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“DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1998” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1793 on Sept. 18, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1998
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speech of
HON. PATSY T. MINK
of hawaii
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, September 16, 1997
The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 2264) making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1998, and for other purposes:
Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Chairman, the Hoekstra amendment, HA 356, bars the use of Federal funds to pay for an election officer to continue overseeing the election of any officer or trustee of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The Government has already spent about $17 million to oversee the Teamsters' 1996 election because the Bush administration's 1989 consent decree obligated the Government to do so. The consent decree, signed by the Government in 1989 said:
``The union defendants consent to the Election officer, at Government expense, to supervise the 1996 IBT elections.''
The election officer concluded on August 21, 1997 that the 1996 election had to be run again because the election protests filed with the officer uncovered campaign misconduct that, she concluded, ``could have persuaded at least a small percent'' of the voters and ``affected the outcome.''
Given these facts, Mr. Hoekstra's amendment, if enacted, bars funding necessary to supervise the court ordered re-run of the 1996 election.
The election officer has explained why she thinks we need to proceed with this re-run election:
[t]he election of International officers is the clearest expression of the control of the members over their Union; it is also the key to insuring that organized crime, employers, or any other outsiders do not use the Union for their own purposes. To avoid a rerun because of the disruption it brings could allow this union to lose its most valuable resource: the support, participation, and confidence of its membership. Such a result cannot be allowed.
A study of the recent history of the Teamsters shows we have come a long way in out effort to rid this union of mob influence.
In 1986, former Chief Circuit Judge Irving R. Kaufman, the chair of President Reagan's Commission on Organized Crime, concluded that the mob's influence of the Teamsters was both intrusive and pervasive and insisted that President Reagan prosecute the Teamsters and use of civil RICO statute to take over the union.
In 1989, the Bush administration entered into a consent decree, the one I've mentioned already, that permitted the Federal district court to take over the union, to appoint a monitor, and to appoint an election officer. This consent decree also changed the Teamsters' constitution, providing for the unprecedented direct election of the Teamsters' top officers by the rank and file members.
By 1989, we had learned some hard lessons when we had not been vigilant in the supervision of union elections. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was highly critical of one union election, after 20 months of a government trusteeship, that resulted in the mob-dominated union officers being replaced by a slate allegedly tied to these same officers. Thus, the scrutiny of the Teamsters' election was intense.
The Bush administration's consent decree split the anticipated burden of the first two elections, requiring that the Teamsters pay the $21 million necessary to run the first election in 1991, and that the Government pay the cost of second election.
Therefore, I believe we are legally obligated by the consent decree, agreed to by the Bush administration. This House can not support the Hoekstra amendment without being in contempt of a court order.
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