Editorial: New Era or New Error?

The ballots have been counted, and the message is unmistakable: Once again there’s a Hoffa running the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. What’s much less clear is what the results of this election will mean to the union and to organized labor.

Ron Carey and his supporters were key forces in breaking organized crime’s long hold on the nation’s second-largest union. Mr. Carey’s unexpected victory in 1991 in the first democratic election in the union’s more than 90-year history, marked — or at least seemed to mark — a new beginning for the long-troubled Teamsters.

Mr. Carey’s re-election campaign in 1996 was billed by many as a test of good vs. evil, with Mr. Carey battling James P. Hoffa and the forces of darkness. This battle was more clear-cut than the 1991 contest, since Mr. Carey defeated two aging representatives of the so-called Old Guard, a name applied by the reformers to those who came from the faction formerly controlled by James R. Hoffa, the man who made the Teamsters into a potent national force and later went to jail on a corruption-related charge.

The younger Mr. Hoffa made quite a contest out of the ’96 election, raising lots of money and forcing Mr. Carey onto the defensive.

At some point, a criminal conspiracy was formed by Carey aides to divert union funds to Mr. Carey’s campaign treasury, to pay for mailings to Teamsters members and to enrich those aides. The legal battle continues over Mr. Carey’s involvement in the scheme, although he was at the very least negligent in his oversight responsibilities as president.

Mr. Carey’s victory over Mr. Hoffa was overturned by the federal government, which still oversees the Teamsters under an agreement the union signed in 1989 to settle a federal racketeering case. And Mr. Carey was later barred from the rerun election and ejected from the union.

Now that Mr. Hoffa has turned aside the challenger, whom the Carey forces supported in the rerun, we’re going to find out whether the new Mr. Hoffa is the best thing to happen to the Teamsters since organized crime was given the boot, or whether he represents the latest in a series of fatal mistakes by a union so crucial to trucking and the nation’s economy.

Congratulations Mr. Hoffa. We’re all waiting to see who you really are.