located in northwestern Oregon, 90 minutes south of Portland, off Highway 18 on Ballston Road. Charlie Little is secure at Bastrop FCI, located 30 miles southeast of Austin, 8 miles south of Elgin, and 8 miles north of Bastrop, Texas. Yes, boys and girls, Byron and Charlie are under lock and key where they can do us no more harm. Or can they?
Brother Jay S. sent us a copy of a letter from US Rep. Sam Johnson, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations, to Gordon S. Heddell, Inspector General of the US Dep. of Labor, who Johnson describes as being "responsible for certain LMRDA investigations which are carried out by the Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations." The letter requests information about the Dep. of Labor's participation in the investigation of the perceived problem of FELA and the DLC program that was brought to everyone's attention by the misdeeds of Boyd, Little, et al.
Rep. Johnson also refers to the transcript of Boyd's sentencing hearing in which he quotes Judge Sim Lake as stating that the FELA/DLC problem is "longstanding and systemic" and requires from government a "legislative solution." Johnson claims his letter to Heddell is "the first step in the process that may lead to the action recommended by Judge Lake."
Rep. Johnson goes on:
"I understand from press reports that there may be continuing criminal investigations of unions, union officials and DLC program participants. In requesting this report from you, I expect that you will maintain the appropriate confidentiality protections concerning those investigations. However, it is again my understanding that the UTU officials who have entered guilty pleas have done so pursuant to cooperation agreements. Thus, I would hope that in preparing your report, your staff will interview these individuals to elicit information that they may have on the questions outlined above. In particular, Mr. Boyd has indicated his desire to be helpful and may be an instructive resource."
And what has Boyd already said on the record? From his sentencing hearing:
THE COURT: Let me ask you, what can be done to correct this scheme? The DLC program provides an inherent incentive for lawyers to be referred these very lucrative cases. How can this system be corrected to destroy or reduce that incentive?
THE DEFENDENT: My belief, Your Honor, is this, that -- I think maybe to define one thing first and then I'll answer your question, because I think the two go together. The system has gone on for generations. The system goes on as we stand here -- or I stand here today. The system will go on tomorrow.
What needs to be done, in my opinion, is to look at the very genesis of the system. It just isn't at the top level of the organization, but at the bottom level of the organization. I know from dealing with the politics and the inside of the organization that there's a huge amount of control that's generated by these DLCs, and you have to be able to counter that. And the way you have to counter that, I think, is with the ability for government to get in and have the knowledge and understanding and to follow the trails that need to be followed and where they go to get to the core base, the political base of these DLCs within the organization. And I would say this, I don't think this corruption is limited to UTU. I have a firm belief it goes way beyond that, into all rail labor. And the genesis of it is at the very lowest level. And trying to control the internal politics of the organization becomes extremely difficult when you have all these forces coming from below up. They're the ones that control the votes. They're the ones that control a lot of the policies of the organization.
THE COURT: So, you're saying the DLCs control the local Union officials?
THE DEFENDENT: Absolutely, absolutely. They're more pervasive there and more powerful there than they ever were at the international level, because they control the absolute base of the organization. And you can believe their support is either generated because the individual members think they're wonderful lawyers or do a good job or for other reasons. And to some they're very good lawyers and do a very good job. There are many other reasons that they get their support. And I think the government needs to look into that.
And one of the things that I was going to say, and it also answers your question, is I've committed to the government and Mr. Gallagher to do whatever I can, now and in the future, to help clean up that corruption and try to get that control way.
The transcript continues with the Judge and the US Attorney discussing the need for and possibilities of working toward a legislative solution to the FELA/DLC problem. And there you have it. For whatever reasons, Boyd has committed himself to cleaning up the corruption and getting the Cleveland Mafia back in control of the union.
But just what is Boyd willing to sacrifice or do in order to feel better about his shameful fall from grace? Do those who now control him believe the claim that the FELA/DLC problem was born and lives at the bottom of the UTU pyramid, and did this play a role in the government's apparent decision not to seek further indictments of other high-level co-conspirators? With a cruel consistency, Boyd is again defending his brothers at the top, the members of his Team, at the expense of his brothers at the bottom.
Well, not completely. There is the matter of Little's and Boyd's sworn affidavits that seem to implicate current UTU IP Thompson, VP Hakey, and VP Futhey in criminal wrongdoing. Note that these men are involved in current contract negotiations with the carriers who have clearly expressed in their Sec. 6 Notices their desire to "reform" or eliminate FELA. What sorts of pressures to play ball on the FELA issue are they and other un-named negotiators experiencing? Are these the negotiators we really want?
Is there anything we can do to save this round of negotiations? Perhaps not. But, at the very least, we should all read, circulate and discuss the sworn affidavits. And any candidate for Delegate to the next International Convention must be required to explain where they stand on the issue of re-electing International Officers who have been directly implicated in the criminal enterprise by Little or Boyd, or who have not been directly implicated but who were part of the Team.
