Right to Work Blog

A former Albany, New York union boss was sentenced to six months in prison for his role in a firebombing of a concrete plant five years ago.

The May 2003 arson was part of an organized effort by two union officials to sabotage companies that were using non-unionized workers at construction sites.

The sentencing of Michael Kwarta, 32, who had served as a labor organizer and sergeant-at-arms for Local 190 of Glenmont, marked the culmination of a meandering federal investigation into the underworld of Albany’s politically connected laborers’ unions.

The arson triggered a federal grand jury investigation of the union’s ties to elected officials, public contracts and organized crime figures, and also whether top union leaders had authorized the firebombing.

. . .

Kwarta was the third person convicted in connection with the arson. Remarkably, despite widespread knowledge in the union’s ranks that he was involved in the firebombing, Kwarta remained on the union’s payroll until May, just days before he pleaded guilty. He admitted his role as the statute of limitations on charges in the arson was set to expire.

Just think, if some union bosses are willing to firebomb a company for using non-union labor, what do you think they will do to get workers to sign a so-called “union Authorization card”?

Some things just never seem to change. Forced unionism continues to breed corruption.

An August 12 article by Steven Greenhouse and William K. Rashbaum in the New York Times is a case in point:

Citing continued corruption, a federal judge has ordered a one-year extension of government oversight of the New York City carpenters’ union, which has spent 14 years under supervision.

Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. of Federal District Court in Manhattan pointed to widespread off-the-books work and the bribery convictions of several shop stewards in ordering the extension in a decision issued on Friday. Under the government’s supervision, Judge Haight and an independent investigator oversee the union.

The union, the New York City District Council of Carpenters, which represents 25,000 carpenters, had asked Judge Haight to end the supervision, saying that the union was no longer under the influence of the Genovese crime family. The union signed a consent decree in 1994 agreeing to court-appointed supervision after federal prosecutors filed a civil racketeering lawsuit alleging that organized crime figures held sway over the union and assigned mob-linked workers to high-paying and no-show jobs at many sites, including the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

The carpenters’ request to end supervision was undercut last week when a dissident candidate in a union election was harassed and assaulted at a candidates’ forum that was held in the auditorium of a Catholic school in Manhattan.

According to witnesses and accounts provided to the union’s independent investigator, the candidate [William Davenport] was beaten unconscious outside after the meeting on Aug. 5 by a group of men who had been yelling during the forum.

On Monday, in response to the assault, Judge Haight issued a memorandum urging union leaders to ensure that there would be no more beatings at candidates’ forums. He also directed the union and the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan to inform him of the results of a Labor Department investigation into the attack.

Judge Haight rejected the union’s assertion that the standard for ending court-ordered supervision should be whether mob control of the union had ended. The judge, accepting the arguments of the United States attorney’s office, instead concluded that the standard should be whether all forms of corruption and labor racketeering had been eradicated.

Judge Haight cited federal criminal cases brought against the construction contractors On Par, Boom Construction and Tri-Built, which prosecutors said had saved on wages and benefit payments by employing carpenters off the books, with shop stewards often being bribed to turn a blind eye to the practice. The contractors paid far less into the health and pension funds than they were supposed to, prosecutors said.

Judge Haight wrote that the shop stewards and other union officials “played vital roles in facilitating, enabling or abetting the employers’ fraud” by failing to supervise job sites or keep track of hours worked.

The judge also noted that rank-and-file carpenters had reported serious corruption earlier this decade. Investigators later found that out-of-work political supporters of union leaders were frequently allowed to jump the job-referral line and were assigned jobs before many carpenters who had been out of work longer.

In asking that supervision be continued, the United States attorney’s office cited a “culture of corruption that continues to impede efforts to fight that corruption.”

Read on.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) usually knows bad legislation when they see it, and the police and firefighter monopoly unionization bill is no exception:

Unions keep losing membership as a share of the national workforce, which explains why organized labor’s main political focus is changing the rules to force more workers into unions. Witness a bill that Senate Democrats are pushing this week to require that hundreds of thousands of local police and firemen submit to collective bargaining.

