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Barack Obama on Monday disputed a Wall Street Journal story that claims the Democratic presidential candidate won the endorsement of the Teamsters Union by agreeing to push for dismantling the oversight board that reviews allegations of union ties to organized crime.

The newspaper reported Monday that Teamsters Central Region Vice President John Coli said that on more than one occasion, Obama was “pretty definitive that the time had come to start the beginning of the end” of the panel that investigates suspicious activity. Coli brokered the endorsement, which came in February after John Edwards dropped out of the contest.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed to the paper that the candidate thinks the board “has run its course” because “organized crime influence in the union has drastically declined.”

He later issued a similar statement.

“Because organized crime influence in the union drastically declined, the (Independent Review Board)’s oversight of the Teamsters has shifted from preventing mob influence to a focus on matters that other government agencies should handle.  The Department of Labor or the FBI typically handles corruption, anti-democratic practices and other issues that arise in unions.  However, the IRB pursues action on issues that those agencies do not believe merit action.  This holds the Teamsters to a different standard than other unions that has nothing to do with organized crime.”

Obama told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that he only said that he would look more closely at the issue.

“I wouldn’t make any blanket commitments,” he said. “What I have said is I would examine what is going on in terms of the federal oversight that is taking place but it has been in place for many years. The union has done a terrific job cleaning house and the question is whether they are going to be able to be treated like every other union, whether that time has come and that is something I will absolutely examine when I am president of the United States.”

The campaign of Obama rival Hillary Clinton immediately sent out a press release noting the discrepancy between Obama’s statements on the morning news and comments by his spokesman quoted in the article.

However, the Teamsters said the endorsement was not a direct outcome of Obama’s position, and both the campaign and the union acknowledge differences on other issues.

Teamsters Communications Director Bret Caldwell told FOXNews.com that all of the Democratic candidates have taken roughly the same view of the union’s desire to get rid of the consent decree that governs the oversight process. So the endorsement of Obama wasn’t built around this one matter, he said.

“There’s not really a way that there could be a quid pro quo” since all share similar positions, Caldwell said. He added that the Teamsters has widespread bipartisan support for ending the review panel.

The three-member independent review board was set up in 1992 after the union agreed to federal oversight following a 1989 settlement with the Justice Department on racketeering charges. At the start of the board’s work, it had 70 cases. In 2007, it had eight. The Teamsters spends roughly $6 million a year in compliance. “We pay for the whole process,” Caldwell said. “I think it’s just a matter of fairness. The Teamsters Union has been under a consent decree for 20 years with no exit strategy.”He added that while it’s important that the union “remain vigilant” to make sure the type of corruption that took place 20 years ago doesn’t re-emerge, “the government should not be in the internal affairs of the union for an indeterminate amount of time.”

“It’s always great to have political allies,” Caldwell said, but the reality is a court case will determine whether the board is dissolved.

Caldwell said the union has been working with the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York to come up with a process for bringing the consent decree to a conclusion, but “the demands they have had on us have been too cumbersome at this point and require the next 100 years of oversight.”

Supporters of the board note that the union still does not do enough self-policing to warrant the end of the board altogether. William Webster, the former CIA and FBI director and a member of the panel, added that it would be highly unusual for a president to try to change the arrangement. “Presidents very rarely try to tell the Justice Department what is the right thing to do in matters of judicial administration,” Webster told the newspaper.

Click here to go to The Wall Street Journal article.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Barack Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.