IRB becomes a gravy train for former law enforcement officials
Temporary “Watchdog” Becomes Permanent Drain on Teamsters Union
The controversial and lavishly paid Independent Review Board imposed by the Justice Department on the Teamster Union in 1989, was supposed to be a temporary watchdog to help the union rid itself of mob influence in a handful of the 700 locals in this decentralized union. Long after the mobsters were removed, however, the IRB continues to expand its powers over the membership and has become a major drain on a union treasury built from the dues of hardworking members across the country.
The IRB’s Chief investigator Charles Carberry has been paid over $400,000 a year and during a during a two and half year stretch between August 1, 1989 thru 1992, Carberry alone received a cool $1.16 million in salaries and another $398,000 in expenses. Board members are paid $135,000 a year in salary and expenses to attend several board meetings a year. One IRB Board member, William Webster, who served as head of both the FBI and the CIA, can be seen sometimes sleeping through hearings. Current figures on salaries are hard to come by because the IRB now reports its expenditures in the aggregate, but it’s a good guess the salaries haven’t gone down.
The IRB demonstrates its contempt for the Teamster membership by holding hearings at non-union hotels as it did in the recent hearing for Local 714 leader Robert Hogan and by its anti democratic agenda of overturning union membership decisions and its efforts to limit and punish free speech and association among members. Robert Hogan was being investigating for allegedly permitting his organizing director Bob Riley to have personal conversations with his father Bill Hogan (a friend of 55 years, who was expelled by actions of the IRB.)
In the past 2 years alone, union records show that the IRB was paid some $12 million dollars. Yet, according to the IRB’s own reports in the Teamsters monthly magazine, most of the IRB’s efforts focused on going through phone records of conversations between Teamster officials and former Teamster officials who they IRB arranged to expel. Bob Hogan’s father Bill was mentioned in each of the last 24 issues, though Bill Hogan has never been accused of breaking the law, associating with mobsters or any form of corruption.
An attorney who has much experience dealing with the IRB says “These guys will never leave, though the specific task they were mandated to do was finished a long time ago We’re talking very big money here.” To justify their continued existence, the IRB continues to play internal union politics, substitute its judgment for that of the dues- paying members and press charges against various union officials that often prove to be baseless.
Read more at
http://www.teamsterinjustice.com
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