Monitor Wants U.S. & Teamsters
To Pay For Election
June 25, 1998
By Peter Szekely
WASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - A special monitor
on Thursday asked a court to order the federal government and the
Teamsters union to work out a deal to pay for oversight of the union's upcoming election
-- or hold it without supervision.
Declaring that he will be unable to hold the election on schedule
unless a funding dispute is resolved by next week, court-appointed Election Officer
Michael Cherkasky asked U.S.
District Court Judge David Edelstein to order the government and
the union to come up with a joint payment plan by Tuesday.
If the two sides still are unable to agree on a plan to pay for
the oversight of the September election, a rerun of the 1996 contest that was ruled
invalid, Cherkasky said the union should be ordered to hold it without oversight by his
office.
"It would be astounding, and a stunning waste of decades of
effort spent fighting organised crime and labour racketeering, if the current paralysis
over funding resulted in the abandonment of this law enforcement effort and left the rerun election in limbo," he said in papers filed with the court.
Cherkasky said his office needs $8.6 million to print, mail and
count ballots that are due to be sent on Sept. 14 to 1.4 million members of the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Although Congress voted last year to bar the use of taxpayer money
to pay for the rerun after about $18 million was spent on the 1996 contest, a U.S. Court
of Appeals ruled earlier this year that if the government wants the election
supervised, it must pay for it.
The ruling has set up a standoff between the
government's legislative and executive branches on the one hand, and the judicial branch
on the other, which ruled that the union is not required to fund the oversight of its
election.
For its part, the Teamsters union gave no hint that it would agree
to a joint payment deal with the government.
"The (union) expects the government to comply with the
appeals court's ruling and to proceed with the election as scheduled under federal
supervision," it said in a statement.
After decades of corruption investigations, the Justice Department
filed an anti-racketeering suit against the union 10 years ago, which was settled in a
1989 consent decree that set up layers of court-administered oversight of the union.
Included in the decree were requirements that the
Teamsters union would pay for the oversight of its first-ever election open to the rank
and file in 1991 and that the government would pay for oversight of the 1996 contest,
which they did.
But the 1996 election, in which union President Ron Carey narrowly
defeated challenger James Hoffa, was thrown out by Cherkasky's predecessor after the
discovery of scheme that illegally funnelled money from the union's treasury into Carey's
campaign coffers.
Carey, now on unpaid leave, has since been barred
from running in the rerun election after another overseer found that he had a hand in the
scheme. Carey has denied any wrongdoing.
In papers filed with Edelstein in New York,
Cherkasky said the unresolved funding issue has left his office unable to make contracts
with vendors.
Printing, stuffing and mailing the ballots alone would cost nearly
$700,000, almost all of the funds the election officer currently has, he said. Unless the
ballot paper is purchased by July 1, the vendor has said it cannot meet
the election timetable, Cherkasky added.
Even without the additional expense of overseeing the election,
Cherkasky said his office will run out of money around the end of September.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.