United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management
Encyclopedia
The United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management (also known as the McClellan Committee) was a select committee created by the United States Senate
on January 30, 1957, and dissolved on March 31, 1960. The select committee was directed to study the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor-management relations or in groups of employees or employers, and to suggest changes in the laws of the United States that would provide protection against such practices or activities. It conducted 253 active investigations, served 8,000 subpoenas for witnesses and documents, held 270 days of hearings, took testimony from 1,526 witnesses (343 of whom invoked the Fifth Amendment
), and compiled almost 150,000 pages of testimony. At the peak of its activity in 1958, 104 persons worked for the committee.
The select committee's work led directly to the enactment of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Public Law 86-257, also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act) on September 14, 1959.
was appointed assistant counsel for the Committee on Government Operations by the then-chairman of the committee, Senator Joseph McCarthy
. Kennedy resigned in July 1953, but rejoined the committee staff as chief minority counsel in February 1954. When the Democrats regained the majority in January 1955, Kennedy became the committee's chief counsel. Soon thereafter, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations
, under the leadership of Democratic
Senator
John L. McClellan
(chair of the committee and subcommittee), began holding hearings into labor
racketeering
.
Much of the Permanent Subcommittee's work focused on a scandal which emerged in 1956 in the powerful trade union
, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
. In the mid-1950s, Midwestern
Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa
began an effort to unseat Dave Beck
, the union's international president. In October 1955, mobster Johnny Dio met with Hoffa in New York City
and the two men conspired to create as many as 15 paper local
s (fake local union
s which existed only on paper) to boost Hoffa's delegate totals. When the paper locals applied for charters from the international union, Hoffa's political foes were outraged. A major battle broke out within the Teamsters over whether to charter the locals, and the media attention led to investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice
and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Beck and other Teamster leaders subsequently challenged the authority of the Permanent Subcommittee to investigate the union by arguing that the Senate's Labor and Public Welfare Committee
had jurisdiction over labor racketeering, not Government Operations. McClellan objected to the transfer of his investigation to the Labor Committee because he felt the Labor chairman, Senator John F. Kennedy
, was too close to union leaders and would not thoroughly investigate organized labor.
To solve its jurisdictional and political problems, the Senate established on January 30, 1957, an entirely new committee, the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, and gave it broad subpoena and investigative powers. The new select committee was given a year to complete its work, and charged with studying the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor-management relations or in groups of employees or employers. Half the membership was drawn from the Committee on Government Operations and half from the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare
. McClellan, Ervin, McCarthy, and Mundt were drawn from Government Operations, and Kennedy, McNamara, Ives, and Goldwater from Labor. An equal number of Democrats and Republicans sat on the Select Committee. Senator McClellan was named chair of the Select Committee, and Republican
Senator Irving Ives
of New York
vice chair. Democrats and liberals
, primarily, criticized the committee for not having a neutral attitude toward labor. Only three of the committee's eight members looked on organized labor favorably, and only one of them (Senator Patrick McNamara) was strongly pro-labor. The committee's other five members were strongly pro-management, and that included the Select Committee's Southern conservative chair, John L. McClellan. McClellan hired Robert F. Kennedy
as the subcommittee's chief counsel and investigator. Kennedy, too, did not have a neutral opinion of labor unions. Appalled by stories he had heard about union intimidation on the West Coast
, Kennedy undertook the chief counsel's job determined to root out union malfeasance and with little knowledge or understanding of or even concern over management misbehavior. The biases of the Select Committee members and its chief counsel, some observers concluded, led the committee to view corruption in labor-management relations as a problem with unions, not management, and management as nothing more than a victim.
Senator McClellan gave Robert Kennedy extensive control over the scheduling of testimony, areas of investigation, and questioning of witnesses. This suited McClellan, a conservative Democrat and opponent of labor unions: Robert Kennedy would take the brunt of organized labor's outrage, while McClellan would be free to pursue an anti-labor legislative agenda once the hearings began to draw to a close. Republican members of the Select Committee voiced strong disagreement with McClellan's decision to let Kennedy set the direction for the committee and ask most of the questions, but McClellan largely ignored their protests. Robert Kennedy proved to be an inexpert interrogator, fumbling questions and engaging in shouting matches with witnesses rather than laying out legal cases against them. McClellan and Kennedy's goal had been to refer nearly all their investigations to the Justice Department for prosection, but the department refused to do so because it concluded that nearly all the legal cases were significantly flawed. A frustrated Robert Kennedy publicly complained about the Justice Department's decisions in September 1958.
Chief Counsel Kennedy resolved to investigate a wide range of labor unions and corporations, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Auto Workers
(UAW), Anheuser-Busch
, Sears, and Occidental Life Insurance. The Select Committee also established formal liaisons with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), Internal Revenue Service
, Federal Narcotics Bureau, Department of Labor
, and other federal agencies as well as state and local offices and officials involved in law enforcement.
), and union records were lost or destroyed (allegedly on purpose). But, working with the FBI, the Select Committee electrified the nation when on February 22, 1957, wiretaps were played in public before a national television audience in which Dio and Hoffa discussed the creation of even more paper locals, including the establishment of a paper local to organize New York City's 30,000 taxi cab drivers and use the charter as a means of extorting money from a wide variety of employers. As 1.2 million viewers watched on live television, evidence was unearthed over the next few weeks of a mob-sponsored plot in which Oregon Teamsters unions would seize control of the state legislature
, state police
, and state attorney general's
office through bribery, extortion and blackmail. On March 14, 1957, Jimmy Hoffa was arrested for allegedly trying to bribe an aide to the Select Committee. Hoffa denied the charges (and was later acquitted), but the arrest trigged additional investigations and more arrests and indictments over the following weeks. Less than a week later, Beck admitted to receiving an interest-free $300,000 loan from the Teamsters which he had never repaid, and Select Committee investigators claimed that loans to Beck and other union officials (and their businesses) had cost the Teamsters more than $700,000. Beck appeared before the Select Committee for the first time on March 25, 1957, and notoriously invoked his Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination 117 times. Beck was called before the McClellan Committee again in May 1957, and additional interest-free loans and other potentially illegal and unethical financial transactions exposed. Based on these revelations, Beck was indicted for tax evasion on May 2, 1957.
The Beck and Hoffa hearings generated strong criticisms of Robert Kennedy. Many liberal critics said he was a brow-beater, badgerer, insolent, overbearing, intolerant, and even vicious. Hoffa and other witnesses often were able to anger Kennedy to the point where he lost control, and would shout and insult them. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
, one of Robert Kennedy's mentors and a close friend, criticized Kennedy for presuming the guilt of anyone who exercised his Fifth Amendment rights. Noted attorney Edward Bennett Williams
accused the Select Committee of bringing witnesses into executive session, ascertaining that they would exercise their Fifth Amendment rights, and then force them to return in public and refuse to answer questions—merely to generate media attention. The Chicago American
newspaper so strongly criticized Robert Kennedy for his overbearing, zealous behavior during the hearings that a worried Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
rushed to Washington, D.C.
to see for himself if Robert Kennedy was endangering John Kennedy's political future.
During much of the summer and fall of 1957, the Select Committee investigated corruption in the Bakery Workers Union
, United Textile Workers
, Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union
, and Transport Workers Union
. In the late fall, the committee focused its attention on union-busting, and examined the behavior of companies such as Morton Packing Company, Continental Baking Company
, and Sears, Roebuck and Company
.
While continuing to investigate and hold hearings on other unions and corporations, the McClellan Committee also began to examine the behavior of Jimmy Hoffa and other Teamsters officials. Senator McClellan accused Hoffa of attempting to gain control of the nation's economy and set himself up as a sort of private government. The Select Committee also accused Hoffa of instigating the creation of the paper locals, and of arranging for a $400,000 loan to the graft-ridden International Longshoremen's Association
in a bid to take over that union and gain Teamsters control of the waterfront as well as warehouses. Johnny Dio, who by late summer 1957 was in prison serving time on bribery
and conspiracy
charges, was paroled by a federal court in order to testify at the Select Committee's hearings. But in a two-hour appearance before the Select Committee, Dio invoked his Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination 140 times, and refused to answer any of the committee's questions. But despite the problems encountered in interrogating Dio, the Select Committee developed additional testimony and evidence alleging widespread corruption in Hoffa-controlled Teamster units was presented in public in August 1957. The worsening corruption scandal led the AFL-CIO to eject the Teamsters on December 6, 1957.
As the Hoffa hearings occurred in August 1957, the Select Committee met in executive session to restructure its organizations and set its agenda for the future. The Select Committee had succeeded in securing the removal of Beck as Teamsters president and seemed on the verge of sending Jimmy Hoffa to jail as well, but the Committee had also been strongly criticized for its handling of witnesses and its apparent one-sidedness in exposing union but not management corruption. To guide the Select Committee's investigations in the future, McClellan established a set of 11 areas of investigation for the committee, nine of which involved labor misdeeds and only one of which involved management misbehavior (preventing workers from organizing unions). The management-oriented area came last on the committee's list of priorities, and there were no staff assigned to investigate the issue.
Under the new guidelines, the Select Committee's schedule of hearings slowed. In January 1958, Chairman McClellan asked for and received permission from the Senate to extend the deadline for completing the committee's work for another year. For a short time early in the year, the Select Committee investigated the International Union of Operating Engineers
, and uncovered a limited financial scandal at the top of the union. But the main focus of the committee for the first half of the year was the United Auto Workers. Republicans on the Select Committee, notably Barry Goldwater, had for several months in late 1957 accused Robert Kennedy of covering up extensive corruption in the UAW. The Republicans pointed to a lengthy, ongoing, and sometimes violent strike which the UAW was conducting against the Kohler
plumbing fixtures company in Wisconsin. Walter Reuther
, President of the Auto Workers, told Select Committee investigators that the Kohler Company was committing numerous unfair labor practice
s against the union and that the union's books were in order. Despite no evidence of any mismanagement or organized crime infiltration, Kennedy and McClellan went ahead with hearings on the UAW in February 1958. The five-week series of hearings produced no evidence of corruption. A second set of hearings into the UAW in September 1959 lasted just six days, and once more uncovered no evidence of UAW malfeasance. The September 1959 hearings were the last public hearings the embarrassed committee ever held.
As the UAW hearings were winding down, the Select Committee issued its first Interim Report on March 24, 1958. The report roundly condemned Jimmy Hoffa (by now President of the Teamsters) and accused the Teamsters of gathering enough power to destroy the national economy. Refocusing its attention back on the Teamsters, the Select Committee held a short set of hearings in August 1958 intended to expose corruption by the Hoffa regime. But a number of witnesses recanted their written testimony and the hearings led nowhere.
In February 1959, the Select Committee's attention turned to an investigation of organized crime. McClellan had won yet another one-year extension of the Select Committee's existence in January, giving it additional time for more investigations. This new focus was a natural outgrowth of the committee's previous investigations, but it also reflected the committee's frustration at uncovering no additional scandals like the one which had rocked the Teamsters. Through much of the spring and summer of 1959, the committee held a series of public hearings which brought a number of organized crime figures to the public's attention, including Anthony Corrallo, Vito Genovese
, Anthony Provenzano
, Joey Glimco
, Sam Giancana
, and Carlos Marcello
. Although more muted and less frequent, criticisms of the Select Committee and Robert Kennedy continued. Kennedy's moralism about labor racketeering, several high-profile critics concluded, even endangered the Constitution. Although McClellan wanted to further investigate organized crime, the Select Committee had reached the limits of its jurisdiction and no further investigations were made.
By September 1959, it was clear that the Select Committee was not developing additional information to justify continued operation. A second interim report was released in August 1959 once again denouncing the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa. Robert F. Kennedy resigned as the Select Committee's chief counsel on September 11, 1959, and joined Senator John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign as campaign manager. Committee members became more involved in passing legislation to deal with the abuses uncovered.
During its existence, the Select Committee conducted 253 active investigations, served 8,000 subpoenas for witnesses and documents, held 270 days of hearings with 1,526 witnesses (343 of whom invoked the Fifth Amendment), compiled almost 150,000 pages of testimony, and issued two interim and one final report. At its peak, 104 persons were engaged in the work of the committee, including 34 field investigators. Another 58 staffers were delegated to the committee by the Government Accounting Office and worked in Detroit, Chicago
, New York City, and southern Florida
. To accommodate the huge staff, a corridor was blocked off in the Old Senate Office Building
and turned into a suite of offices.
