councilor.org
| Source | D. Ohmans |
| Date | 99/05/01/22:37 |
| /* Written 4:04 PM Dec 20, 1998 by jdoug@ix.netcom.com in igc:labr.all */ /* ---------- "Hoffa Running Mates Face Charges" ---------- */ Hoffa Running Mates Face Charges By KEVIN GALVIN (c) The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- As James P. Hoffa awaits certification of his election victory as Teamsters president, new union charges against members of his slate are reviving questions about some of his associates. A court-appointed board has filed new charges against two of Hoffa's running mates since the voting ended earlier this month, and a third slate member was implicated in charges filed against another Hoffa ally. All of Hoffa's slate members were elected, pending certification. The timing of the charges is troubling both for Hoffa, who intends to push for an end to the federal government's supervision of the 1.4 million-member union, and to his opponents, who say the members should have been told about the charges before they cast their ballots. ``The members should have been able to make a decision with all of the facts and all of the information,'' said Tom Leedham, who lost to Hoffa with 39 percent of the vote. But Charles Carberry, chief investigator for the court-appointed Independent Review Board, said that ``the charges are filed when the charges are ready. We can't be concerned about the timing.'' Leedham and the grass-roots reform group that backed him, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, painted Hoffa as the favorite of old guard union officials who were stripped of power after the Teamsters union was forced to sign a federal consent decree to avoid racketeering charges in 1989. Shaking that image is a primary challenge for the son of labor legend Jimmy Hoffa, but allegations continue to dog some of his associates. Regarding the new charges, Hoffa released a statement saying only that there were mechanisms in place for weighing the allegations and that ``we intend to see that the procedures are followed.'' On Monday, the Independent Review Board charged J.D. Potter, leader of a Texas local and a candidate for the Teamsters executive board on the Hoffa slate, with lying to the election officer about breaking donation limits. Under the rules, Potter was limited to giving $5,000 to the Hoffa campaign, and he said that an additional $5,000 he forwarded came from other union members. He also contended, according to the charges, that the original bills they gave him were still in his car, and he produced $4,700 in cash from the trunk. But 13 of the bills were not in circulation at the time he claimed Potter had collected them. ``It appears that Potter lied under oath to the IRB and the election officer,'' according to the IRB's charges. Last Friday, the IRB charged a Hoffa ally who was suspended from the union in 1996 with violating his suspension by frequenting the Hoffa campaign's Philadelphia headquarters and participating in campaign events. The report said that the suspended member, Tom Ryan, met with Hoffa slate member Donato DeSanti to discuss campaign activities and noted that union rules bar members from associating with banned members. ``The IRB is putting all union members on notice that it considers continued knowing association with a suspended member that relates in any way to union activity or business to be conduct in violation of the (Teamsters) constitution and the consent decree,'' the report said. Before the votes were tallied, the IRB charged another Hoffa slate member with filing false election reports. Tom O'Donnell, a New York Teamsters leader, had earlier admitted to the election overseer that he paid the salary of a campaign worker who was a convicted felon to the worker's wife rather than admit there was a felon on the Hoffa campaign payroll. Hoffa has said that ending the government's close supervision of the union is a priority, but his opponents ask whether that will be possible if his allies continue to run afoul of the rules. ``I'm very troubled by it,'' Leedham said. ``How do you get the government out of the union when members of the executive board seem to be falling right and left?'' Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho