Posted on 12/05/2001 8:03:09 PM PST by CounterCounterCulture
``No legitimate reason remains to justify continued government intervention in that organization,'' the 66-union labor federation said in a resolution passed at its convention here. ``It is time for the consent decree to end and the Teamsters union returned to the full democratic control of its members.''
The AFL-CIO also criticized the government's application of the federal anti-racketeering law that led to the current federal oversight of the Teamsters, saying it is rarely applied to corporate misbehavior.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the AFL-CIO's biggest unions, was charged in an anti-racketeering suit in the 1980s with having made a ``Devil's pact'' with the Mob in which organized crime controlled much of it.
The suit was settled with a 1989 consent decree that required the union's top officers to be chosen in elections open to all members, instead of by convention delegates, and set up a panel of overseers to investigate corruption claims.
Teamsters union President James P. Hoffa said the union has had to pay $100 million in the past 12 years to cover the cost of the overseers and their staffs.
``What happened to the Teamsters union could happen to any of the unions in this hall today,'' he told the delegates.
Hoffa, who was just reelected last month, made the elimination of federal oversight an issue in his reelection campaign. His father, James R. Hoffa headed the union until he went to prison in 1967 for jury tampering.
OH JEEZ.....
I think I just wet my pants.
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