Some observers continued to criticize the Select Committee. In 1961, Yale University
law professor Alexander Bickel
accused Kennedy of being punitive and battering witnesses, compared his tactics to those of Joseph McCarthy, and declared Kennedy unfit to be Attorney General. At the turn of the century, historians and biographers continued to criticize the Select Committee's lack of respect for the constitutional rights of witnesses brought before it.
decision and landmark labor legislation. The right of union officials to exercise their Fifth Amendment rights was upheld and a significant refinement of constitutional law made when the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the right of union officials to not divulge the location of union records in Curcio v. United States, 354 U.S. 118
(1957).
The scandals uncovered by the Select Committee led directly to passage of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act) in 1959. Calls for legislation and drafts of bills began circulating in the Senate as early as May 1957. Among the more prominent bills was one submitted in 1958 by Senators John F. Kennedy and Irving Ives (with assistance from nationally-known labor law
professor Archibald Cox
) which covered 30 areas, including union recordkeeping, finances, and democratic organizational structures and rules. The Kennedy-Ives bill proved immensely controversial, leading to the longest Senate debate of the year, and the greatest number of amendments and floor votes any piece of legislation that year. But President Dwight D. Eisenhower
opposed the bill and it died when the Congressional session ended in December 1958. Kennedy reintroduced the bill, with some additional provisions, in 1959. Although Ives had retired from the Senate, Senator Sam Ervin agreed to co-sponsor the revised bill. The Kennedy-Ervin bill also encountered stiff opposition, and Republicans were able to win Senate approval of a management "bill of rights" to the bill which labor strongly denounced. But with this and other Republican-backed amendments, the bill passed the Senate overwhelmingly.
By 1959 the Eisenhower administration had crafted its own bill, which was co-sponsored in the House of Representatives
by Phillip M. Landrum
(Democrat from Georgia
) and Robert P. Griffin
(Republican from Michigan
). The Landrum-Griffin bill contained much stricter financial reporting and fiduciary restrictions than the Kennedy-Ervin bill as well as several unrelated provisions restricting union organizing, picketing, and boycott activity. A conference committee
to reconcile the House and Senate bills began meeting on August 18, 1959. On September 3 and 4, the House and Senate passed the conference committee bill, which was far closer to the original Landrum-Griffin bill than the Kennedy-Ervin bill, and President Eisenhower signed the bill into law on September 14, 1959.
After the Select Committee's mandate expired, Senator McClellan and others advocated that the Senate expand the jurisdiction of one or more committees not only to provide oversight of the new labor law but also to continue the Senate's investigations into organized crime. McClellan originally sought jurisdiction for his own Committee on Government Operations, but members of his committee balked at the request. However, McClellan was able to convince the full Senate to impose jurisdiction on Government Operations, and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations began making inquiries into matters pertaining to syndicated or organized crime.
. After leaving the Select Committee, Robert F. Kennedy spent the better part of a year writing about his experiences and what he had learned about unions and organized crime. Kennedy's book, The Enemy Within, was published in February 1960.
The hearings also made Jimmy Hoffa a household name in the United States. The hearings were a critical turning point in Hoffa's career as a labor leader. Bringing down Dave Beck ensured that Hoffa would become president of the Teamsters, and outcome Robert Kennedy later regretted. Although Hoffa was indicted several times in federal and state courts based on evidence uncovered by the Select Committee, he was never convicted on any of the charges. Prosecutors and others accused Hoffa of jury tampering
and suborning witnesses
in order to beat conviction, but these charges also were never proven in a court of law. After he became U.S. Attorney General in January 1961, Robert F. Kennedy formed a "get Hoffa squad" whose mission was to identify additional evidence and secure a conviction against Hoffa. Kennedy's focus on Hoffa was so strong that many observers at the time as well as later historians believed Kennedy had a personal vendetta against Hoffa. Hoffa was eventually convicted by a federal district court jury
on March 4, 1964, on two counts of tampering with the jury during his 1962 conspiracy trial in Nashville, Tennessee
, and sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine. While on bail
during his appeal
, a second federal district court jury convicted Hoffa on July 26, 1964, on one count of conspiracy
and three counts of mail and wire fraud
. Hoffa entered prison on March 7, 1967, and Frank Fitzsimmons
was named Acting President of the union. Hoffa resigned as Teamsters president on July 9, 1971. Barred by a commutation of sentence
agreement from participating directly or indirectly in union activities until 1980, Hoffa was released from prison on December 23, 1971, but disappeared on July 30, 1975 (and was presumably murdered).
The hearings had positive benefits for other key participants as well. The Kennedy-Ives bill was Senator John F. Kennedy's most important legislative accomplishment, and although it was not enacted into law many Senators nonetheless revised their opinion and now saw him as a serious legislator. This helped remove a major obstacle to Kennedy's political aspirations. Kennedy also used the publicity he gained from the Select Committee's work to launch his own presidential bid in 1960. The work of the Select Committee also was a key turning point in the Senate career of John L. McClellan. McClellan devoted significant time and resources of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (of which he was chair) to pushing anti-organized crime agenda in 1960s, and his efforts kept the issue alive despite the prominence of other issues such as the civil rights movement and Vietnam War
. When limited jurisdiction over organized crime was transferred to the Committee on Government Operations after the disbandment of the Select Committee, Senator McClellan held a number of sensational hearings on organized crime from 1960 to 1964 which became known as the Valachi Hearings. In 1962, McClellan published his own account of the Select Committee's activities and findings in the book Crime Without Punishment. The senator sponsored several pieces of important anti-crime legislation in the 1960s and early 1970s, including the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968
and the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (part of which contains the highly influential Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
).
85th United States Congress
The Select Committee's chair was Senator John L. McClellan, and the vice chair was Senator Irving Ives. An equal number of Democrats and Republicans sat on the committee. Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy died on May 2, 1957, and was replaced by Republican Senator Homer E. Capehart. Democratic Senator Patrick McNamara resigned from the committee on March 31, 1958, to protest the Select Committee's rough treatment of union witnesses. He was replaced by Democratic Senator Frank Church.
86th United States Congress
The Select Committee's chair was Senator John L. McClellan. With the retirement of Senator Irving Ives from the Senate in December 1958, the new Vice Chair became Senator Karl E. Mundt. Senator Homer E. Capehart joined the committee to keep the partisan balance.
At the peak of its activity in 1958, 104 persons worked for the committee, including 34 field investigators. Another 58 staff were loaned to the committee from the General Accounting Office. Committee staff included:
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
on January 30, 1957, and dissolved on March 31, 1960. The select committee was directed to study the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor-management relations or in groups of employees or employers, and to suggest changes in the laws of the United States that would provide protection against such practices or activities. It conducted 253 active investigations, served 8,000 subpoenas for witnesses and documents, held 270 days of hearings, took testimony from 1,526 witnesses (343 of whom invoked the Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
), and compiled almost 150,000 pages of testimony. At the peak of its activity in 1958, 104 persons worked for the committee.
The select committee's work led directly to the enactment of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (Public Law 86-257, also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act) on September 14, 1959.
Background and creation
In December 1952, Robert F. KennedyRobert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
was appointed assistant counsel for the Committee on Government Operations by the then-chairman of the committee, Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
. Kennedy resigned in July 1953, but rejoined the committee staff as chief minority counsel in February 1954. When the Democrats regained the majority in January 1955, Kennedy became the committee's chief counsel. Soon thereafter, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations
United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland security concerns, as well as the functioning of the government itself, including the National Archives, budget and...
, under the leadership of Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
John L. McClellan
John Little McClellan
John Little McClellan was a Democratic Party politician from Arkansas. He represented Arkansas in the United States Senate from 1943 until 1977. He also earlier represented Arkansas in the United States House of Representatives.-Early life:McClellan was born in Sheridan, Grant County, Arkansas...
(chair of the committee and subcommittee), began holding hearings into labor
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
racketeering
Racket (crime)
A racket is an illegal business, usually run as part of organized crime. Engaging in a racket is called racketeering.Several forms of racket exist. The best-known is the protection racket, in which criminals demand money from businesses in exchange for the service of "protection" against crimes...
.
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
. In the mid-1950s, Midwestern
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa was an American labor union leader....
began an effort to unseat Dave Beck
Dave Beck
Dave Beck was an American labor leader, and president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1952 to 1957...
, the union's international president. In October 1955, mobster Johnny Dio met with Hoffa in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and the two men conspired to create as many as 15 paper local
Paper local
A paper local is a local union with no or few members, chartered by an existing union or self-chartered, and formed for the purpose of criminal activity. As implied by the name, paper locals often "exist only on paper," and have no members...
s (fake local union
Local union
A local union, often shortened to local, in North America, or a union branch in the United Kingdom and other countries is a locally-based trade union organization which forms part of a larger, usually national, union.Local branches are organized to represent the union's members from a particular...
s which existed only on paper) to boost Hoffa's delegate totals. When the paper locals applied for charters from the international union, Hoffa's political foes were outraged. A major battle broke out within the Teamsters over whether to charter the locals, and the media attention led to investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Beck and other Teamster leaders subsequently challenged the authority of the Permanent Subcommittee to investigate the union by arguing that the Senate's Labor and Public Welfare Committee
United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
The United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions generally considers matters relating to health, education, labor, and pensions...
had jurisdiction over labor racketeering, not Government Operations. McClellan objected to the transfer of his investigation to the Labor Committee because he felt the Labor chairman, Senator John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, was too close to union leaders and would not thoroughly investigate organized labor.
To solve its jurisdictional and political problems, the Senate established on January 30, 1957, an entirely new committee, the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management, and gave it broad subpoena and investigative powers. The new select committee was given a year to complete its work, and charged with studying the extent of criminal or other improper practices in the field of labor-management relations or in groups of employees or employers. Half the membership was drawn from the Committee on Government Operations and half from the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare
United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
The United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions generally considers matters relating to health, education, labor, and pensions...
. McClellan, Ervin, McCarthy, and Mundt were drawn from Government Operations, and Kennedy, McNamara, Ives, and Goldwater from Labor. An equal number of Democrats and Republicans sat on the Select Committee. Senator McClellan was named chair of the Select Committee, and Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
Senator Irving Ives
Irving Ives
Irving McNeil Ives was an American politician from New York.-Life:He served overseas in the U.S. Army during World War I, rising to the rank of first lieutenant before he left the army in 1919...
of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
vice chair. Democrats and liberals
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
, primarily, criticized the committee for not having a neutral attitude toward labor. Only three of the committee's eight members looked on organized labor favorably, and only one of them (Senator Patrick McNamara) was strongly pro-labor. The committee's other five members were strongly pro-management, and that included the Select Committee's Southern conservative chair, John L. McClellan. McClellan hired Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
as the subcommittee's chief counsel and investigator. Kennedy, too, did not have a neutral opinion of labor unions. Appalled by stories he had heard about union intimidation on the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
, Kennedy undertook the chief counsel's job determined to root out union malfeasance and with little knowledge or understanding of or even concern over management misbehavior. The biases of the Select Committee members and its chief counsel, some observers concluded, led the committee to view corruption in labor-management relations as a problem with unions, not management, and management as nothing more than a victim.
Senator McClellan gave Robert Kennedy extensive control over the scheduling of testimony, areas of investigation, and questioning of witnesses. This suited McClellan, a conservative Democrat and opponent of labor unions: Robert Kennedy would take the brunt of organized labor's outrage, while McClellan would be free to pursue an anti-labor legislative agenda once the hearings began to draw to a close. Republican members of the Select Committee voiced strong disagreement with McClellan's decision to let Kennedy set the direction for the committee and ask most of the questions, but McClellan largely ignored their protests. Robert Kennedy proved to be an inexpert interrogator, fumbling questions and engaging in shouting matches with witnesses rather than laying out legal cases against them. McClellan and Kennedy's goal had been to refer nearly all their investigations to the Justice Department for prosection, but the department refused to do so because it concluded that nearly all the legal cases were significantly flawed. A frustrated Robert Kennedy publicly complained about the Justice Department's decisions in September 1958.
Chief Counsel Kennedy resolved to investigate a wide range of labor unions and corporations, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Auto Workers
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...
(UAW), Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...
, Sears, and Occidental Life Insurance. The Select Committee also established formal liaisons with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI), Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
, Federal Narcotics Bureau, Department of Labor
United States Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor is a Cabinet department of the United States government responsible for occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits, re-employment services, and some economic statistics. Many U.S. states also have such departments. The...
, and other federal agencies as well as state and local offices and officials involved in law enforcement.
Investigations
The Select Committee focused its attention for most of 1957 on the Teamsters union. Teamsters President Dave Beck fled the country for a month to avoid its subpoenas before returning in March 1957. The Select Committee had a difficult time investigating the Teamsters. Four of the paper locals were dissolved to avoid committee scrutiny, several Teamster staffers provided verbal testimony which differed substantially from their prior written statements (the Select Committee eventually charged six of them with contempt of CongressContempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically the bribery of a senator or representative was considered contempt of Congress...
), and union records were lost or destroyed (allegedly on purpose). But, working with the FBI, the Select Committee electrified the nation when on February 22, 1957, wiretaps were played in public before a national television audience in which Dio and Hoffa discussed the creation of even more paper locals, including the establishment of a paper local to organize New York City's 30,000 taxi cab drivers and use the charter as a means of extorting money from a wide variety of employers. As 1.2 million viewers watched on live television, evidence was unearthed over the next few weeks of a mob-sponsored plot in which Oregon Teamsters unions would seize control of the state legislature
Oregon Legislative Assembly
The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper and lower house: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the House of Representatives, with 60 members elected to...
, state police
Oregon State Police
The Oregon State Police is the main state law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of Oregon. They have been charged to enforce all of Oregon's criminal laws and to help local law enforcement agencies with their duties...
, and state attorney general's
Oregon Attorney General
The Oregon Attorney General is a statutory office within the executive branch of the state of Oregon, and serves as the chief legal officer of the state, heading its Department of Justice with its six operating divisions. The Attorney General is chosen by statewide partisan election to serve a term...
office through bribery, extortion and blackmail. On March 14, 1957, Jimmy Hoffa was arrested for allegedly trying to bribe an aide to the Select Committee. Hoffa denied the charges (and was later acquitted), but the arrest trigged additional investigations and more arrests and indictments over the following weeks. Less than a week later, Beck admitted to receiving an interest-free $300,000 loan from the Teamsters which he had never repaid, and Select Committee investigators claimed that loans to Beck and other union officials (and their businesses) had cost the Teamsters more than $700,000. Beck appeared before the Select Committee for the first time on March 25, 1957, and notoriously invoked his Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
right against self-incrimination 117 times. Beck was called before the McClellan Committee again in May 1957, and additional interest-free loans and other potentially illegal and unethical financial transactions exposed. Based on these revelations, Beck was indicted for tax evasion on May 2, 1957.
The Beck and Hoffa hearings generated strong criticisms of Robert Kennedy. Many liberal critics said he was a brow-beater, badgerer, insolent, overbearing, intolerant, and even vicious. Hoffa and other witnesses often were able to anger Kennedy to the point where he lost control, and would shout and insult them. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...
, one of Robert Kennedy's mentors and a close friend, criticized Kennedy for presuming the guilt of anyone who exercised his Fifth Amendment rights. Noted attorney Edward Bennett Williams
Edward Bennett Williams
Edward Bennett Williams was a Washington, D.C. trial attorney who founded the law firm of Williams & Connolly and owned several professional sports teams...
accused the Select Committee of bringing witnesses into executive session, ascertaining that they would exercise their Fifth Amendment rights, and then force them to return in public and refuse to answer questions—merely to generate media attention. The Chicago American
Chicago's American
Chicago American, an afternoon newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, was the last flowering of the aggressive journalistic tradition depicted in the play and movie The Front Page....
newspaper so strongly criticized Robert Kennedy for his overbearing, zealous behavior during the hearings that a worried Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy, Sr. was a prominent American businessman, investor, and government official....
rushed to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
to see for himself if Robert Kennedy was endangering John Kennedy's political future.
During much of the summer and fall of 1957, the Select Committee investigated corruption in the Bakery Workers Union
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union
The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union is a labor union in the United States and Canada. It has a membership of 100,000...
, United Textile Workers
Textile Workers Union of America
The Textile Workers Union of America was an industrial union of textile workers established through the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1939 and merged with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to become the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in 1976. It waged a...
, Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union
Amalgamated Meat Cutters
The Amalgamated Meat Cutters , officially the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, was a labor union that represented retail butchers and packinghouse workers.-History:...
, and Transport Workers Union
Transport Workers Union of America
Transport Workers Union of America is a United States labor union that was founded in 1934 by subway workers in New York City, then expanded to represent transit employees in other cities, primarily in the eastern U.S. This article discusses the parent union and its largest local, Local 100,...
. In the late fall, the committee focused its attention on union-busting, and examined the behavior of companies such as Morton Packing Company, Continental Baking Company
Interstate Bakeries Corporation
Hostess Brands, Inc. is the largest wholesale baker and distributor of fresh bakery products in the United States, and is the owner of the Hostess, Wonder Bread, Nature's Pride, Dolly Madison, Butternut Breads, and Drake's brands. For many years it was based at 12 East Armour Boulevard, Kansas...
, and Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century...
.
While continuing to investigate and hold hearings on other unions and corporations, the McClellan Committee also began to examine the behavior of Jimmy Hoffa and other Teamsters officials. Senator McClellan accused Hoffa of attempting to gain control of the nation's economy and set himself up as a sort of private government. The Select Committee also accused Hoffa of instigating the creation of the paper locals, and of arranging for a $400,000 loan to the graft-ridden International Longshoremen's Association
International Longshoremen's Association
The International Longshoremen's Association is a labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways...
in a bid to take over that union and gain Teamsters control of the waterfront as well as warehouses. Johnny Dio, who by late summer 1957 was in prison serving time on bribery
Bribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
and conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
charges, was paroled by a federal court in order to testify at the Select Committee's hearings. But in a two-hour appearance before the Select Committee, Dio invoked his Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
right against self-incrimination 140 times, and refused to answer any of the committee's questions. But despite the problems encountered in interrogating Dio, the Select Committee developed additional testimony and evidence alleging widespread corruption in Hoffa-controlled Teamster units was presented in public in August 1957. The worsening corruption scandal led the AFL-CIO to eject the Teamsters on December 6, 1957.
