Molly Ivins August 27AUSTIN — Here we are again with some seriously inadequate reporting on the Teamsters, spreading misunderstanding nationwide. The long-expected decision by federal election overseer Barbara Zack Quindel that last year's Teamster election has to be re-run was treated as though it were an astonishing revelation — evening newscasts, front-page treatment, etc. Actually, that story had been widely reported for several months; everyone involved expected it. And the Carey forces did indeed foul up royally; what they did was both stupid and illegal, and the fact that they returned $200,000 in questionable contributions doesn't make it any better. The scam was simple: Kickback money went into the Carey campaign, funneled through a public-interest group, Citizen Action, and through Michael Ansara, the head of a labor-oriented telemarketing firm, the Share Group. Citizen Action, which had done good community organizing work, is discredited and destroyed by this. One of Carey's campaign consultants has been indicted on mail fraud charges, and two others have been forced to resign. Bad do's all 'round. But, in addition to being old news, the story as reported last week contained some rather large lacunae (a fancy word for holes big enough for a Teamster to drive a truck through). For one thing, it might interest readers to know that Carey won even though Jimmy Hoffa outspent him in that election by about 3-to-1 ($3.7 million to Carey's $1.6 million), not that that excuses the Ansara scam. In addition to the endless repetitions in the headlines — "Carey, Corruption," "Corruption, Carey" (Carey has been charged with no wrongdoing in this mess) — at least one Sunday-morning chat show gave a good chunk of air time to Hoffa with no response whatsoever from Teamster leadership. When you talk about corruption and the Teamsters, it is wise to follow the oldest rule of political reporting: "Look at the record." Carey's record is this: He was elected in 1991 with the support of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, whose 10-year struggle against the mob is one of the most heroic chapters in labor history. Since then, Carey has placed more than 70 union locals under court-ordered trusteeship — more than one out of every 10 locals.
Not that the process is complete by any means. The Village Voice pointed out in December that 807, the Javits Center local, has been run by Joe Mangan for 25 years with help from the Gambino crime family. And the even more notorious 295, the New York airport freight local run by the Luchese family, was made famous in the film "Goodfellas." In addition to the 70-plus trusteeships, Carey sold off the union's two jets, ended free lunches at headquarters and stopped holding union conferences in Hawaii. He also cut pay to union leaders and infuriated many of the old-guard leaders by stopping the system under which they got multiple salaries through regional boards. On top of that, Carey continues to live in the same apartment he had before he was elected president, and as you noticed from watching him on television, this is not a man who spent on a lot of money on his suit. But this is the man whom ABC allowed Jimmy Hoffa to call corrupt and dishonest without any response. And, of course, while linking Carey's name to corruption, the media have not bothered to look at Mr. Hoffa and his charming allies. Hoffa's constantly quoted spokesman Rich Leebove is a former lieutenant in the whacky conspiracy cult of Lyndon LaRouche, who went to prison for bilking his contributors through false credit-card billings. Leebove left LaRouche's National Caucus of Labor Committees in October 1981. He has since worked with another ex-LaRouchie, George R. Geller, who was a lawyer for Teamsters Local 337 in Detroit until at least 1993. According to the Sunday Gazette-Mail in West Virginia, Leebove went on to run a communications company that attacked Carey's reformers in Chicago and elsewhere. Just to remind you of the kind of propaganda spread by the old LaRouche outfit, they were the folks who claimed that Queen Elizabeth II was a drug dealer, that Henry Kissinger spied for the Soviets and that the since-deceased Nelson Rockefeller practiced cannibalism. According to the Gazette-Mail, "Since the 1970s, Geller and Leebove have specialized in smearing reform candidates in Teamster and United Mine Workers elections." Last week's news coverage gave both aid and comfort to the mob-controlled Teamsters old guard. Way to go, media. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1997 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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