AFL-CIO / LABORERS / TEAMSTERS
Gore Asked to Repudiate Support of Corrupt Unions
On Jan. 6, National Legal &
Policy Center President Peter Flaherty criticized Al Gore for accepting
the endorsement of the "one of country's most corrupt unions" and planning
to appear with a central figure in the
Ron Carey-Teamsters money laundering scandal.
On Jan. 5, Gore accepted the endorsement of the Laborers' Int'l Union of N. Am. He praised LIUNA and said he was honored by the endorsement. The Dep't of Justice has charged that LIUNA is controlled by organized crime. Since 1995, LIUNA has operated under a DOJ agreement. Last month, LIUNA president Arthur A. Coia resigned under pressure, and DOJ took over the Local 210 in Buffalo.
On Jan. 8, Gore appeared at an Iowa ‘post-debate party' with Richard L. Trumka, the AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer. Trumka has taken the Fifth Amendment in the Ron Carey-Teamsters money laundering scandal. Last month, a Carey aide, William W. Hamilton, was convicted of six counts of corruption. Many media sources reported that Trumka may soon be indicted for his central role in the Teamsters scandal.
"LIUNA is arguably the country's most corrupt union. Al Gore should repudiate this endorsement," said NLPC President Peter Flaherty. "Gore should also cancel his appearance with Trumka."
"It is hard to see how Gore makes a break with Clinton scandals by appearing with the likes of Trumka," added Flaherty. "According to court records, Trumka laundered $150,000 to Carey's Teamsters campaign."
RNC Posts Hamilton Trial Testimony
Jan. 8, the same day that Richard L. Trumka and Gerald W. McEntee,
held a post-debate rally for Al Gore, Republican Nat'l Comm. Chair. Jim
Nicholson announced that the entire 3,000-page trial transcript of ex-Teamsters
political director William W. Hamilton is on RNC's website, http://www.rnc.org.
The testimony implicates both Trumka and McEntee, as well as Gore fundraiser
Terry McAuliffe, as participants in the illegal money-laundering scheme.
"With Al Gore claiming there were ‘no legal violations' in the 1996 election cycle, Americans can now judge for themselves whether he's telling the truth -- or whether this is another case of the Vice President's imagination getting away with him," Nicholson said.
The transcript is searchable by witness, word and date. [RNC Media Release 1/8/00]
HOTEL & RESTAURANT EMPLOYEES (HERE)
Ex-Boss Hanley Dies in Auto Accident
The members of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Int'l
Union will save $267,000 a year due to the Jan. 7 death of ex-boss Edward
T. Hanley. Hanley, 67, was forced to resign
in 1998 under corruption allegations, but he swung criminal and civil immunities
deals with the Dep't of Justice and secured a $267,000 annual pension,
more than his annual salary of $250,000.
"[H]e had a very high salary, enjoyed all the privileges of office and was aloof from the rank and file. And while he never was convicted..., he was always suspected because he associated with criminal elements," said Richard Hurd, Cornell Univ. labor professor.
The Vilas County (Wis.) Sheriff's Dep't said Hanley was killed in a collision on County Hwy. B in Land O'Lakes, Wis. at 8:45 p.m. Hanley's pickup truck collided with a pickup truck driven by Roy Stopczynski. Hanley, of Wadsworth, Ill., suffered head and chest trauma and was pronounced dead on the scene. Stopczynski, of Land O'Lakes, was taken to hospital; according to one source, Stopczynski was intoxicated. Hanley, whose "country home" was near Land O'Lakes, was reportedly picking up a pizza. Sheriff John Niebuhr said the accident remained under investigation by his department and the Wis. State Patrol.
Hanley's reign over HERE, 1973-98, was shrouded in scandal. A 1977 DOJ report said HERE was a classic example of organized crime's control over a union and asserted that Hanley's ascension to the presidency of HERE was achieved at the direction of Chicago crime boss Joey Aiuppa. During his 1984 testimony before a Senate subcommittee investigating links between HERE and organized crime, Hanley asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 36 times.
In 1995, a court-appointed monitor began to review its business practices and root out mob influences in order to settle racketeering charges brought by DOJ. That process eventually led to Hanley's removal and the removal of his son, Thomas Hanley, who was HERE's director of organization and boss of Local 1 in Chicago.