As the Hoffa hearings occurred in August 1957, the Select Committee met in executive session to restructure its organizations and set its agenda for the future. The Select Committee had succeeded in securing the removal of Beck as Teamsters president and seemed on the verge of sending Jimmy Hoffa to jail as well, but the Committee had also been strongly criticized for its handling of witnesses and its apparent one-sidedness in exposing union but not management corruption. To guide the Select Committee's investigations in the future, McClellan established a set of 11 areas of investigation for the committee, nine of which involved labor misdeeds and only one of which involved management misbehavior (preventing workers from organizing unions). The management-oriented area came last on the committee's list of priorities, and there were no staff assigned to investigate the issue.
Under the new guidelines, the Select Committee's schedule of hearings slowed. In January 1958, Chairman McClellan asked for and received permission from the Senate to extend the deadline for completing the committee's work for another year. For a short time early in the year, the Select Committee investigated the International Union of Operating Engineers
International Union of Operating Engineers
The International Union of Operating Engineers is a trade union within the AFL-CIO representing primarily construction workers who work as heavy equipment operators, mechanics, surveyors, and stationary engineers who maintain heating and other systems in buildings and industrial complexes, in the...
, and uncovered a limited financial scandal at the top of the union. But the main focus of the committee for the first half of the year was the United Auto Workers. Republicans on the Select Committee, notably Barry Goldwater, had for several months in late 1957 accused Robert Kennedy of covering up extensive corruption in the UAW. The Republicans pointed to a lengthy, ongoing, and sometimes violent strike which the UAW was conducting against the Kohler
Kohler Company
'The Kohler Company is a manufacturing company in Kohler, Wisconsin best known for its plumbing products. Kohler also manufactures furniture, cabinetry, tile, engines, and generators.-History:...
plumbing fixtures company in Wisconsin. Walter Reuther
Walter Reuther
Walter Philip Reuther was an American labor union leader, who made the United Automobile Workers a major force not only in the auto industry but also in the Democratic Party in the mid 20th century...
, President of the Auto Workers, told Select Committee investigators that the Kohler Company was committing numerous unfair labor practice
Unfair labor practice
In United States labor law, the term unfair labor practice refers to certain actions taken by employers or unions that violate the National Labor Relations Act and other legislation...
s against the union and that the union's books were in order. Despite no evidence of any mismanagement or organized crime infiltration, Kennedy and McClellan went ahead with hearings on the UAW in February 1958. The five-week series of hearings produced no evidence of corruption. A second set of hearings into the UAW in September 1959 lasted just six days, and once more uncovered no evidence of UAW malfeasance. The September 1959 hearings were the last public hearings the embarrassed committee ever held.
As the UAW hearings were winding down, the Select Committee issued its first Interim Report on March 24, 1958. The report roundly condemned Jimmy Hoffa (by now President of the Teamsters) and accused the Teamsters of gathering enough power to destroy the national economy. Refocusing its attention back on the Teamsters, the Select Committee held a short set of hearings in August 1958 intended to expose corruption by the Hoffa regime. But a number of witnesses recanted their written testimony and the hearings led nowhere.
In February 1959, the Select Committee's attention turned to an investigation of organized crime. McClellan had won yet another one-year extension of the Select Committee's existence in January, giving it additional time for more investigations. This new focus was a natural outgrowth of the committee's previous investigations, but it also reflected the committee's frustration at uncovering no additional scandals like the one which had rocked the Teamsters. Through much of the spring and summer of 1959, the committee held a series of public hearings which brought a number of organized crime figures to the public's attention, including Anthony Corrallo, Vito Genovese
Vito Genovese
Vito "Don Vito" Genovese was an Italian mafioso who rose to power in America during the Castellammarese War to later become leader of the Genovese crime family. Genovese served as mentor to future mob boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante...
, Anthony Provenzano
Anthony Provenzano
Anthony Provenzano also known as Tony Pro was a Caporegime in the Genovese crime family of New York City...
, Joey Glimco
Joseph Glimco
Joseph Paul Glimco was an Italian American labor leader and well-known organized crime figure based in Chicago, Illinois. He was considered "Chicago's top labor racketeer" in the 1950s. One high-ranking Chicago Teamsters leader noted in 1954, "He is the mob...
, Sam Giancana
Sam Giancana
Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...
, and Carlos Marcello
Carlos Marcello
Carlos "The Little Man" Marcello was a Sicilian-American mafioso who became the boss of the New Orleans crime family during the 1940s and held this position for the next 30 years.-Early life:...
. Although more muted and less frequent, criticisms of the Select Committee and Robert Kennedy continued. Kennedy's moralism about labor racketeering, several high-profile critics concluded, even endangered the Constitution. Although McClellan wanted to further investigate organized crime, the Select Committee had reached the limits of its jurisdiction and no further investigations were made.
By September 1959, it was clear that the Select Committee was not developing additional information to justify continued operation. A second interim report was released in August 1959 once again denouncing the Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa. Robert F. Kennedy resigned as the Select Committee's chief counsel on September 11, 1959, and joined Senator John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign as campaign manager. Committee members became more involved in passing legislation to deal with the abuses uncovered.
Disbandment and legislative and other outcomes
The final report of the Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management was issued on March 31, 1960. At that time, the authority granted by the Senate to the Select Committee was transferred to the Committee on Government Operations.During its existence, the Select Committee conducted 253 active investigations, served 8,000 subpoenas for witnesses and documents, held 270 days of hearings with 1,526 witnesses (343 of whom invoked the Fifth Amendment), compiled almost 150,000 pages of testimony, and issued two interim and one final report. At its peak, 104 persons were engaged in the work of the committee, including 34 field investigators. Another 58 staffers were delegated to the committee by the Government Accounting Office and worked in Detroit, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, New York City, and southern Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. To accommodate the huge staff, a corridor was blocked off in the Old Senate Office Building
Russell Senate Office Building
The Russell Senate Office Building is the oldest of the United States Senate office buildings. Designed in the Beaux-Arts architectural style, it was built from 1903 to 1908, opened in 1909, and named for former Senator Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. of Georgia in 1972...
and turned into a suite of offices.
