Now that we have had years of experience with law enforcement authorities who come forward to scourge racketeering, we can begin to assess the effect of government intervention to oust crooks from unions. The various results range so widely, from excellent to mediocre to outrageously destructive of workers rights, that it is misleading to think of some kind of generic "government." What agency of government? who? where? what? The great success story is the federal government's RICO suit against the Teamster old guard which led to a fair election and stimulated the Teamster revolution. In a separate action, a court-appointed monitor took control over Teamsters Local 851 at the Kennedy Airport after the local's secretary-treasurer went to jail for racketeering. According to one charge, a big freight forwarding company had paid union officials $500,000 to permit the dismissal of 24 clerks. In December, the federal monitor took decisive action; he filed suit against the company, Thyssen Haniel Logistics, demanding $6 million in damages. This, by the way, was not the first action of its kind against employers. A court-appointed trustee, a few years ago, took action against a company under contract with Teamsters Local 560 in New Jersey. Here is "government" at its best. But on the other side -way on the other side is the story of the Carpenters union, two "governments", and the Javits Convention Center in New York. The New York Carpenters District Council, like the Teamsters, is under the supervision of a federal monitor. The headline over Henry Zeiger's story in Union Democracy Review sums up that story: "Violence mars Carpenters' election while government monitors watch." During the election, insurgents were beaten, one threatened with death, and the federal agents have done nothing. They seem satisfied that they have exhausted their responsibility by assuring that votes were counted accurately. Meanwhile, New York State government authorities intervened at the Javits Convention Center and apparently ousted racketeers who controlled hiring. A hundred members of the Carpenters union have been employed at the center. Once the state authorities took over, here was a wonderful opportunity to establish a fair hiring system that would free workers from domination by racketeers, give them the right to work with dignity, and demonstrate that government could be a reliable force for democracy and decency in unions. Instead, the government seems to have simply replaced the racketeers as an abusive, arbitrary power. It is not quite clear who is now the formal, legal employer of workers at the center, because an intermediary "Operating Corporation" signs the collective bargaining contract with the Carpenters; but, whatever the fig leaf, the state government bears responsibility for the kind of contract we could expect between the sleaziest construction employer and the sleaziest union officials. In fact, Fred Devine, Carpenters District Council president, is one of the old guard which bears responsibility for the union's sorry state. If before, the workers were at the mercy of racketeers, with no rights; now they are at the mercy of their employer, with no rights. Under this contract, the employer (whoever it is) concedes two things only: 1. A journeyman's level of wages and benefits, and 2. the right of the union to collect dues. All other rights, without qualification, go to the employer. Workers become transients, subject to shapeup, no hiring hall or rules, no seniority rights in hiring or layoffs, subject to discharge for violating any rules established or changed unilaterally by the employer. Even the journeyman's rates are in jeopardy because, we are informed, "apprentices" are being hired without restriction at less than half the rate. What could have become a showcase for decency and democracy in employment, and a foothold for reform in the Carpenters union, has turned into another example of accommodation between miserly employers and suspect union officials.