POLITICO Pro With end of Teamsters supervision, an era passes The Justice Department concludes, in effect, that the union's bad old days are over.

The U.S. government is ushering in a new era for the Teamsters, ending its 25-year supervision of a union once infamous for its ties to organized crime.

Teamster corruption has held the federal government’s attention since the late 1950s, when Robert F. Kennedy first pursued the matter as counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, also known as the McClellan committee. Kennedy continued to investigate the Teamsters after he became attorney general in 1961, and those investigations continued in one form or another through the 1980s.


But on Wednesday, the Justice department concluded, in effect, that the Teamsters’ bad old days were over. The union and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara filed jointly an application in Manhattan federal court to phase out the terms of a 1989 consent decree giving the federal government extensive control over the Teamsters. That agreement settled charges brought by Rudolph Giuliani, then-U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Under the consent decree, hundreds of union members with ties to the Mob were suspended and expelled from the Teamsters.

The 1989 agreement imposed a weighty financial burden, because the union was required to finance much of its federal oversight. Over the years, the Teamsters estimate, the accumulated cost reached $170 million. Ending the agreement will free the union of that expense.

Teamster corruption has been, over the years, a story about politics as much as about labor. Kennedy was so relentless in his pursuit of Presidents Dave Beck and — after Beck was indicted for embezzlement — Jimmy Hoffa that the union eventually switched its political allegiance to the GOP. After President Richard Nixon pardoned Hoffa — then serving a prison sentence for jury tampering and fraud — in 1971, the Teamsters supported every Republican presidential candidate save Gerald Ford until 1992, when they endorsed Bill Clinton. (You can hear Nixon discuss with aide Chuck Colson whether to pardon Hoffa here.)

Hoffa had agreed, as a condition of his pardon, not to participate in the management of any labor union or organization. But reportedly, he reneged on that agreement and was attempting a comeback within the Teamsters when he disappeared in 1975, presumably killed by a rival.

The 1989 consent decree was reached under President George H.W. Bush, whom the Teamsters had endorsed in 1988 — but would not in 1992. “The pressure was tremendous not to bring the case,” Giuliani recalled in an interview Wednesday, “because the Teamsters union was the only Republican union, and I was in a Republican administration.” According to Giuliani, 130 members of Congress “basically asked the attorney general to either discipline me or throw me out of the Justice department.”

During the 2008 presidential campaign, the Teamsters issued a surprise endorsement of then-Sen. Barack Obama after he reportedly told the union he favored ending the consent decree. But Obama’s primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, had signaled that she, too, felt the consent decree had outlived its usefulness. At the time, the Obama campaign denied any quid pro quo, a point that Teamsters Communications Director Bret Caldwell reiterated Wednesday. “This was never a political process,” said Caldwell. “This was a purely legal process.”

The 1989 consent decree imposed intra-union ballot reforms that cleared the path for Ron Carey, the first democratically elected president in the Teamsters’ history. Carey, who ran on a reform platform, would himself later be expelled from the union for illegal fundraising for his 1996 reelection, though a jury subsequently cleared him of criminal charges. Carey was succeeded in 1998 by the current president, James Hoffa, who is the son of Jimmy Hoffa, and who pledged to get the consent decree removed. Under James Hoffa, the Teamsters constitution codified the direct election of union leaders.

“Today is a new day for our great union,” Hoffa said in a statement Wednesday. “My administration is first and foremost committed to representing the membership. The members are the heart and soul of our great union.”

Under Tuesday’s agreement, the Teamsters will retain many of the organization reforms imposed by the RICO settlement. They also agreed to a five-year “transition period” during which they must notify the government should they modify any provisions on electing delegates, officers and trustees.

An independent election supervisor will, after the transition, continue to ensure fair elections, the court documents say. During the transition, the federal government will need to approve the supervisor and even after the transition ends, must still be given seven days’ notice of the appointment of an independent election supervisor.

Additionally, the union will produce election reports, which will include statistics on voter turnout, evaluate how the election went and recommend needed changes to election rules. Following a one-year period, the Teamsters must establish and permanently maintain an independent disciplinary enforcement mechanism with authority to discipline members.

The Teamsters must retain independent review officers as watchdogs for corruption, the agreement said. And they may not make changes to the independent disciplinary mechanism without consent from the U.S. attorney or court approval during the transition period.

“The proposed settlement agreement seeks to strike the appropriate balance, recognizing the significant progress that has been made in ridding the International Brotherhood of Teamsters of the influence of organized crime and corruption, while providing an avenue for the Union to demonstrate its ability to preserve these gains through its own independent disciplinary and electoral systems,” Bharara said in a statement. “We recognize that, although substantially diminished, the threat posed to the [Teamsters] by organized crime and other corrupting influences persists, and the proposed agreement provides for a continuing monitoring role for the government.”

Ken Paff is the national organizer for Teamsters for a Democratic Union, which pushed for many of the reforms later codified in the consent decree and remains a dissenting voice within the organization of 1.4 million members. He says the marked decline in union corruption can be attributed to the imposition of direct elections and the declining influence of organized crime. But he said Hoffa has demonstrated little interest in rooting out Teamsters corruption. Nonetheless, TDU also welcomed the lifting of the 25-year-old agreement.

“We’re happy that the election procedures are fully protected with independent supervision for 2016 and 2021 … and that the rules have been enhanced,” Paff said.