Some observers continued to criticize the Select Committee. In 1961, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
law professor Alexander Bickel
Alexander Bickel
Alexander Mordecai Bickel was a law professor and expert on the United States Constitution. One of the most influential constitutional commentators of the twentieth century, his writings emphasize judicial restraint....
accused Kennedy of being punitive and battering witnesses, compared his tactics to those of Joseph McCarthy, and declared Kennedy unfit to be Attorney General. At the turn of the century, historians and biographers continued to criticize the Select Committee's lack of respect for the constitutional rights of witnesses brought before it.
Legislative and legal outcomes
Several historic legal developments came out of the select committee's investigation, including a U.S. Supreme CourtSupreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision and landmark labor legislation. The right of union officials to exercise their Fifth Amendment rights was upheld and a significant refinement of constitutional law made when the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the right of union officials to not divulge the location of union records in Curcio v. United States, 354 U.S. 118
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(1957).
Labour law
Labour law is the body of laws, administrative rulings, and precedents which address the legal rights of, and restrictions on, working people and their organizations. As such, it mediates many aspects of the relationship between trade unions, employers and employees...
professor Archibald Cox
Archibald Cox
Archibald Cox, Jr., was an American lawyer and law professor who served as U.S. Solicitor General under President John F. Kennedy. He became known as the first special prosecutor for the Watergate scandal. During his career, he was a pioneering expert on labor law and also an authority on...
) which covered 30 areas, including union recordkeeping, finances, and democratic organizational structures and rules. The Kennedy-Ives bill proved immensely controversial, leading to the longest Senate debate of the year, and the greatest number of amendments and floor votes any piece of legislation that year. But President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
opposed the bill and it died when the Congressional session ended in December 1958. Kennedy reintroduced the bill, with some additional provisions, in 1959. Although Ives had retired from the Senate, Senator Sam Ervin agreed to co-sponsor the revised bill. The Kennedy-Ervin bill also encountered stiff opposition, and Republicans were able to win Senate approval of a management "bill of rights" to the bill which labor strongly denounced. But with this and other Republican-backed amendments, the bill passed the Senate overwhelmingly.
By 1959 the Eisenhower administration had crafted its own bill, which was co-sponsored in the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
by Phillip M. Landrum
Phillip M. Landrum
Phillip Mitchell Landrum was a Democratic U.S. Representative from Georgia.Born in Martin, Georgia, Landrum attended the public schools and Mercer University, in Macon, Georgia....
(Democrat from Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
) and Robert P. Griffin
Robert P. Griffin
Robert Paul Griffin was a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan and Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court....
(Republican from Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
). The Landrum-Griffin bill contained much stricter financial reporting and fiduciary restrictions than the Kennedy-Ervin bill as well as several unrelated provisions restricting union organizing, picketing, and boycott activity. A conference committee
Conference committee
A conference committee is a joint committee of a bicameral legislature, which is appointed by, and consists of, members of both chambers to resolve disagreements on a particular bill...
to reconcile the House and Senate bills began meeting on August 18, 1959. On September 3 and 4, the House and Senate passed the conference committee bill, which was far closer to the original Landrum-Griffin bill than the Kennedy-Ervin bill, and President Eisenhower signed the bill into law on September 14, 1959.
After the Select Committee's mandate expired, Senator McClellan and others advocated that the Senate expand the jurisdiction of one or more committees not only to provide oversight of the new labor law but also to continue the Senate's investigations into organized crime. McClellan originally sought jurisdiction for his own Committee on Government Operations, but members of his committee balked at the request. However, McClellan was able to convince the full Senate to impose jurisdiction on Government Operations, and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations began making inquiries into matters pertaining to syndicated or organized crime.
Impact on key participants
The national attention paid to Robert F. Kennedy during the Select Committee's hearings helped launch his career as a government official and politician. It also earned him a reputation for ruthlessness and hard work. His experiences with the Select Committee significantly affected Robert Kennedy, and strongly influenced his decision to make fighting organized crime a high priority during his tenure as United States Attorney GeneralUnited States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
. After leaving the Select Committee, Robert F. Kennedy spent the better part of a year writing about his experiences and what he had learned about unions and organized crime. Kennedy's book, The Enemy Within, was published in February 1960.
The hearings also made Jimmy Hoffa a household name in the United States. The hearings were a critical turning point in Hoffa's career as a labor leader. Bringing down Dave Beck ensured that Hoffa would become president of the Teamsters, and outcome Robert Kennedy later regretted. Although Hoffa was indicted several times in federal and state courts based on evidence uncovered by the Select Committee, he was never convicted on any of the charges. Prosecutors and others accused Hoffa of jury tampering
Jury tampering
Jury tampering is the crime of unduly attempting to influence the composition and/or decisions of a jury during the course of a trial.The means by which this crime could be perpetrated can include attempting to discredit potential jurors to ensure they will not be selected for duty. Once selected,...
and suborning witnesses
Subornation of perjury
The legal term subornation of perjury describes the crime of persuading a person to commit perjury; and also describes the circumstance wherein an attorney causes or allows another party to lie...
in order to beat conviction, but these charges also were never proven in a court of law. After he became U.S. Attorney General in January 1961, Robert F. Kennedy formed a "get Hoffa squad" whose mission was to identify additional evidence and secure a conviction against Hoffa. Kennedy's focus on Hoffa was so strong that many observers at the time as well as later historians believed Kennedy had a personal vendetta against Hoffa. Hoffa was eventually convicted by a federal district court jury
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
on March 4, 1964, on two counts of tampering with the jury during his 1962 conspiracy trial in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, and sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine. While on bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
during his appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
, a second federal district court jury convicted Hoffa on July 26, 1964, on one count of conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
and three counts of mail and wire fraud
Wire fraud
Mail and wire fraud is a federal crime in the United States. Together, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and 1346 reach any fraudulent scheme or artifice to intentionally deprive another of property or honest services with a nexus to mail or wire communication....