Under current law, every state has the ability to set policies that govern its public workforce. In some states, police, firefighters and paramedics belong to unions that collectively bargain for their contracts. In others, unions representing public-security workers can bargain over pay, but not over benefits or work rules. And in some others, these workers can choose not to belong to a union.

Democrats want to change this for the entire country. A bill that passed the House last year would make the top officials at local unions the exclusive bargaining agents for public safety officers in every town or city with more than 5,000 people. They would also have the authority to bargain for everything — pay, benefits and work rules. The goal is to give labor the whip hand with local governments, and further coerce nonunion members to join the dues-paying ranks.

Sixteen states have considered legislation like this since 1996 and voted it down. The bill, pushed hardest by the International Association of Fire Fighters, would impose it nationwide, superceding all of these state laws. This arguably violates the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which leaves to the states any powers not specifically given to the federal government — which presumably includes a state’s labor relations. It would also conflict with constitutions in states like Michigan, raising the threat of protracted legal disputes.

As “unfunded” federal mandates go, this is also a doozy. Unions that organize private companies are at least subject to market competition. If they make their employers uncompetitive, the union workers lose their jobs. Public unions have far more clout because there is no competition for government services; they are by law a monopoly. This is especially true of police and firefighters, who can do great harm to public safety if they strike. Unionization gives them enormous clout that drives up costs and eventually the tax burden.

Even Democrats admit this, which is why the bill includes a strike ban. But such prohibitions have never worked. Union officials call strikes anyway, then negotiate amnesty as a condition of ending the work-stoppage. This is what happened in 2005 when New York transit workers broke the law by going on strike and shutting down the city. They paid no price and still got their raise.

The bill’s mandates would also complicate the task of post-9/11 public security. Federal emergency plans rely on the cooperation of local “first-responders,” who need the flexibility to adapt to local problems and circumstances. Work rules negotiated according to national union standards make no sense when the safety needs of New York City are so much different than those in Fargo.

Local officials nationwide are fighting the bill, and the Bush Administration has promised a veto. But the House passed it 314-97, and it may be veto proof. That leaves the Senate, where the bill has 11 Republican co-sponsors, most of whom are up for re-election this fall. Oregon’s Gordon Smith and Minnesota’s Norm Coleman seem to believe that the unions will go easier on them in November if they throw them this concession. Right. If Republicans can’t even oppose monopoly unionization, who needs Republicans?

New York State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R) likes to fancy himself a representative of the taxpayers, but the New York Post knows a phony when they see one:

New York’s largest public-sector union, the Civil Service Employees Association [CSEA], is picking the lock on the state treasury.

And cynical Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno is happy to help.

CSEA, among others, is trying to shield public-sector retirees from even the slightest touch of budget pain - no matter how much everyone else in New York has to suffer.

The Post notes that the union is pushing a bill that would lock in public-sector retirees’ health benefits for at least a year, with every expectation of annual repeats . . . forever.

No wonder the New York State Association of Counties “strongly opposes” the bill, saying it “eliminates potential cost savings options of local governments desperately seeking” to make ends meet.

No wonder the Business Council of New York State, representing taxpayers, is likewise sounding alarms. The bill, the council says, tells officials that their “only choice going forward is to raise taxes,” rather than “find reasonable ways to reduce the costs.”

Bruno does not escape responsibility for this mess:

He and his Senate GOPers pretend to be the taxpayers’ champions, but - facing a tough November election - they’re just as ready to do the union’s bidding as are their Democratic peers: The Senate is set to pass the bill soon.

Bruno should tread carefully. Why, after all, would Republican voters back him and his GOP cohorts - when they’re no better than Democrats?

If the Senate does pass the bill, Gov. Paterson needs to follow the example of his two predecessors, Democrat Eliot Spitzer and Republican George Pataki, and veto it.

Instantly and without apology.

