>i'm not sure if anyone else ran across this, but i decided to see what
>pops up in google when looking for corruption in the building trades
>and found a great fitch speech about why union corruption matter and
>how he responds to criticism. in essence he knocks down each of the
>arguments nathan's been giving us...check it out.
>
>http://www.laborers.org/Fitch_Corruption_10-21-99.html
An excerpt, for those who didn't click on the link:
[...]
The Metaquestion of corruption
But tonight, I want to raise what Professor Stanley Aronowitz, my distinguished predecessor in this series last year, has defined as a "metaquestion." A metaquestion is the question about the question. Why should corruption be a question at all?
Labor movement officials are unanimous in thinking it shouldn't be. As Rosa Luxembourg once observed, "Unlimited praise and boundless optimism are made the duty of every 'friend of the trade-union movement." These friends of labor raise three main objections to writing about corruption in general.
No.1. This is the most common. Corruption, they say, is simply not that widespread. Union leaders are no more corrupt than business leaders. So why pick on them?
Objection No.2. If corruption charges are widespread, it's not because there's corruption. It's because the government uses corruption charges to discredit militant labor leaders.
No.2. chimes with the most powerful and devastating charge which is. No.3: people who raise the corruption issue, say defenders of the trade union status quo, are collaborating with management. "Exposing corruption helps the boss." No. 1 denies the importance of corruption; No.2. attacks the motives for the charges. No.3 argues that the consequences of ventilating corruption charges are negative.
(a) Let's start with No. 1 -- the claim that corruption is unfairly overemphasized. At the '95 Columbia Teach-In With Labor sponsored by SAWSJ, Richard Rorty, America's most famous philosopher, minimized the corruption problem of American unions.: "their record is no better or worse than that of American churches; American law firms, American business firms, and even American academic departments." The mainly academic audience laughed and cheered.
But does the mob tells department heads whether to hire analytic or postmodern philosophers? Do the Five Families have a religion panel -- one that divides the congregations between the Baptists and the Methodists the same way they have a construction panel that regulates construction unions here in Manhattan? Crime families have regularly chosen the leaders of the Teamsters, the Laborers, Longshoremen, Hotel and Restaurant Workers union. And my research suggests, they have played a role in choosing leaders in the blue collar division of AFSCME DC 37 which paid for the Columbia Teach In.
What Rorty says about the corruption of churches and universities is provocative but ultimately halfbaked. His insistence that business and unions are "just as corrupt" is more plausible, but it's systematically misleading. Misleading in three main ways.
First, there's small business. Throughout the American economy --particularly in construction, trucking, garment, carting, restaurant industries -- bosses bribe trade union leaders to protect themselves against the outbreak of strikes. For the right to ignore the contract, not to have to hire unions workers; pay into pension and benefit funds; so they can blow off safety regulations. Labor leaders in turn, pay mobsters for protection, for the right to shakedown bosses, splitting the proceeds they receive from the contractors. Adults know this. But how does the fact that bosses' participate in these schemes make the corrupt labor leaders any less culpable? Should members feel better about being sold out, because their bosses are in on the deal too?
Then there's big business. Here the relationship with racketeers is very different. Is there any evidence that Goldman Sachs or G.E.. pay protection money to the Gotti's for the right to sell bonds or light bulbs? None I've come across. The corporate and banking elite are at the top of the capitalist food chain. That's why we call them the ruling class
They do really bad things. I've seen figures that show that in a given decade, one fifth of the Fortune 500 will be convicted of a serious crime. But how meaningful it is to call giant corporations "corrupt"? For something to have become corrupt, it once had to have been good. There has to have been some deviation from a previously upheld standard of morality or justice. The tobacco industry appears to have conspired to keep information about the addictive properties of their product secret -- so they could earn billions, while treating millions of their customers to a slow, agonizing death. Most would agree that this is wrong, the courts are starting to rule that it's illegal, but do these horrific acts make tobacco companies corrupt? When was the golden age of tobacco companies?
