Carey's Comeuppance

The U.S. labor movement has an effective say-so on every sort of issue --from foreign policy to domestic politics, from civil rights to featherbedding.

The will or the whim of top union leaders can shake the U.S. economy. Yet it begins to seem that even the mightiest unions cannot hold a simple election without charges of fraud.

The most powerful union of them all, the United Steelworkers of America, is still stuck in stalemate after a Feb. 9 election in which Incumbent President David McDonald was apparently defeated by Challenger I. W. Abel. Both sides have taken their subsequent "We wuz robbed" charges to the courts.

Dictatorial Methods. Last week James B. Carey, 53, president of the 280,000-member International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (I.U.E.), resigned--but only because U.S. Labor Department investigators said that he was in office as a result of cheating in a union election last December. That election pitted Carey against Paul J. Jennings, 47, a longtime I.U.E. official.

It was the first time in Carey's 15-year reign that he had had a challenger. The I.U.E.'s five-man board of trustees counted the ballots and announced that Carey had won. Jennings filed a federal court suit, charging fraud. Many rank and filers also complained to the Labor Department--and last month Government investigators, acting under the Landrum-Griffin Act, subpoenaed the I.U.E. election records. After completing their examination, the investigators said that Carey had really lost the election by 23,316 votes, instead of winning by 2,193 as the trustees, Carey loyalists, had claimed.

Jim Carey had been a stormy petrel in the labor movement for years. At 25, he organized the United Electrical Workers Union. In 1949, after he had trouble with infiltrating Communists, he broke off from the U.E., founded the I.U.E. under the auspices of the C.I.O. He brought it to a peak membership of 397,000 in 1956. Then, owing mostly to Carey's dictatorial methods, it began to lose members.

Last September, dissidents nominated Jennings to run against Carey. For 14 years Jennings had been executive secretary of the I.U.E.'s New York-New Jersey District 3, which has about 40% of the union membership. He was reluctant to tangle openly with Carey; yet he had long disagreed with his boss's tactics. Said he: "Carey's concept of a trade union is simple: if you differ with him, you're a traitor."

The Pilferage. Before Carey submitted his resignation to the I.U.E.'s executive board, he held a poignant press conference. His blue eyes moistened as he said: "I have come to the painful conclusion that I can best serve our beloved union's future, its unity and solidarity, and its capacity for advancing the interests of all electrical workers by resigning from my position as president of the I.U.E."

Carey claimed that he had been "completely surprised" by the election switch-about, but not everyone believed him. Commented A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany: "Everybody in Washington knew what was going on. The only shock was the amount of the pilferage."

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