. Hoffa entered prison on March 7, 1967, and Frank Fitzsimmons
Frank Fitzsimmons
Frank Edward Fitzsimmons , was an American labor leader. He was acting president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1967 to 1971, and president from 1971 to 1981.-Early life:...
was named Acting President of the union. Hoffa resigned as Teamsters president on July 9, 1971. Barred by a commutation of sentence
Commutation of sentence
Commutation of sentence involves the reduction of legal penalties, especially in terms of imprisonment. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not nullify the conviction and is often conditional. Clemency is a similar term, meaning the lessening of the penalty of the crime without forgiving the crime...
agreement from participating directly or indirectly in union activities until 1980, Hoffa was released from prison on December 23, 1971, but disappeared on July 30, 1975 (and was presumably murdered).
The hearings had positive benefits for other key participants as well. The Kennedy-Ives bill was Senator John F. Kennedy's most important legislative accomplishment, and although it was not enacted into law many Senators nonetheless revised their opinion and now saw him as a serious legislator. This helped remove a major obstacle to Kennedy's political aspirations. Kennedy also used the publicity he gained from the Select Committee's work to launch his own presidential bid in 1960. The work of the Select Committee also was a key turning point in the Senate career of John L. McClellan. McClellan devoted significant time and resources of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (of which he was chair) to pushing anti-organized crime agenda in 1960s, and his efforts kept the issue alive despite the prominence of other issues such as the civil rights movement and Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. When limited jurisdiction over organized crime was transferred to the Committee on Government Operations after the disbandment of the Select Committee, Senator McClellan held a number of sensational hearings on organized crime from 1960 to 1964 which became known as the Valachi Hearings. In 1962, McClellan published his own account of the Select Committee's activities and findings in the book Crime Without Punishment. The senator sponsored several pieces of important anti-crime legislation in the 1960s and early 1970s, including the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968
Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968
The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 was legislation passed by the Congress of the United States that established the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration . Title III of the Act set rules for obtaining wiretap orders in the United States. It has been started shortly after...
and the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 (part of which contains the highly influential Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization...
).
85th United States Congress85th United States CongressThe Eighty-fifth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1957 to January 3, 1959, during the fifth and sixth...
| Majority | Minority |
|---|---|
|
Irving Ives Irving McNeil Ives was an American politician from New York.-Life:He served overseas in the U.S. Army during World War I, rising to the rank of first lieutenant before he left the army in 1919... , Vice Chair, New York Karl Earl Mundt Karl Earl Mundt was an American educator and a Republican member of the United States Congress, representing South Dakota in the United States House of Representatives from 1938 to 1948 and in the United States Senate from 1948 to 1973.-Biography:Born in Humboldt, South Dakota, Mundt attended... , South Dakota Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr... , Arizona Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957... , Wisconsin Carl Curtis Carl Thomas Curtis was an American politician from the U.S. state of Nebraska. He served as a Republican in the House of Representatives and later the Senate .... , Nebraska |
86th United States Congress86th United States CongressThe Eighty-sixth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1959 to January 3, 1961, during the last two years...
The Select Committee's chair was Senator John L. McClellan. With the retirement of Senator Irving Ives from the Senate in December 1958, the new Vice Chair became Senator Karl E. Mundt. Senator Homer E. Capehart joined the committee to keep the partisan balance.| Majority | Minority |
|---|---|
|
Karl Earl Mundt Karl Earl Mundt was an American educator and a Republican member of the United States Congress, representing South Dakota in the United States House of Representatives from 1938 to 1948 and in the United States Senate from 1948 to 1973.-Biography:Born in Humboldt, South Dakota, Mundt attended... , Vice Chair, South Dakota Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr... , Arizona Carl Curtis Carl Thomas Curtis was an American politician from the U.S. state of Nebraska. He served as a Republican in the House of Representatives and later the Senate .... , Nebraska Homer E. Capehart Homer Earl Capehart , American business innovator and politician, was born in Algiers, Indiana, in Pike County. During the First World War, he served as a Sergeant in the United States Army Supply Corps, but was never sent overseas.-Business career:Capehart attained fame as the father of the... , Indiana |
Chairmen and staff
Senator John L. McClellan (D-Arkansas) was the committee's only chair for its entire history.At the peak of its activity in 1958, 104 persons worked for the committee, including 34 field investigators. Another 58 staff were loaned to the committee from the General Accounting Office. Committee staff included:
- Robert F. Kennedy, Chief Counsel.
- Carmine Bellino, Chief Assistant to the Chief Counsel.
- Angela Novello, Personal Secretary to the Chief Counsel.
- Robert E. Manuel, Assistant Counsel.
- Walter Sheridan, Chief Investigator.
- Paul Tierney, investigator.
- LaVern J. Duffy, investigator.
- Richard G. Sinclair, investigator.
- James F. Mundie, investigator.
- John T. Thiede, investigator.
- Ruth Y. Watt, Chief Clerk.
- Kenneth O'Donnell
Kenneth O'DonnellKenneth Patrick O'Donnell , known as Kenny, was a top aide to U.S. President John F. Kennedy and part of the group of Kennedys' close advisors called the "Irish Mafia"...
, administrative assistant.- Pierre Salinger
Pierre SalingerPierre Emil George Salinger was a White House Press Secretary to U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson...
, investigator.- John Seigenthaler
John SeigenthalerJohn Lawrence Seigenthaler is an American journalist, writer, and political figure. He is known as a prominent defender of First Amendment rights....
, investigator.- Edwin Guthman, investigator.
Further reading
- Hearings before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field. 85th Congress, 1st session, 1957; 85th Congress, 2nd session, 1958; and 86th Congress, 1st Session, 1959.
- Kennedy, Robert F. The Enemy Within: The McClellan Committee's Crusade Against Jimmy Hoffa and Corrupt Labor Unions. New York: Harper and Row, 1960.
- McClellan, John L. Crime Without Punishment. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1962.
- Petro, Sylvester. Power Unlimited: The Corruption of Union Leadership: A Report on the McClellan Committee Hearings. New York: Ronald Press, 1959.