People are angry when they hear that Ford knew that rear-end collisions would cause the Mustang to explode or that Johns-Mansville knew how lethal asbestos was even as they pushed its use in schools and hospitals. But how many people felt betrayed? The corporations were simply delivering on their mandate to put the stockholders first. Unlike the unions, the corporations didn't sell out the people whose interests they supposed to promote.
Unions are supposed to be run for the members. But corrupt leaders sell them out. Instead of the protecting the worker from the boss, the corrupt trade union leader protects the boss from the workers. The nature of the betrayal is truly unique. When has an American union leader ever been indicted for giving a bribe to a boss to sell out his stockholders?
The upshot is that corporate executives can hurt us only once. But because unions have stood for something besides the worship of the golden calf, union leaders can hurt us twice. First with the blow to our wallets and second with the blow to our hearts.
So, I would argue, you can't get rid of the union corruption problem with the mechanism of moral equivalence. But what about the claim, that there's simply not that much corruption to worry about. Recently, a trade union leader with who knows the New York City movement very well, complained to me along these lines. He's one of the most honest guy I know. He puts every check he writes on the bulletin board of the union hall, so all the members can challenge him. "You exaggerate corruption," he said.waving a dinner fork at me. "I think eighty percent of all trade union leaders in this city are honest,"
"Joe," I said, ( let's call him Joe), do you realize what you're saying? We've got nearly 2 million Americans in jail or prison. Let's say that for every one they've got behind bars, there are 10 crooks they haven't caught. That would still mean that less than 10% of the American people are criminals. Twenty percent is huge. It would mean trade union leaders are more than twice as corrupt as the American people. It would explain why polls show that even pro-union workers think their leaders are corrupt.
Besides, "were 80% of the leaders in DC 37 honest?" On the executive board 8 out of 20 have already been indicted. In the two largest locals, containing 40% of DC 37's membership, most of the members of the executive board were indicted. Corruption is not a new development. The Vaira report estimated in 1978 that in New York city 100 out of 600 locals were not just corrupt but controlled by crime families. In other words, nearly 17% of city unions aren't just corrupt, they're racketeering enterprises.
Are 80% of the construction unions honest? Why then are there trusteeships over the Carpenters, Laborers district councils and the teamsters local 282 that handles construction sites.
To get a sense of what corruption means in the trades, I would offer a brief longitudinal study of the NYC District Council of Carpenters. I'll go back only as far as 1982. That's when the wallet belonging to Ted Maritas, President of the District Council, turned up beside the East River. They never found Ted. The consensus explanation was that he had a family problem. His mob family was concerned that after he got indicted in 1981, he'd cooperate with the feds.
Maritas was succeeded by Paschal Maguiness. Paschal Maguiness was first indicted in 1991. He beat the charges. But he was finally forced to step down in 1995 for his mob ties. As part of the settlement, Maguiness was banned from the district council for life. Evidently though, this experience looked good on Maguiness' resume as for as the International Brotherhood of Carpenters was concerned. Because following his resignation in New York he got appointed almost immediately as an international vice president in DC.
Fred Devine came in 1995 to clean up the mess left by Maguiness. Devine fired a foreman at the Javits for being an associate of the Genovese crime family. (Fred worked for the Colombo's.) When he ran for office in 1995, Devine got nearly a million dollars from something called the Labor-Management Cooperation Fund. He used some of the money for a billboard campaign promoting his candidacy. Finally he was indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney and convicted in March 1997.
Devine was brought down by a conflict between his two mistresses. First, there was his Rochester girl friend, Lucy Virginia who was on two union payrolls. Devine traveled regularly to see her from New York on a private jet paid for by the union. Then there was his other girl friend Jonni Clause-Stanton. A golf pro from New Jersey who Devine hired as his consultant.
The problem was that Devine told his Rochester girl friend, Lucy, that he'd hired Clause-Stanton as his bodyguard. When her picture appeared in the union paper. Lucy said Jonni didn't look like a body guard. The next thing you know, Fred was permanently grounded.