The monitor's final report accused Edward Hanley of a wide range of corruption: a "ghost" Local 77 in Rhinelander, Wis. (near Land O'Lakes), where Hanley's and other boss had vacation homes; a abuse of HERE's $2.5 million jet that cost hundred of thousands a year to maintain; a bogus union office in Palm Springs, Cal. near his other vacation home; a $31,000 annual salary for a "ghost" job from Local 1.
"He was very generous to himself with our money," said Jonathan Palewicz, HERE dissident member in San Francisco. "He was a labor dictator, and he wasn't that successful organizing when you consider how the industry expanded exponentially."
"The sorry legacy and the state Ed Hanley has left not only our local but our whole union in is not a legacy I would wish on anyone," said Martin Preib, HERE dissident in Chicago.
Hanley's funeral mass was scheduled to be held Jan. 12 at Holy Name Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. [AP 1/9/00, Chi. Sun-Times 1/9/00, Chi. Trib. & Milwaukee J.-Sent. 1/10/00, BNA 1/11/00, N.Y. Times 1/14/00
POLICE UNIONS (POA)
California Boss Sentenced for $30,000 Theft
Superior Court Judge David Szumowski placed Art Vieira, ex-board member
of the Carlsbad (Cal.) Police Officers Ass'n, on probation Jan. 4
and ordered to pay back $30,000 he admitted stealing from the CPOA over
seven years. The sentence resulted from a plea bargain in which Vieira
agreed to reimburse $30,000 in exchange for a recommendation from the Dist.
Atty's Office that he not be sent to jail or prison. He must pay back the
money by the end of probation.
Szumowski spared Vieira a prison term but refused Vieira's request that his felony grand theft conviction be reduced to a misdemeanor. Had he gone to trial and been convicted, Vieira faced a maximum three-year prison sentence. Under state law the felony conviction will prevent him from working as a peace officer. Reportedly, he will be granted a disability retirement due to two bad knees and a bad back.
Prosecutor Julie Korsmeyer said Vieira, as a union board member, had access to CPOA's money from 1990 to 1997. She felt sure prosecutors could have proved that he stole $30,000. But her office suspects as much as $80,000 may have been stolen.
The thefts were discovered in early 1998, when a new board of directors took over and audited the books. Checks totaling $30,000 were made out to cash and signed by Vieira, then endorsed and cashed by him. After the audit, the association asked prosecutors to investigate the missing money, and Vieira was charged with grand theft in October. He pled guilty last month. [S.D. Union-Trib. 1/5/00]
PROFESSIONAL SPORTS (IBF)
Judge Appoints Monitor for IBF
U.S. Dist. Judge John W. Bissell granted Jan 12 the Dept' of Justice's
request to appoint a monitor to oversee operations of the Int'l Boxing
Fed'n, whose leadership has been indicted on charges of taking bribes to
fix boxer rankings. Bissell named attorney Joseph Hayden, Jr., to act as
IBF monitor, giving him broad powers to help reform the organization. Bissell
also ordered that the indicted co-defendants - Robert Lee, Sr., Robert
Lee, Jr., Don W. Brennan and Francisco Fernandez - be barred from any involvement
in IBF affairs.
This action had been sought in a proposed injunction filed by DOJ on Nov. 22, as part of a civil racketeering suit against the IBF and its top officials. The filing of the lawsuit followed the Nov. 4 unsealing of a RICO Indictment naming the Lees, Brennan and Fernandez. DOJ charged the defendants with running the IBF as a racketeering enterprise, in which they routinely solicited and accepted bribes from fight promoters and managers to fix fighter rankings. [USAO D.N.J., Media Release 1/12/99]
LABORERS (LIUNA)
No New DOJ-LIUNA Agreement Yet
Any day now, it is expected that the Dep't
of Justice and the Laborers' Int'l Union of N. Am. will announce what is
to be come of their 1995 quasi-oversight agreement due to expire Jan. 30.
As reported in the last Union Corruption Update, a new
deal was expected in "early" Jan. Given the fact that its already mid-Jan.,
maybe the negotiations aren't going as smoothly as one or both parties
may like.
New news: BNA reports that sources close to the negotiations indicate that there will be a new agreement, but that it may be more limited in scope than previous agreements and could have a term longer than the 12 months of the previous agreements. One source predicted that the scope of the agreement could be substantially changed in terms of authority and duration and, in general, be less intrusive. [BNA 1/7/00]
QUOTABLE QUOTE
"It would be nice to say that the resignation
of Arthur A. Coia as president of the Laborers' Union puts an end to
[its] long history of dubious practices. But that hardly seems the case.
