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The unlikely revolution at 1588
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The unlikely revolution at 1588
The unlikely revolution at 1588
| Author | Message |
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| newguard |
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 8:02 pm
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Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 88 |
Four years ago, a probe by New Jersey resulted in criminal convictions against eight mob-tied figures who dominated the Bayonne longshoremen's union local, shaking down workers for $50-a-week kickbacks. The case had an air of depressing inevitability about it since among those who later pled guilty was the local's then new president, the first to hold a college degree, and someone the other gangsters referred to as the "altar boy."
The shakedown case came just three years after another grimly predictable racket was exposed. In that one, a prior group of local union leaders admitted that they had routinely paid 50 percent of their salaries to a Genovese crime family figure who installed his girlfriend as the local's office manager and put her in charge of all day-to-day affairs. --- Part of what intrigued him were events in rebellious ILA locals down South, where leaders had challenged the New York–based old-guard leadership over declining wages and benefits for younger members. A year after he started on the docks, Perlstein helped lead protests against a new six-year master contract—the longest ever in ILA history—covering 15,000 workers on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts that called for new lower tiers for health benefits and lower starting wages for new members. The contract passed, but not by the wide margins predicted by ILA leaders. Locals in Charleston, Baltimore, Hampton Roads, and Wilmington voted it down, as did Local 1588 in Bayonne. Since then, Ken Riley, the president of Local 1422 in Charleston and a vp of the intl union, has demanded that the contract be reopened. "These new tiered wages are causing division in the ranks, and the longer the contract goes, the wider that gap is going to grow," he said. Under the contract, new workers start at $16 an hour but cap out at $21, well below the $28-an-hour rate enjoyed by the ever decreasing number of older members. The unlikely revolution at Local 1588 began three years ago when U.S. District Court Judge John Martin was presented with evidence of massive corruption at the union and agreed to appoint a federal administrator to run the 450-member local's affairs. The judge's orders were to do whatever was necessary to rid the local of mob influence and set it on a path to self-rule. continue reading - http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0626,robbins,73660,15.html |
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| SharynS |
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 9:03 pm
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Joined: 28 Jan 2006 Posts: 2939 Location: the 'puter |
Matt already posted a link to this in the LN thread. And that's okay because it does deserve it's own, thanks eh. I printed it off this morning and read it at work. Between this and the charges made by fsco against the ufcw pensions dudes... good news all around.
This is an uplifting struggle for sure. What a difference it makes when people take notice. I love that these workers completely reject the tiered wage contract and see it for the destructive force that it is. They've literally waged a small war against it. _________________ Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. - Salman Rushdie |
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| unionnow |
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 10:43 pm
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Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 695 Location: Gettin the Hell out of retail |
Quote: Among the evidence the federal prosecutors showed to Judge Martin to demonstrate mob influence in the local was a series of transcripts of wiretapped conversations of the corrupt union officials and their mob handlers. In one January 2002 conversation, then local president John Timpanaro and Nick Furina, the Genovese family's enforcer, were heard nervously discussing Hanley's influence in the local. "Hanley," Furina was heard to say. "Don't worry about fucking Hanley. Tell him we'll do what the fuck we want." What a flipping classic. I laughed so hard I started crying. That is funny. _________________ “The burden against Damascus. ‘Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap. (Isaiah 17:1-2) |
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