Tuesday, September 15, 1998

NEW YORK (AP) -- A judge has delayed a scheduled Teamsters election by almost two months after a dispute about how to pay for the election.

Ballots for the presidency election will be mailed out Nov. 2 and returned by Dec. 3 under the schedule ordered Monday by U.S. District Court Judge David Edelstein. Edelstein supervises the International Brotherhood of Teamsters under a 1989 consent decree.

An original plan to mail ballots Monday was scrapped after Congressional Republicans got into a fight with the union over the estimated $8 million election tab.

Neither side wanted to pay for the contest, but by July GOP leaders agreed to let the Justice Department spend about $4 million and the Teamsters have since offered to pay $2 million.

The rerun election was ordered after incumbent Teamsters President Ron Carey's 1996 re-election over James P. Hoffa was overturned and he was barred from running again.The principal candidates for president now are Hoffa, son of labor legend Jimmy Hoffa, and Tom Leedham, who has the backing of the union's reform wing.

The union has 1.4 million members.

Copyright 1998 The Associated Press