[He] will retain his $335,516 annual salary for the rest of his life, and
serve as General President Emeritus well into the millennium. [He] is getting
a sweetheart deal that no member of his union could ever hope to emulate...
[T]he hard-working, dues-paying members of the Laborers' Union [is left] with a vision of their (now ex-) president, a wealthy lawyer who served just six years in office, retiring at age 56 with a pension of $335,516 a year. Perhaps they could augment the picture with an image of Mr. Coia driving off into the sunset behind the wheel of that $450,000 Ferrari he purchased from a Rhode Island dealer."
- Editorial, Providence Journal-Bulletin, Jan. 3, 2000.
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ADDITIONAL BRIEFS NOT INCLUDED ON THE FAX EDITION OF THIS UNION CORRUPTION UPDATE:
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TEAMSTERS (IBT)
Philly Emergency Trusteeship Continues
The hearing to determine whether an emergency trusteeship imposed in
Nov. on Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters Local 115 in
Philadelphia should be made permanent recessed Jan. 7 and is expected to
reconvene before the end of the month. The three-member panel
appointed by IBT president James P. Hoffa held three days of internal hearings
on whether to continue the trusteeship or return responsibility for operating
the local to local elected officers. Once it has heard all the testimony,
the panel will make a recommendation to Hoffa who must make the final decision
on whether to continue the trusteeship.
During the three-day session, trustee Michael Keyser and John P. Morris, the local's secretary-treasurer, who was removed along with other officers, gave opening statements, according to an international spokesman who attended the hearing. Keyser then began presenting evidence and testimony for the continuance of the trusteeship. Two 30-minute segments were reserved each day for statements by Local 115 members in favor and against the trusteeship.
Hoffa took control of the 2,700-member local in mid-November based on allegations of abuse of members rights and local officers' failure to protect the union finances. Morris sought a court injunction to regain control of the local. U.S. Dist. Judge John Padova Dec. 28 found no emergency situation warranting imposition of the trusteeship without a hearing as required by the union's constitution and ordered the international to return control to the elected officers. IBT appealed the ruling, and on Dec. 30 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit -- Chief Judge Edward Becker, Circuit Judges Leonard Garth and Dolores K. Solviter -- in a one-sentence ruling stayed the Padova's decision, allowing the emergency trusteeship to continue. [BNA 1/4/00, 1/7/00]
Citizen Action is Back, Sort of
The once powerful, far-left Citizen Action virtually committed suicide
in 1996 when it became a key player in the Teamsters' money-laundering
scandal. According to court records, Citizen
Action took two "donations" of $475,000 and $150,000 and routed $110,000
and $100,000, respectively, back to Carey's reelection campaign.
But now, according to recent report in the far-left publication In These Times, this former federation of statewide leftist groups is attempting to resuscitate its network under the name U.S. Action. At a September 1998 meeting, the new group's operatives pitched about 100 leftist leaders. They claimed the new group would "grow beyond the limits of the old Citizen Action and learn from its mistakes." Today, 39 statewide leftist groups have joined - only 16 of which came from Citizen Action.
U.S. Action held its founding convention near Chicago in November 1999. Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) both spoke. Both were Citizen Action members who were allegedly "nurtured" into candidates by Citizen Action. Attendees at the founding also included two militant unions: Service Employees Int'l Union and Am. Fed'n of State, County & Mun. Employees (AFSCME), as well as other prominent leftist organizations such as the U.S. Student Association, Midwest Academy and Progressive Action Network. U.S. Action's statewide groups claim 700,000 members, more than 100 full-time staff and combined annual budgets of $15 million to $20 million.
The convention provided an opportunity for many to vent and brood over
Citizen Action's debacle. "Citizen Action was not a participatory
democracy at all," complained David Desiderato, associate director of Northeast
Action. "It was controlled. You couldn't ask questions." Some
criticized Citizen Action for abusing its power, especially in terms of
finances. Citizen Action originally raised money from door-to-door
canvassing as well as contributions from unions and trial lawyers.
But canvassing became less lucrative, and it was "put at the mercy" of
its contributors. Reportedly, the Teamsters scandal only exacerbated
preexisting internal tensions and led to massive fallout among contributors.
"It shows what happens when you don't have internal democracy," complained
John Cameron of Citizen Action of Illinois.
Many of the old guard still strongly defend Citizen Action.
