Labor Department Refuses To Overturn Union Election

The federal government will not order a rerun of the Machinists union election of Bill Johnson to a second four-year term as president, though some irregularities were found.

A U.S. Labor Department official in Seattle said Tuesday that the irregularities were not significant enough to have changed the outcome.

Johnson defeated David Clay by a narrow margin in January to retain his hold on the presidency of District Lodge 751 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The local represents about 35,000 Boeing workers in the Puget Sound area.

Johnson received 2,833 votes to defeat Clay, an Everett jig builder and former Johnson supporter who had 2,659 votes.

Clay alleged Tuesday that national politics was behind the results.

He had appealed to the union and the Labor Department. An internal investigation by the union found no evidence of any legal violations.

However, the Labor Department said in July that Johnson probably used union money in the election campaign. In preliminary findings, investigators said union billing accounts were improperly used to promote Johnson’s slate by renting vans to transport supporters to the polls on election day.

In addition, the union failed to prevent campaigning within 500 feet of one polling site, and mailed out 260 absentee ballots that contained incorrect information, the agency’s July letter said.

Johnson admitted the van rental incident but said the rental company was supposed to send the bill to his campaign, not to the union. Eventually, his campaign paid the bill.

John Heaney, district director of the Labor Department’s Office of Labor Management Standards, refused on Tuesday to discuss the details of the investigation or to reveal the specific irregularities that had been confirmed.

He said his office had submitted its findings to the chief of the department’s enforcement division in Washington, D.C., where the final decision was made.

A spokeswoman for Johnson said he had no immediate comment.

Clay said he had asked members of Washington’s congressional delegation to refer the matter to a House subcommittee that has been investigating irregularities in last winter’s Teamster Union international election.

“It was naive of me to think that any other decision could come from the Department of Labor when its boss (President Clinton) has received substantial contributions from the union’s political action committee,” Clay said.

“This is an example of the legal system being contorted by the political system,” he said.

Johnson, a former drill operator, had faced strong criticism over his handling of the 10-week Machinists strike at Boeing in late 1995.

Johnson had recommended that striking workers accept Boeing’s second contract offer.

Union members rejected it resoundingly, raising questions of whether Johnson was in touch with his membership.