Hon. Kenneth Conboy
Teamsters Elections Officer
c/o Lathan & Watkins
885 Third Avenue, Suite 1000
New York, New York 10022-4802

RE: Disqualification of Ron Carey from 1998 Teamsters Election.

Dear Mr. Conboy:

Ron Carey should be disqualified from running for President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters next year. Any other action would make a mockery of the landmark 1989 Consent Decree and the Landrum-Griffin Act.

Before leaving her post, Teamsters Election Officer Barbara Zack Quindel stated "The consent decree requires accountability. If you break the rules, there are consequences." The National Legal and Policy Center could not agree more.

The threshold for disqualifying Mr. Carey has been met:

(1) Mr. Carey directly benefited from an illegal campaign to reelect him union president. Mr. Carey's campaign was victorious because of illegal acts. Jere Nash, Martin Davis and Michael Ansara have already pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to illegally divert official union funds into Mr. Carey's campaign fund. A new union election would be unnecessary if the Carey campaign had not committed illegal acts.

(2) Mr. Carey should have known of his subordinates' acts. Mr. Nash was a direct employee of Mr. Carey; there was no personnel level between Mr. Carey and Mr. Nash. Further, Mr. Nash was an employee of Mr. Carey's campaign and not the Teamsters. The confessed conspiracy involved official Teamster funds. Mr. Nash could not access and direct official Teamster funds by himself as an outsider. As union President, Mr. Carey is responsible for financial outflows.

Thus, the National Legal and Policy Center respectfully requests that you disqualify Mr. Carey from running in the 1998 union election.

The problem is that a pattern of coercion and fraud aimed at keeping Mr. Carey union President at all costs was injected into the last union election. The remedy that should be taken is to disqualify Ron Carey in order to protect the integrity of the next union election.

Sincerely,


Kenneth Boehm, Esq.
Chairman

Organized Labor Accountability Project

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