But even U.S. Action Executive Director Jeff Blum insisted that the new
group would be more democratic and accountable. Blum was Citizen
Action's transportation lobbyist; he is also currently head of Maryland
Citizen Action, and before that he headed Pennsylvania Citizen Action,
which he founded in 1979. Blum said there would be no more of the
old budget sleight-of-hand. "I won't do it," Blum said. "We're
trying to make this an organization characterized by learning lessons."
William McNary of Citizen Action of Illinois said U.S. Action must avoid Citizen Action's mistake of becoming a conduit for unions and trial lawyers' money and messages. He said of Citizen Action: "Instead of having a partnership with the people who gave us money, we were looked at as employees."
SEIU executive board member and former head of Pennsylvania Citizen Action Anna Burger predicted, "This is an organization that's going to make a difference." [In These Times 12/26/99; Wash. Times 1/13/00]
Hoffa "Anti-Corruption" Plan Endorsed
Teamsters president James P. Hoffa claims the union, which has been
under federal supervision for a decade, can police itself now. Hoffa appeared
Jan. 11 before representatives of IBT and left with their unanimous
approval to establish a code of conduct for union
members. The representatives also supported creation of an ethics board
and a study of the union's efforts to sever ties with organized crime.
"We want to move ahead and do this study and verify the fact we are corruption free, we are free of influence of organized crime and we are ready to talk to the federal government," Hoffa said after the meeting. Hoffa won the Teamsters' presidency on pledges to root out corruption and work to end the federal oversight, which the union agreed to in 1989 to avoid racketeering charges brought by the Dep't of Justice. IBT has spent $ 83 million to support the federal monitoring, Hoffa said. He added that more than 100 officers and members have been kicked out for associating with alleged organized crime figures.
DOJ said government officials have met with Teamsters, but gave no indication the department is willing to drop its oversight. "We hope that the IBT's efforts to develop and implement an effective anti-corruption program are successful," Shirah Neiman, Deputy U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. "We look forward to continuing to work with the union under the consent decree to ensure that progress in ridding the IBT of corruption and organized crime continues."
Hoffa said a task force of some 20 Teamsters will oversee the code of conduct. A first draft is expected by April 15, and the final draft is expected to be approved by Aug. 15, said union spokesman Chip Roth. Hoffa said implementing the entire plan would be completed in a year. Roth said the union has informed several federal agencies about its plan. He said the union will ask federal agencies for input on the code of ethics. Heading the anti-corruption effort is Edwin H. Stier, a former federal prosecutor hired by Hoffa last year. Stier said he doesn't believe organized crime controls the union. [AP 1/11/00]
OPERATING ENGINEERS (IUOE)
Member Arrested for Picketing New York Local
Int'l Union of Operating Engineers' Local 30 member Chris Hackett to
adopted labor's own tactics -- he picketed his local for being blackballed.
His N.Y. City union had him arrested. Hackett, a member for eight years,
described himself as a loyal union member who always attended monthly meetings
and showed up for picket-line duty when asked. But when he wound
up on the losing side of an internal union fight, he said, union officials
ignored his inquiries about work assignments and refused his phone calls.
"All lines of communication were down. I had no place to go," Hackett said.
On Nov. 4, the second day of Hackett's one-man picket line outside Local 30, business manager Jack Ahern called the police, who hauled Hackett away on disorderly conduct charges. At the next union meeting, Ahern denied asking the police to arrest Hackett. But members produced the criminal complaint signed by Ahern stating that Hackett was "cursing, yelling, banging on windows [and] harassing the female workers." Hackett's supporters jammed a Dec. 29 hearing, where a judge dismissed the charge after the arresting officer testified he witnessed no misbehavior on Hackett's part. Ahern failed to appear at the hearing.
This comes after a federal judge last summer found Ahern and Local 30 guilty of violating the free-speech rights of another member, Richard Perez, who had criticized the leadership. [Daily News 1/10/00]
Union Corruption Update is made possible by the generous contributions from readers like you. NLPC, P.O. Box 6273, McLean, VA 22106-6273. Thank you.
In addition to the unions and organizations covered in this Union Corruption Update, readers can look forward to news and information on other corrupt and abusive unions in future editions.
All back issues of the Union Corruption Update can be viewed at NLPC's website (www.nlpc.org). Also available is a union-by-union and state-by-state index of all Union Corruption Update articles.
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Union Corruption Update is part of NLPC's Organized Labor Accountability Project which is investigating and exposing corruption and extremism in the Teamsters, LIUNA, AFL-CIO and many other union organizations. NLPC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit foundation promoting ethics and accountability in government through research, education and legal action.
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