Time for a Watchdog

The aura of corruption arising from the hearing room of the U.S. Senate committee investigating labor racketeering last week began to show profound effects within and upon U.S. organized labor. Since the aroma emanated mostly--so far--from Frank Brewster, head of the Western Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (see box), it was the Teamsters who felt the first and greatest impact.

Rank-and-file members of Brewster's own Seattle local won a court order for an independent audit of their books after telling the Superior Court that they feared a "very bad situation." At a Seattle warehousemen's meeting, not a single member voted for a resolution of confidence in Brewster and International President Dave Beck.

In Illinois, a 600-member La Salle local, long at odds with its parent union, issued a call for the resignations of Brewster, Beck and four other top Teamsters and urged that the international union be placed under trusteeship. A Toronto local flatly rejected Dave Beck's requests for financial aid for conducting the legal defenses of Teamster leaders. Chain letters were circulating in Los Angeles advising Teamster members to withhold their union dues. Brooding about the hundreds of thousands of dollars Teamster leaders had admitted "borrowing" from the union, a Los Angeles truck driver grumbled: "I can't even go down to the union hall and borrow $1."

Perhaps the most significant reaction came from a non-Teamster: the No. 2 man in U.S. labor, A.F.L.-C.I.O. Vice President Walter Reuther. Said Reuther in Detroit: "I believe that Mr. Beck's use of union funds to further his own personal investments is highly improper, inexcusable and morally indefensible." As for Brewster, Reuther said that if 10% of what the McClellan committee heard about his activities is true, he "is unfit to hold union office or any position of public trust." To guard against the occurrence of Teamster-type racketeering within his own United Auto Workers, Reuther announced plans to set up a board of prominent citizens to act as "a public watchdog" of his union's affairs.

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