Teamsters Seek to End U.S. Oversight

s President Bush maneuvers to strengthen ties with the Teamsters, the union has mounted an intensive campaign to persuade the administration to end 12 years of federal supervision of the union, once considered the nation's most corrupt.

The Teamsters' campaign comes at the same time that the union's president, James P. Hoffa, has indicated that his union might support Republicans if they back the Teamsters on several crucial issues.

The Teamsters have been lobbying the White House, the Justice Department and the United States attorney in New York for an end to supervision, and Mr. Hoffa has made clear that it is his No. 1 wish from the Bush administration.

Teamsters officials say the government supervision should end not as a political favor but because the union has been cleaned up extensively. Nonetheless, some Republicans acknowledge that ending supervision might help Mr. Bush and other Republican candidates win the backing of the 1.4 million-member union in 2002 and 2004.

"I know the end of supervision is very important to Jim," said Representative Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican who is close to Mr. Hoffa and has helped lobby the administration on the issue. "My guess is at the end of the day, Jim will support those who have supported getting the federal government out of their union."

White House officials declined to give their reaction to the Teamsters' request, saying it was a Justice Department matter.

But on Labor Day, in what some Teamster leaders took as a strong indication of support, President Bush praised Mr. Hoffa at a Teamsters picnic in Detroit, saying: "He's running a good union. And in an aboveboard manner, in an aboveboard way. And make no mistake about it, people are beginning to notice, particularly in Washington, D.C."

In 1989, when Mr. Bush's father was president, the Teamsters reluctantly agreed to broad government supervision in which dozens of federal monitors oversee the union's elections and conduct investigations and trials to root out corruption. The Teamsters agreed to the supervision in a consent decree that settled a federal racketeering lawsuit that asserted that the union was dominated by organized crime.

Federal monitors say the supervision has gone far to clean up the union by obtaining the expulsions or resignations of more than 250 Teamster officials or members accused of corruption.

But several former prosecutors and monitors of the union said it might be premature to end the supervision. "There are reasons why I would take a very careful look," said Michael G. Cherkasky, a former Teamsters election monitor who is chief executive of the investigative agency Kroll Inc. "You only want to do this once, and you want to make sure you get it right. I would not rush to judgment on this."

Among the lingering problems Mr. Cherkasky pointed to was a 1996 fund-raising scandal in which several campaign aides to Ron Carey, the union's ousted president, misappropriated $885,000 in Teamster money to help re-elect him. Mr. Carey is now on trial in a perjury case.

Mr. Cherkasky also pointed to charges that federal monitors have brought against a top Hoffa aide and a Hoffa political ally, accusing them of negotiating a sweetheart deal that undercut Teamster workers in Las Vegas by giving hundreds of jobs to lower-paid nonunion workers.

Randy Mastro, a former assistant United States attorney who helped negotiate the consent decree, said: "A union that was dominated by Cosa Nostra influences for so long doesn't come clean overnight. It takes years and years of government oversight and permanent reforms before those reforms take hold. In my view, the jury is still out on whether it's time to end the supervision."

Since Mr. Bush was inaugurated, the Teamsters have stepped up efforts to persuade the administration to end the supervision, after repeated efforts failed to persuade the Clinton administration.

The union mounted an effort last January, in President Bill Clinton's last days in office, but Justice Department officials turned down that request.

The United States attorney in New York, Mary Jo White, is in charge of the federal supervision because her office, then led by Rudolph W. Giuliani, filed the original lawsuit that led to the supervision of the Teamsters.

Ms. White is expected to make the initial recommendation on whether it is time to end supervision. The Justice Department will make the ultimate decision.

Patrick J. Szymanski, the union's general counsel, voiced optimism, saying that Ms. White's office had indicated it might move to change or phase out the supervision after the Teamsters' presidential election by mail ballot in October and November.

"To the extent that the consent decree is predicated on the existence of an organized crime problem in the union, that's been resolved," Mr. Szymanski said. "They understand progress has been made and that this has gone on for a long period of time and that some change is appropriate."

He said that the union had set up an ambitious self-policing program, using former prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, to prevent the return of corruption.

Officials of the Justice Department and the United States attorney's office declined to discuss the Teamsters' efforts to end supervision.

Michael Mathis, the union's director of government affairs, said the Teamsters had never proposed or discussed a formal quid pro quo with the White House or Republicans in which the Teamsters would endorse Mr. Bush and other Republicans if supervision were lifted.

"There are people in the administration and in Congress who are helping us out, but I don't know if you can make the leap to an endorsement," Mr. Mathis said. "It would certainly be one of the things in the mix that we consider. It will not go unnoticed, even all the way down to the local unions and the members."

"...the union has mounted an intensive campaign to persuade the administration to end 12 years of federal supervision of the union, once considered the nation's most corrupt."

The Teamsters were once considered the nation's most corrupt union? They're still as corrupt as ever.

oversight is toast sometime soon after the fall union election

But the Dems (and NYT's Greenhouse-gas) still can't say the emperor has no clothes:

Among the lingering problems Mr. Cherkasky pointed to was a 1996 fund-raising scandal in which several campaign aides, to Ron Carey, the union's ousted president, misappropriated $885,000 in Teamster money to help re-elect him. Mr. Carey is now on trial in a perjury case.

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