corporate America's eighth largest financial giant, Carey's election in 1996 was ruled invalid, and he has been barred by the courts from running for reelection against the old guard candidate Jimmy Hoffa Jr - all on the basis of trumped-up charges of financial irregularities. But it is increasingly clear that the US bosses hope to move on from Carey to attack the new-style leadership that has brought signs of life to the US equivalent of the TUC, the AFL-CIO A vigorous campaign in Carey's defence has been joined by American co-thinkers of the Fourth International. FROM the point of view of the US employers, Ron Carey, who led the Teamster's recent victorious strike against the giant UPS corporation, has been too effective as a working class leader for their taste; they don't want his example to take root and spread. That is the fundamental reason behind the various "legal" moves against him - not any alleged concern over "corruption." (In fact, big business thrives on such things.)
Left wing journalist Alexander Cockburn has warned about the mounting "Witch' Hunt" against the labour movement:
"A witch hunt advances methodically. Start with Carey, an indubitable reformer, who with no real war chest had to fight for reelection against James Hoffa Jr., a man well freighted with criminal associates and bulging with cash. Harass Carey, and ignore Hoffa, who raised $2 million in unaccountable funds.
"Now harass the [AFL-CIO] leaders to hose project Carey is vital. Now probe anyone trying to build a combative,... even radical labour movement. Get them on the run. Get them in front of a grand jury. Get everyone frightened and persuaded that trying to build a radical, combative labour movement is against the law..." (Nation magazine, November 17)
The employers are furious over the defeat of UPS, brought about by the Carey leadership's mobilisation of the union rank and file and winning of public support for full-time jobs with good pay, good pension plans, and other needs felt by working people.
Four days after the UPS victory, the election officer appointed by the judge overseeing the Teamsters under the 1989 "consent decree," annulled Carey's election.
At his televised press conference the night of the UPS settlement, Carey spoke as a voice for millions of American workers troubled and frightened by the loss of decent jobs. He had the audacity to declare that the economy should be run a different way!
The mouthpieces for the giant corporations answer with an intensified attack on labour. Class struggle leader Carey is now ruled ineligible to run again for the Teamsters presidency - by a former federal judge and current corporate lawyer, Kenneth Conboy.
New York Times columnist William Safire, the former speech writer for "Tricky Dick" Nixon, is leading the corporate counterattack by accusing the new leadership of the AFL-CIO of "money laundering" and "corruption."
Several different vehicles of ruling class policy are working in tandem in the present intensifying campaign against the unions.
As a leader of a UPS Teamsters local in New York for decades, Carey established a record of honesty, incorruptibility, and determination to fight for his members that was highly unusual in the extremely bureaucratised, Mobconnected Teamsters union before 1991.
Even the government's "Independent Review Board" - Which was imposed on the Teamsters as a result of the 1989 consent decree -cleared Carey in 1995 of all sorts of fabricated charges of Mob connections and corruption, charges brought by Carey's old guard opponents, the great granddaddies of Mob connection and corruption.
Carey's mistake was to uncritically accept and place his trust in the Democrat-connected consultants and fund-raisers recommended to him by other unionists. (William Hamilton, formerly with public sector union AFSCME, a man who had many Democratic Party connections, became political affairs director for the Teamsters. The Wall Street Journal of December 5 has suggested that the government is now "investigating many previously unquestioned areas of the union's finances," including organising funds.
As the Teamsters gear up for the fight against the big freight corporations, with the nationwide Master Freight Agreement expirina March 31, the government may try to hog-tie the union by challenging the way it uses its funds to fight the bosses.
It was Hamilton's associates, Jere Nash, Martin Davis, and Michael Ansara who apparently refunneled Teamster money contributed to pro-Democrat campaigns to pay for mailings and other services of their own for the Carey campaign. They didn't forget their own profit in these shady dealings.)
These hustlers, probably well aware of Carey's honesty and record of integrity, kept their operations to