A five-year investigation into the racketeering and extortion practices of Operating Engineers Local 17 has resulted in the indictment of 12 Big Labor Bosses.

As reported in the Buffalo News:

Some of the language in a 62-page government indictment reads like a script for the former “Sopranos” television show. . . .

Leaders of a powerful construction union local are accused of a decade-long run of extortion and labor racketeering that federal authorities say added millions of dollars to the cost of projects throughout Western New York.

The allegations include death threats, stabbings, assaults and extreme acts of vandalism against construction company executives and their families. . . .

“They victimized people at small construction sites and large sites, including many that were publicly funded,” U.S. Attorney Terrance P. Flynn said. “We believe they had a negative financial impact on almost every major construction project in Western New York over the past 10 years.”

The crimes ranged from throwing scalding coffee at non-union workers to destroying expensive machinery by pouring sand into the transmissions and gas tanks, according to Flynn. . . .

Authorities described union organizers Carl A. Larson, 43, and James L. Minter III, 36, and the local’s president and business manager, Mark N. Kirsch, 48, as the leaders of the “Local 17 Criminal Enterprise.”

Their alleged attacks were intended to force construction companies into hiring Local 17 workers and punishing those who refused.

While referring to the corruption inherent within labor organizations that depend on the forced tribute of workers, the late U.S. Sen. John McClellan (D-Ark.) hit the nail on the head when he pointed out, “Compulsory unionism and corruption go hand in hand.”

And appears to have been running the show at New York City’s Amalgamated Transit Workers Union Local 1181.

According to an article by Daily News staff writer Greg B. Smith:

. . . [T]hat union’s corrupt president, Salvatore Battaglia, last week pleaded guilty to taking payoffs and said several bus company owners have made regular payments to his union for decades.

The union has been controlled by the Genovese crime family since the 1970s, helping private bus companies milk the taxpayers and pumping millions into mob pockets.

This is yet one more example of how the coercive powers union officials wield courtesy of federal labor law not only rob individual employees of fundamental freedoms, but exert a damaging and corrupting influence on work places, the economy, and other aspects of everyday American life.

The Constitution protects your right to associate and, by logic then, your right to disassociate. But Broome County, New York has decided to punish and discriminate against those exercising this basic right.

The Birmingham, New York Press & Sun Bulletin reports that:

Broome County’s non-union contractors are up in arms over the county’s decision to set aside 90 percent of the work on the $16.9 million George Harvey Justice Building renovation to union members as part of a new labor agreement.

They say it will shut out local workers in favor of out-of-county and even out-of-state workers.

County leaders who are obviously in the back pockets of Big Labor bosses claim the policy will “save money.”

What nonsense.

But non-union contractors say the agreement — a first for Broome County — will jack up costs by attracting fewer bidders and awarding jobs to union members from outside Broome County.

There is a more fundamental issue at stake than dollars and cents.

Using taxpayer dollars to discriminate against Broome County residents who exercise their constitutional rights is an outrage that must be overturned.

The former boss of a New York area Teamsters local was arrested on Tuesday, the New York Times reports, “on charges that he forced his union members to do work for him personally, including building a new roof on his country home, squiring his daughter to her yoga class, and setting up a Christmas tree at his Manhattan apartment.”

Anthony Rumore is accused of extorting “. . . ‘personal services’ from members of his union for nearly 15 years, officials of the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan said.”

According to a federal indictment handed up on Tuesday, the members complied with Mr. Rumore’s demands because they feared being fired from their jobs.

For 16 years, Mr. Rumore, 63, was president of Teamsters Local 812, a beverage drivers’ union with 4,000 members in the New York area. He was forced to step down in late 2004, after similar accusations were made against him by a federal oversight board. He was also the president of Teamsters Joint Council 16, an umbrella group for more than 100,000 area Teamsters.

Workers who are compelled to pay dues and fees to the Teamsters local as a condition of employment have little or no recourse against this type of behavior. Right to Work laws hold union officials accountable for actions like this by allowing workers to withdraw their financial support.