(1) DOJ must now allow the “internal reform effort” to curtail its efforts to accommodate LIUNA’s “budgetary constraints” and “need to maintain other programs and services.” Thus allowing the GEB to limit the resources of the “internal reform effort,” which many LIUNA dissidents claim is under-funded and under-staffed already.A further shortcoming of the extension is that it is only for one year. LIUNA is far from corruption-free. Even U.S. Attorney Scott R. Lasser admitted, “additional time is needed to complete efforts to eliminate corruption from the union.” At the current snail’s pace of the “internal reform effort,” it could take another ten to fifteen years before the corruption is reduced to an acceptable level. By extending the Agreement a mere year, DOJ leaves the door open for LIUNA’s slick legal team, led by Luskin and LIUNA general counsel Michael S. Bearse, to weasel out of the Agreement next January. The fact that DOJ capitulated on two fronts in this extension shows that DOJ is weakening. Further, the fact that the Clinton Adminstration is coming to a close may provide LIUNA a reason to “get while the getting is good.” Lastly, it is expected that once Coia is either exonerated of all wrongdoing or given a platinum parachute to leave LIUNA in the coming weeks or months, LIUNA will argue it should be free from the impending Consent Decree for good.(2) DOJ can no longer impose the Consent Decree if it believes it is “necessary and desirable” to do so. Now the Consent Decree can only be imposed if DOJ “reasonably concludes that the failure to [do so] would substantially interfere with accomplishing the purposes of the Agreement,” thus making the imposition of the Consent Decree more complicated and remote.
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Organized Labor Accountability Project