U.S. Monitor Seeks Delay in Teamsters
Election
By Peter Szekely
Sept, 09, 1998
WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A court-appointed
monitor on Thursday requested another postponement in the long-delayed rerun election of
the leaderless Teamsters union, but insisted a new president could be
declared by the end of the year.
The proposal by Election Officer Michael Cherkasky to delay
mailing ballots to the union's 1.4 million members to Nov. 2 from Sept. 14 follows weeks
of wrangling between the federal government, the union and the courts over who should pay
for federal oversight of the election.
``The proposed amended timetable is a reasonable schedule for
concluding the rerun election,'' Cherkasky said in papers filed with U.S. District Court
Judge David Edelstein of New York. ``It will ensure a completed election
by the end of this calendar year.''
Vying for the top spot of the International Brotherhood of
Teamsters are James Hoffa, 57, whose father ran the union in the 1960s and 1970s, Tom
Leedham, 47, who heads the union's giant warehouse division, and John Metz, 59, director
of its public employee division.
The new election was ordered when former union President Ron
Carey's 1996 narrow re-election over Hoffa was thrown out after the discovery a year ago
of a scheme that illegally funnelled Teamsters union money into Carey's
campaign coffers.
Carey took an unpaid leave last November after another court
appointed official found that he knew about the scheme and barred him from running in the
new election. In July, a three-member panel set up to root out corruption in the Teamsters
expelled him from the union.
Carey, who has denied any wrongdoing, is appealing the decisions.
Since Carey's departure, the union has been led by its No. 2
officer, Secretary-Treasurer Tom Sever, who is seeking re election on the Metz slate.
The rerun election was delayed several times, most recently
because of a standoff over funding.
Although Congress voted last year to bar the use of taxpayer money
to oversee 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 Teamsters first refused to pay for election supervision, but
later reached a compromise in which the government would pay $4 million
and the union $2 million.
While that is considerably less than the $8.6 million price tag
Cherkasky previously put on the printing, mailing, counting and oversight of the ballots,
he said he could live within the budget if he made cuts in certain areas, mainly in his
office's ability to investigate and resolve election protests.
Under Cherkasky's proposed schedule, which is subject to approval
by Edelstein, ballot-counting would begin on Dec. 3.
Edelstein oversees a 1989 consent decree that settled a federal
anti-racketeering suit against the union after it was long known as the most corrupt in
the American labour movement.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All
rights reserved.