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Title: Vampires in America
Author: Workers Solidarity Alliance
Date: 1993
Language: en
Topics: United States of America, Teamsters, Workers Solidarity
Source: Retrieved on 10th October 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws93/vampire38.html
Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 38 — Spring 1993.

Workers Solidarity Alliance

Vampires in America

Part of the old Eastern European legend says that a vampire must be

willingly invited into the house of its victim, and once invited in has

its victim in its power. Members of the Teamsters Union (America’s

largest general trade union) might well ponder this legend.

The Teamsters invited government intervention in the 1980s to help

ensure free elections and oust corrupt Mafia controlled officials who

had held power for decades. In 1989 a “mutual consent decree” was put in

place creating an Independent Review Board to facilitate the

democratisation process. The Board was made up of one union

representative, one government representative and one ‘impartial’

outside person, who was to be agreed by both sides. The Board was to be

disbanded once free elections took place inside the Teamsters.

On August 20^(th) 1992 Federal Judge David Edelstein ruled in favour of

a government request to extend the power of the Board to make decision

that “shall be final and binding” and ordered the acceptance of William

Webster, former Director of the FBI and CIA, as the ‘impartial’ third

member.

This came after the corrupt officials had been ousted by reform

candidates and, significantly, after a string of successful strikes by

the reinvigorated Teamsters. Webster, as well as being the former head

of the state’s secret police agencies, also sits on the boards of the

anti-union Pinkerton Security Agency and Anheuser Busch — whose workers

are members of the Teamsters Union.

To add insult to overt attack the judge also ordered the union to pay

all the expenses of the IRB, including unlimited compensation to Webster

who gets $365 per hour. Union me,members, who sought to stop corrupt

officials stealing from their union, have already been forced to pay

over $30 million for the ‘services’ of the IRB.

Do we need any more evidence of the need for unions to be independent of

the state?