Socialist Viewpoint

At long last, former Teamsters President Ron Carey will get his day in court, though a trial date has not yet been set. However, it's yet to be seen if Carey will be judged by a jury of his peers. So far, in multiple proceedings (conducted by federal agents) that blocked Teamsters from reelecting Carey, and then ousted him from the union, Carey's "judges and juries," have been corporation lawyers (some say, "corporate pimps"), far removed from the working class of Carey and the Teamsters membership.

In early February, Carey was arraigned in a New York federal court on charges that he lied to federal investigators and a grand jury when he denied that he knew of a scheme by some of his election campaign staff to launder union money into Carey's election campaign coffers, some of which they used to line their own pockets. Carey has said repeatedly that he was absolutely unaware of the scam, claiming it was done behind his back by appointees he trusted. If convicted, Carey, 64, could spend decades in jail, a virtual life sentence.

The evidence against Carey is mostly circumstantial; there is no smoking gun. Still, Carey's persecutors claim that he couldn’t avoid knowing about the scheme. But except for one badly compromised witness, there is no hard evidence that Carey knows more than what he says he knew—that is, nothing. The sole witness against Carey was Carey's campaign manager, Jere Nash. Nash admits funneling prohibited campaign donations to businesses in which he had a stake. When Nash's role was first exposed he said that Carey wasn't involved, that Carey wasn't told about the scheme, because Carey wouldn't have gone along with it. Only later, when Nash was seeking a plea bargain did he implicate Carey. Despite Nash's admitted guilt, he hasn't been sentenced.

If Carey is innocent until proven guilty he shouldn't have to prove his innocence. But if forced to, Carey has plenty of evidence on his side. For example, there is his unblemished record of nearly 25 years as head of the Teamsters largest UPS union local during which Carey cut his own modest pay (former Teamsters president Jackie Presser's chef was paid more than Carey) to keep the local union solvent, and endlessly fought union bigwigs so that his local union could militantly take on UPS. After his election as Teamsters president, he slashed his own pay by $50,000.

After learning about the money scam Carey took and passed a lie-detector test administered by a former FBI specialist (Carey's critics never mention his passing the test, yet surely they would use it against him, if he had failed). There is uncontradicted testimony that Carey's executive secretary—under pressure from Nash—admitted signing Carey's initials to check requisitions, without Carey's approval. The checks were then cut and put through a check signing device. In other words, Carey never actually signed the suspect checks. Perhaps one of the most telling incidents that indirectly points to Carey's innocence is that William Hamilton, a Carey appointed Teamster governmental affairs director, who was convicted of embezzlement and imprisoned for his alleged role in the scheme, never testified against Carey. Hamilton, with children to care for, had plenty of incentive to trade his testimony for a lesser prison sentence, but came up with nothing.

Despite the paucity of evidence implicating Carey, there are those who say it really doesn't matter if Carey was part of the illegal scheme or not. They say that since it happened on his watch, Carey's responsible for it and should pay the consequences. Jere Nash rightly pled guilty to conspiracy. Part of that conspiracy, he admitted, was to line his own pockets, at the expense of the Teamsters ranks. But another part was to conspire to keep Carey in the dark.

According to Carey’s attorney, those who would have Carey permanently ousted from the Teamsters, and allow the membership to be deprived of the most militant leadership the ranks have known for at least three decades, are reminiscent of those who would have a bank president pay for a bank teller's embezzlement. Similarly, perhaps they would approve of George Washington being court-martialed because of Benedict Arnold's treason.

Of course, Carey's enemies are thrilled to see the federal government prosecute Carey. Probably the loudest hurrahs come from Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. He faces an election this year, and is sure to make the most of an ongoing trial. Using his union office as a bully pulpit Hoffa has kept up a unionwide campaign against Carey, claiming that his critics benefited by Carey's alleged crimes and must not be allowed to defeat him.

The leadership of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) has done little more than take official notice of the upcoming trial. The caucus leadership's prepared statement doesn't contain any opinion as to Carey's innocence. In fact, except for a statement of solidarity with Carey, adopted by the 1997 TDU Convention, the TDU leadership has been more silent than not about Carey's plight. They have treated Hoffa's charges that TDU and Tom Leedham, TDU's endorsed candidate against Hoffa, were as guilty as Carey, as though the union's ranks didn't really care about Hoffa's charges—and the charges could be ignored without hurting the reformers' election prospects.

More specifically, suggestions that TDU use its unionwide network to get out Carey's side of the controversy have been flatly rejected. Consequently, Hoffa has had a clear field for his charges against Carey, Leedham and TDU.

The failure to go to the ranks with Carey's side of the story is also Carey's failure. From the first he seemed to rely on the "justice system" to treat him fairly. In a way, that made sense, since Carey claims he's innocent.

But it was also naive to think that he could take on one of the nation's premier corporations and not have to pay a price. Only the same mobilized force, that so defiantly embarrassed UPS, could have ensured that Carey had a shot at winning on the corporation's turf, the U.S. court system. For Carey to rely on a team of lawyers to get him justice rather than the Teamsters ranks contradicted much of his own past as a militant labor leader. Carey's leadership inspired workers in and out of the Teamsters union.

The labor movement hasn't been the same since the feds attacked Carey along with the Teamsters ranks' indispensable democratic right to elect any Teamster they want to any post. Seemingly, there are no other Careys on the horizon, nor a movement ready to back one up.