Objects to UDR
on Carey
The writer of the following letter is
a workers' rights attorney in Massachusetts who
has been a staunch supporter of the union
democracy cause:
Dear editor: If you told me even a year
ago that I would be reading repeated articles in
our organization's publication doing anything
other than chastising a union leader for using
funds of the organization to promote his own
re-election to union office, I would have told
you that no such thing is possible. Yet in issue
after issue I find what appears to me to be AUD
and its most active members and contributors in
one way or another doing just that.
While I have generally admired and long been part
of the work of AUD and TDU, applauded the
struggle of Carey's team in the UPS strike,
supported Carey's candidacy and oppose Hoffa's,
and believe the members should not have been
selectively deprived of a chance to choose whom
they want to elect, I still deem it among the
worst of all offenses for a union leader to use
the union's (i.e. the members') funds to promote
his own candidacy for office and can neither
condone nor excuse it because the candidate who
did that was the one I preferred.
In solidarity, Mark D. Stern
P.S. While it has no influence whatsoever on the
views I expressed above, I voluntarily disclose
that Barbara Zack Quindel was my law partner 20
years ago and remains a friend to this day.
Editor's comment: Mark Stern's
denunciation of the Carey campaign tactics are
well taken; but, I believe he misreads the
intention of our accounts which is not to excuse
those misdeeds but precisely to emphasize what
he, himself, mentions and is so critical a fact:
that "the members should not have been
selectively deprived of a chance to choose whom
they want to elect." Now that Carey is
eliminated, even expelled from the union, the way
has been smoothed for the old guard to return to
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APWU:
from page 12
invites
manipulation and abuse by the
incumbent union officers."
According to the DOJ brief, none
of the candidates was informed
before or during the nominating
meeting that the union election
committee required the submission
of social security numbers and
addresses. The seven candidates
were assisted in their appeal to
the Department of Labor by AUD
staff and cooperating attorney
Louie Nikolaidis.
Convention
Report
Peter Raska,
one of the plaintiffs and a
delegate to the APWU in July,
distributed hundreds of copies of
the DOL brief to convention
delegates. David Yao, a delegate
from Seattle and a long-time
friend of AUD, reports that con
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