Teamsters Anticorruption Leader Quits
Oliver B. Patton
Washington Editor
A former federal prosecutor who headed the Teamsters union's anticorruption program resigned, charging that union President James Hoffa was blocking the team's work.
Edwin H. Stier and 20 other lawyers and investigators walked off the job after Stier charged that Hoffa has permitted anti-corruption investigations to be undermined.
"In spite of our efforts to convince General President Jim Hoffa to remain committed to fighting corruption," Stier wrote in his letter of resignation, "I have concluded that he has backed away from the Teamsters' anticorruption plan in the face of pressure from self-interested individuals."
Hoffa said in response that while he regrets Stier's departure, his allegations are "reckless and false."
Stier acknowledged in his letter that the union has worked hard "to transform the culture and reputation of the union from tolerance to steadfast resistance to corruption." But, he said, he has become convinced that his anticorruption efforts are futile.
Stier headed the union's Project RISE (Respect, Integrity, Strength and Ethics), begun in 1999 as part of an effort to convince the Justice Department to end federal supervision of the union. Supervision is exercised through a federally appointed panel, the Independent Review Board, which was put in place in 1988 after the Justice Department accused the union of entrenched corruption.
In a letter to Stier, Hoffa said the union has retained another former federal prosecutor, Edward A. McDonald, to investigate the issues Stier raised. He also challenged Stier's motives in resigning, saying that Stier wanted to avoid questions about "uncorroborated allegations" he had made in a 2002 report on organized crime in the union.
That report concluded that while corruption is not inherent in the union, it is a threat as long as racketeering is embedded in the communities and industries in which the union operates.
In the wake of Stier's resignation, charges and counter-charges flow. In news accounts, for example, the union's general counsel, Patrick Szymanski, is reported saying that Stier was reacting to the union's assertion that he was spending too much money in pursuit of questionable allegations. And one official who resigned from the anticorruption panel, G. Robert Blakey, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, told the New York Times that he believes Hoffa "knows that to be president of the Teamsters it is necessary to deal with locals that are connected to organized crime. I think he caved in to some people in Chicago."
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