI director, to lead a three-member "Independent Review Board" over the Teamsters. Carey charged him with conflict of interests. Webster sat on the board of directors of Anheuser-Busch, an arch-enemy of the workers that negotiates contracts with the Teamsters. Webster was also on the board of the Pinkerton Security and Investigations Services, notorious in labor history as a strikebreaker.
But Carey's accusations were disregarded.
While the government strengthened its hold on the Teamsters, Carey fought back. He initiated dramatic progressive changes that built back the union from the bottom up.
He democratized the union, improved the grievance structure and got rid of a bloated bureaucracy that double-dipped into the union treasury to fatten their incomes. He increased strike benefits for the members.
He encouraged participation of the rank and file in innumerable ways that gave confidence to a work force that was increasingly multinational, women and service-oriented.
Victory in UPS strike
Carey's crowning success was the unparalleled contract he negotiated with an arrogant, uncooperative United Parcel Service after a militant, well-organized strike. The UPS workers eliminated a two-tier wage structure, won full-time jobs for 10,000 part-time workers over a five-year span, and won improvements in their benefits.
The UPS struggle, well-planned and executed by the rank and file, should be a case study for the organized labor movement.
Carey was a key player and strategist in the election of John Sweeney to the leadership of the AFL-CIO in 1995. Sweeney won the stewardship from previous President Lane Kirkland, who had worked closely with the CIA and other anti-communist institutions to purge progressive, class-conscious, and militant unionists from leadership roles.
Carey was respected as a labor leader with the credentials to take over the AFL-CIO upon the retirement of the elderly Sweeney.
Behind the government's conspiracy to get Carey is a political struggle that has serious implications for the AFL-CIO leadership.
President George W. Bush has the most pro-big-business, pro-corporate-banker administration in recent years. An Aug. 28 commentary by Micah Morrison, a senior Wall Street Journal editorial page writer, called for the government to investigate Carey's ties to three of the most powerful union leaders in the country: AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard L. Trumka, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee and Service Employees President Andrew L. Stern.
Morrison wrote, "The Carey case remains a dagger pointed at the highest levels of the labor movement."
In a 1998 letter to this reporter and many other Teamsters, Carey confirmed this very concern. He wrote, "The government is attempting to destroy the labor movement--as you know it's not just the Teamster union but Labor and all working American families."
Carey is not a socialist, nor does he denounce capitalism, the system that spawns the very forces that are determined to destroy him. But his experiences bring him to recognize the class struggle.
The time is now for the AFL-CIO leadership and affiliates to reach out to Carey, who has contributed so much to the labor movement. His outstanding accomplishments should not be lost in the crescendo of attacks from an anti-union, anti-worker government, its courts and cops, which are hell-bent on the demise of the best defenders of labor's rights in this critical period of a growing capitalist recession.
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