A dissident group within the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters opposed to President James P. Hoffa is calling on the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York to vigorously pursue a broad investigation into the union’s leadership.
The group, called Teamsters for a Democratic Union, is arguing that revelations of corrupt activities by a top Teamsters official suggests that other leaders may be implicated as well.
The group urged the investigation in a Sept. 12 letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. It cited the results of a February probe by the Independent Review Board, an entity created by a 1989 court consent decree to monitor the Teamsters.
The board’s probe found that Teamsters International Vice President at Large Rome Aloise improperly accepted gifts from employers, engaged in “sham” collective bargaining deals with them and interfered in union local elections to ensure his allies were in office.
“All of the allegations detailed above constitute serious violations of federal criminal statutes and RICO,” TDU said in its letter, which it made public last week. “We urge the U.S. Attorney to pursue criminal cases described above and … take prompt, vigorous and open action.”
RICO refers to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the main federal law used pursue organized crime.
Aloise already faces an Oct. 11 hearing based on the results of the February probe. The review board was officially dissolved earlier this year and its remaining duties were handed over to two union-appointed, government-approved “independent disciplinary officers.”
Teamsters for a Democratic Union national organizer Ken Paff said he believed that the disciplinary officers would pursue appropriate action against Aloise but that the probe related to him suggested that a culture of corruption still existed within the Teamster leadership.
“The reason we are saying that the U.S. Attorney should take action is that this is much bigger than Aloise,” he said.
Teamsters for a Democratic Union is a grassroots group that professes to represent thousands of rank-and-file members. It has long opposed Hoffa’s leadership of the union.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern District of New York confirmed receiving the letter but declined to comment further.
“We take all allegations of misconduct seriously and there is a process in place to ensure all parties are afforded the right to a fair hearing,” said Teamsters spokesman Brett Caldwell. He added that Barbara Harvey, the lawyer who wrote the letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “is a professional dissident who works for Jim Hoffa’s political opponent.”
Aloise has held several major positions within the Teamsters in addition to being an international vice president, including serving as a trustee for the Western Conference of Teamsters Trust, one of the nation’s largest multi-employer pension systems. He is also reportedly a friend of Hoffa’s.
The review board’s February probe determined that Aloise entered into a “collusive arrangement with an employer that resulted in sham collective bargaining agreements” that benefited the employer by freezing pay rates. It also said Aloise did little to even give the appearance of negotiating. After he learned that the board had began looking at such cases, Aloise warned the employer in 2014 that they would have to engage in “actual negotiations” in the future.
The probe found that “Aloise illegally requested Teamsters employers to provide him with things of value.” These included hiring family members and tickets to a Playboy-hosted Superbowl party.
“Aloise argued that the tickets were not of value because they were free to him,” the probe noted.
Employers who didn’t provide benefits faced his wrath. After an official at one company refused to hire his cousin, Aloise said in an email to a colleague that it “really f——— pisses me off. F—- them from now on, they get no favors, everything gets taken on, and she can go f—- herself.”
The probe found that Aloise “repeatedly used his union positions, union resources and union personnel illegally to support his favored candidate and to undercut her opponents in a local union election.”
He even told the board’s investigators in a deposition that he “absolutely” told his ally to distribute leaflets falsely presenting one of his candidate’s opponents as attacking the other. “That’s my political advice,” he said.
The Teamsters had until May to address the charges in the board’s report. Instead, Hoffa sought to delay action, ultimately requesting a stay on the grounds that Aloise was already under a separate federal investigation. The independent disciplinary officers rejected that and set up the Oct. 11 hearing. Hoffa has also supported Aloise for election as the Teamsters’ Western Region vice president.
The dissident group said that such actions suggested much broader corruption among the union leadership. “Top ranking officers in the Teamsters have been aware of, facilitated for their own personal benefit, or actively participated in corrupt practices,” it said in its letter.