That brings us to the present regime, headed by a trustee. But under the new trusteeship, business agents who tried to report nonunion work got fired. Just a couple of months ago, the District Attorney seized the District Council's files. Just a few weeks ago, Tom Robbins reported that one of the prime sources in the DA's investigation, a dissident carpenter, had been killed in an accident on the job.
By this time Joe had put his fork down. He conceded. In exchange for his concession, I agreed to pick up the check. But I take Joe's point -- there are tens of thousands of honest, militant, hard-working officials and staffers in the American labor movement. Particularly at the local level. My point is that they're swimming against a corrupt tide. And that you can't turn the tide if you refuse to acknowledge which direction it's running.
(b) The second objection I hear is that indictments of union leaders are really just punishments for their militant actions. Charlie Hughes a militant? In 1994, Charlie was the first trade union leader in New York City to endorse the Mayor. Charlie hugged the Mayor so often, we used to call him the 'serial Giuliani hugger.' Who was the second?. Turkey Joe DeCanio, chief of DC 37's ballot stuffing division. In exchange, for DeCanio's cash, Rudy Mastro took 200 workers from one DC 37 local and put them in Turkey Joe's local
"Laborers President Arthur Coia has been an acknowledged leader in fighting for change, for a stronger labor movement, and for cleaning up corruption wherever he could find it." That's why he was being attacked. So testified John Sweeney before a House Committee. Actually, there's more to it than that. In 1994, Coia Jr., was the target of a 212 page Justice Department complaint alleging he and his father were long time associates of the Patriarca crime family. In the early 80's-- Father and son were indicted with the Patriarca's for ripping off a LIUNA dental plan. They escaped conviction on a technicality. Coia Jr. even admitted he became Secretary Treasurer of LIUNA only with the approval of the Chicago Outfit.
Yes, that's all in the past. But if you want an example of how far Coia's clean-up has gotten in LIUNA, download the audio tape of Vice President Steven Manos being beaten last year at a meeting of Local 230 for protesting a union expenditure. It's at http:www.laborers.org. You can hear Charlie LeConche, the head of Connecticut LIUNA district council saying to Manos at an executive board meeting, "I'm about ready to tear your fucking throat out." You can hear Manos' cries. And LeConche saying, "We own you." as Steve is thrown down the stairs. Afterwards,the guy that beat him, the sergeant at arms, Frank Freeman, was promoted to Vice President of the local. International LIUNA VP President Vere Haynes was in the room, watching the beating. He never said a word. Later, LIUNA's GEB attorney issued a reprimand for this Hobbs act violation. Some clean-up.
But what about Ron Carey? Wasn't he punished for his militant role in the UPS strike? Alexander Cockburn wrote in the Nation that the charges against Carey were being driven by a Larouchean conspiracy in the service of big business. "Harass Carey...Harass the AFL-CIO leaders to whose project Carey is vital," he wrote," Now probe anyone trying to build a combative even radical labor movement. Get them on the run. Get them in front of a grand jury. Get everyone frightened and persuaded that trying to build a radical, combative labor movement is against the law."
A strong statement of the case. But not an altogether unfamiliar one. More than a dozen years ago, similar words were spoken by an even more prominent Leftist. "Bust unions, discredit union leaders; now take over unions. Teamsters, you are the starting point."
These were the words of Jesse Jackson at a 1986 Cincinnati Convention Center rally in support of Jackie Presser, who'd just been indicted. The truth was that Presser was both a mob puppet and a FBI snitch. But this didn't prevent him from getting the traditional leftist defense: a combination of flat denials; and broad claims about plots to destroy the labor movement.
Let's look at the Carey case: As the federal election officer who ordered the '96 Teamsters election rerun, Barbara Zack Quindel would have to have been in on the plot. But according to Quindel, she made the decision before the strike. But she didn't reveal her decision so as not to affect the strike's outcome. There's evidence to back her claim. But in any case, why would Barbara Zack Quindel, want to expose a money laundering scandal that implicated her husband and forced her own resignation? Quindel was making nearly a $1,000,000 a year when she stepped down.