Labor leader defends union in front of
House panel
By
Tony Batt
Donrey Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Citing the
resurgence of its Las Vegas local and the report of a federal monitor, the
leader of the international union representing hotel and restaurant workers told
a U.S. House panel Wednesday the labor group
is accomplishing its mission without the taint of corruption.
John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees
and Restaurant Employees International Union, or HERE, defended the union in a
hearing before the House Education & Workforce subcommittee on
employer-employee relations.
Wilhelm took a positive approach to a report
issued last September by a court-appointed monitor that recommended dozens of
reforms to union operations. The union leader said 44 of the 47 recommendations
have been put in place.
But the chairman of the House panel, Rep. John
Boehner, R-Ohio, took another approach. He called the report by federal monitor
Kurt W. Muellenberg shocking.
"It documents years of financial
mismanagement, fraud, cronyism, nepotism, inadequate internal controls and
undemocratic practices," Boehner said.
Boehner appeared frustrated later in the hearing
when a Labor Department official said the
department has no intention of beefing up a federal labor
law overseeing unions.
This was the subcommittee's fourth hearing this
year on unions. Boehner promised more hearings, leaving Democrats on the panel
grumbling that labor groups were being
targeted by the Republican leadership.
"This seems like the same old thing all over
again," said Rep. Donald M. Payne, D-N.J.
Rep. Robert E. Andrews, D-N.J., complained the
subcommittee's scope on labor law is unduly
narrow. "We are not looking at corporations and the people put out of work
when they close," Andrews said. "We've had only one hearing on the
minimum wage."
Dotting the audience at Wednesday's hearing were
about 35 spectators wearing yellow T-shirts saying, "H.E.R.E. is My Union
and I Vote," on the front and "Proud to be H.E.R.E." on the back.
Wilhelm, who served on the recently disbanded
National Gambling Impact Study Commission, was given 10 minutes instead of the
usual five minutes to testify. He singled out Local 226 in Las Vegas as a
national model for a revitalized labor
movement.
Referring to the "sweat, toil, struggle and
solidarity" of the campaign he directed with local labor
leaders beginning in 1987, he said the Las Vegas local has become the fastest
growing in America.
Wilhelm chided Boehner for refusing to allow two
Las Vegas employees -- a man from Bally's and a woman from the Golden Nugget --
to testify at the hearing.
Boehner shot back that he wanted a balanced panel
of witnesses. He pointedly told Wilhelm his father, who ran a tavern, was a
union member for 40 years and never made more than $15,000 a year. "I know
what happened in their own local and what's happened over the years,"
Boehner said.
There were several references at Wednesday's
hearing to former HERE President Edward Hanley, who negotiated an immunity
agreement with the Justice Department that allows him to keep a yearly salary of
$350,000 a year.
John C. Keeney, an assistant attorney general
with the Justice Department, told the subcommittee the probability of convicting
Hanley was not high enough to pass up the opportunity to remove him from the
union.
Wilhelm said the union cooperated with a federal
probe, which began in 1990, and has implemented almost all the 47
recommendations made by Muellenberg. Three recommendations are in the process of
being implemented, Wilhelm said.
Muellenberg, who also investigated labor
strife at the Frontier in Las Vegas, was appointed to be the union's monitor in
1995 by U.S. District Judge Garrett E. Brown Jr. of New Jersey. Muellenberg
disciplined 34 members of the union. He said 22 members were barred for life,
including 10 for links to organized crime.
"The union's board has adopted all of my
recommendations, and I feel very confident this is a step in the right
direction," Muellenberg said.
But Boehner said the union's 40-year history of
being supervised by either the departments of labor
or justice showed the Labor-Management
Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 needs to be overhauled.
When Larry Yud, head of the Department of Labor's
enforcement division, said the department does not plan to propose any changes,
Boehner asked him if he thinks the law is effective.
"Yes sir, I do," Yud said. "There
are 32,00 organizations covered by this law and I think the law balances the
rights of those members with the government interference in them.
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