Breaking the Devil’s Pact: The Battle to Free the Teamsters from the Mob

5. An Insurgent’s Triumph: The IBT’s 1991 Election

83 5 An Insurgent’s Triumph The IBT’s 1991 Election Welcome to the new Teamsters Union. From the day I walk in the door, the rules are going to change. We are going to clean house and never again have to apologize for being Teamsters. —IBT General President Ron Carey, press conference, December 12, 1991 Not since the thirties, when the CIO was born, has there been an event of such profound significance for U.S. labor as your [Ron Carey’s] election to the presidency of the Teamsters through rank and file membership mobilization.1 —Victor Reuther, cofounder of United Auto Workers, Convoy Dispatch, January 1992 In negotiating the consent decree, U.S. Attorney Giuliani and his staff accepted TDU’s and AUD’s prediction that, given free and fair elections, Teamsters would elect candidates who opposed corruption and racketeering. Therefore, the consent decree mandated election procedures that were more democratic than those of any other U.S. labor union. First, IBT locals’ rank-and-file members would elect delegates to a nominating convention.2 Second, the convention delegates would nominate candidates for general president, general secretary-treasurer, international vice presidents , and international trustees.3 A candidate who received 5 percent or more of the delegates’ votes would earn a place on the general-election ballot . Third, IBT members would vote via secret mail-in ballots.4 If the EO deemed the election free and fair, he or she would “certify” the result.5 (The consent decree did not provide a definition of or criteria for certification. Judge Edelstein clarified its meaning at the end of the 1991 election cycle.) 84 An Insurgent’s Triumph EO Michael Holland and his staff had to face numerous, difficult policy and logistical challenges. Holland observed that “supervision of any comparable union election had never been undertaken anywhere in the world. There was no blueprint to guide us.”6 Only a handful of American unions elect their international officers via direct rank-and-file voting. (In most unions, convention delegates select the international officers.) The EO’s office had to formulate election rules covering the election of convention delegates, delegates’ nomination of international officers at the convention, and, for the general election, rules on voter eligibility, campaign contributions and expenditures, balloting, and the filing and resolution of election rules violation. The 1991 Election Rules In October 1989, in response to the IBT’s argument that the consent decree authorized only passive EO monitoring (not active EO implementation) of the IBT international elections, Judge Edelstein ruled that the consent decree’s use of the word “supervise” in describing the EO’s powers gave the EO “the right to promulgate electoral rules and procedures for the delegate elections, nominating convention and rank and file mail balloting.”7 Accordingly , in early 1990, EO Holland proposed “Rules for the IBT International Union Delegate and Officer Election” in order (1) to “assemble in one document all the regulations affecting the nomination and election of delegates to the 1991 IBT International Convention and the nomination and election of IBT International Officers”; and (2) to “provide for fair, honest and open elections so as to permit the Election Officer to certify the election results.”8 Holland’s proposed rules provided a timetable for each stage of the 1991 election, criteria for voter eligibility, procedures for nominations and balloting, regulations for campaign fundraising and expenditures, and procedures for resolving campaign protests.9 Holland held hearings on the proposed election rules in San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, Baltimore , Chicago, Memphis, Cleveland, and Toronto. Nearly 125 Teamsters offered on-the-record comments.10 DOJ, supported by TDU’s and AUD’s amicus briefs, argued for greater EO supervision to prevent intimidation and fraud in the local-delegate elections.11 AUD opposed allowing IBT locals to print and count delegateelection ballots, determine candidate eligibility, and conduct delegate elec- An Insurgent’s Triumph 85 tions.12 “[I]n the all-pervasive lawlessness that has permeated the union, it would be foolhardy, even irresponsible, to depend upon the local union officers for safeguarding the integrity of the elections.”13 DOJ and the amici urged EO Holland and Judge Edelstein to consider, as a model for election supervision, DOL’s supervision of the 1972 United Mine Workers election.* In rebuttal, the EO, IA, and IBT (a strange alignment) argued that the locals should have primary responsibility for running their conventiondelegate elections. They contended...