LABOR: Fifth-Amendment Fight

Since the days when Jim Carey was an ardent young liberal at the forefront of the C.I.O. movement, the International Union of Electrical Workers' president —like many another labor leader—has been wary of congressional interference in union affairs. Last week 45-year-old Jim Carey changed his mind. In announcing that the I.U.E. had adopted an ethical-practices code far tougher than anything yet accepted by its fellows, President Carey 1) publicly called on all unions to recognize Congress' right to investigate labor racketeering and corruption, and 2) bluntly declared that any I.U.E. officer who pleaded the Fifth Amendment would be put on trial by the union—with expulsion as the penalty if he was found guilty of clamming up to conceal his own wrongs. Snapped Old Firebrand Carey: "Labor leaders who adopt the Fifth Amendment when questioned by a congressional committee are unfit to continue as labor leaders."

Prime target of Carey's attack was the leadership of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s biggest and most rambunctious affiliate— Dave Beck's scandal-tainted, 1,400,000 member Teamsters. Two weeks ago, when the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations began a study of labor racketeering, it called in Teamster officers to testify on their use of union funds. The union brass, charging the subcommittee with a lack of jurisdiction, flatly refused to answer questions about their stewardship—e.g.: Had they used union funds to pay Dave Beck's personal bills? —and some of them took refuge behind the Fifth Amendment. Adding to Subcommittee Chairman John L. McClellan's ire, and to the growing concern of many members of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s executive council, was a telegram, sent from the Teamsters' Washington headquarters, which assured all Teamster officials that a Fifth Amendment plea would NOT BE THE BASIS FOR DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS BY OR WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL.

A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany, United Auto Workers' Walter P. Reuther, and other leaders of big labor have publicly or privately expressed their disgust with the Teamsters' defiance of the Senate. This week, as united labor's executive council meets in Miami Beach for its midwinter powwow, the Fifth-Amendment issue is slated to be, as George Meany puts it, "the first order of business."