Here's the Trade: Teamsters for Obama, Obama for No More Union Oversight

Implications:  Sen. Barack Obama has won the support of the 1.4 million-member Teamsters union in exchange for the likely Democratic presidential nominee's support to end 19 years of federal oversight of the union. While neither side calls it a quid pro quo, it's obvious that the Teamsters union would benefit financially from less judicial oversight. What that means for long-term organizing efforts in trucking by the union is not exactly known, but the Teamsters are eying certain non-union trucking companies to boost their employee ranks.

Analysis:    Whatever you do, don't call it a deal. It's no deal, no way. It's not even close to a deal.
   Rather, call it a transaction.
   There, that's better.
   The Teamsters union has agreed to support Barack Obama's presidential bid in exchange for the likely Democratic presidential nominee's backing in the effort to get the 1.4 million-member union out from under a costly consent degree it signed with the Justice Department in 1989.
  At that time, the Justice Department said the Teamsters had engaged in a "deal with the devil" in being partially controlled by organized crime.
  Now, three Teamsters presidents later, current union president James P. Hoffa (son of the legendary labor boss who disappeared in 1967 in Detroit, presumably in a Mob hit) says the union can police itself and doesn't need the Justice Department to keep it clean.
  Young Jim may be right. The consent decree has probably run its course. It has cost the financially strapped union more than $200 million since 1989. The annual tab now runs about $8 million a year, which is as low as it has ever been.
  The consent decree was dreamed up by the federal court of the Southern District of New York. As a result a three-member internal review board (whose members include former FBI director William Webster) gets to probe the Teamsters internal books to keep the union clean.
  Because of IRB actions, hundreds of presumably shady characters within the Teamsters hierarchy have been removed. Not to say the union is squeaky clean, but it's cleaner than it's been in 40 years -- and probably operates more cleanly than any other labor union its size in America.
  Sen. Obama can't lift the consent decree by himself -- even if he were president. But he could, and this is really the way to do it, appoint favorable people within the top Justice Department ranks who could start the ball rolling.
  In exchange for this, Sen. Obama gets perhaps the second-best union political operations (after the Service Employees International Union, SEIU) in the country. The Teamsters have money, know how to get out the vote, are motivated and have been economically damaged by eight years of Bush Economics.
  It's probably a good trade for both teams. Just make sure you don't call it a deal. It's not a deal. Like I said, it's a transaction.