from the ILWU List
With a gun to his backBrother Charlie,
I think I see your point.... and I think we’re kinda on the same page here...
I think what you’re talking about is, paraphrasing Lenin, “supporting” Bowers like a noose “supports” a hanged man... In plain English, opposing the government takeover of the International Longshoremen’s Association while simultaneously exposing Bowers and the ILA leadership for their high crimes and misdemeanors against the working class...
I’ve seen up close what can happen when the government comes into a union to clean out the gangsters... The feds basically took over my union, the New York District Council of Carpenters, back in 1994...
Basically, the developers had tired of contractors bribing the union to pay substandard wages, while simultaneously billing as if they paid union scale.. and they wanted wages reduced OPENLY and LEGALLY for ALL contractors, rather than SOME contractors (the mob connected ones) SECRETLY and ILLEGALLY paying lower wages...
We were told the government was going to make our union democratic.... and more importantly, we were told we’d get a more equal distribution of work...
We have a system where “company men”, a minority of the membership hand picked by the contractors, work every day, get frequent OT and have a very high standard of living, while the majority of the membership, the “local men” work sporadically, are frequently jobless and many of us live in poverty....
To make a long story short, the government made things WORSE... they gutted our hiring hall system, so company men get even more of the work than they used to, and local men have been even more deeply impoverished...
Of course, the absence of any real organized movement among local men pretty much guaranteed that nobody would fight for our interests... since the union primarily looks out for the company men.... and the contractors, the developers and the government all have anti working class agendas which, while conflicting are all opposed to the interests of the workers, in particular the local men..
I’m not as familiar with the specifics of the Longshoremen’s case... but it wouldn’t surprise me if a similar dynamic was at work... that is, the government stepping in on behalf of the big capitalists in that industry, to discipline both the union leaders and the smaller bosses...
Now, Bowers made it easy for the feds... his union is widely reputed to have longstanding ties to the Genovese and Gambino < cosa nostra families, dating back to at least the 1920’s...
Also, Bowers own plutocratic lifestyle makes him a deeply unsympathetic figure... this goon makes the longshoremen (some of whom make less than $ 20, 000 a year) pay him over FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND BUCKS A YEAR!!!
Based on the list of names on the indictment, Bowers also appears to have MADE HIS SON AN INTERNATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT OF THE ILA... there also appear to be at least one other father-son team on the ILA Executive Board, which nicely reflects the grotesquely unfair nepotocracy on the docks....
Beyond the Cadillac lifestyles of ILA officers and the (alleged) fraternization with the goodfellas, there is the crudely simple fact that the ILA has a jaw droppingly unfair way of distributing the jobs on the piers...
The union has a multi-tier wage scale ($ 29/hr for the top guys, and only $ 16 bucks an hour for the causals, the rightless, benefitless, unrepresented bottom men on the totem pole who are denied membership in the union that controls their working life)
Basically, the union has a heirarchical system where the guys picked by the companies work every day, and a slightly lower tier of guys get to work slightly less frequently, but they still basically have steady jobs (these guys make 6 figure incomes, far north of $ 100, 000 a year)...
On the bottom end, rightless “casuals”, who are actually a majority of longshoremen, shape up for sporadic work - they get the scraps the minority of priviliged longshoremen don’t want - they get unequal pay for equal work ($ 16/hr instead of the $ 29/hr the other guys get) and, according to what guys who work as casuals at Manhattan’s Passenger Ship Terminal have told me, they have to buy their jobs... the BA gets 10% of what you earn, or you don’t get dispatched again...
That already unfair job referral system is also rife with nepotism (in Boston, longshoremen on the top of the job heirarchy were recently caught registering their infant sons and daughters as casuals, so that the kids would be full book A Man registered longshoremen by the time they finished high school)
It’s a horribly unfair setup, and it’s a disgrace to the labor movement...
Basically, any “support” for Bowers should be coupled with a full exposure of the plutocratic lifestyle of himself and his fellow officers, and of their reputed ties with the gangsters... and, far more importantly, with a full exposure of the superexploitation of the casuals and the priviliges that the A Men and Steadymen get for allowing their brother and sister longshoremen to be so abused...
There also needs to be a call for full membership rights for ALL longshoremen - that is, no more “A Men” “B Men” or “casuals” - every worker on the dock should get the same wage, the same benefits and the same political rights in the union, unlike the present system where the majority of longshoremen, the casuals, are denied union membership and the right to vote and get unequal pay, and no benefits, for the same work... in slogan form - EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK, and ONE LONGSHOREMAN = ONE VOTE
To make that paper equality real, they would need something I’ve long advocated for carpenters EQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF WORK... instead of some guys making over $ 100, 000 a year while others get by on less than $ 20, 000, I would call for a system where the work would be equally distributed among longshoremen...
I’m sure casual longshoremen would have better specific ideas for how their job referral system SHOULD work than I would... but at the very least I would think that there should be some kind of rotation system, so everybody gets to work sometimes, and everybody shares the downtime... perhaps also a system where they would get supplimental unemployment benefits when they’re not working
And, above all, NO MORE STEADYMEN... the bosses should be allowed to pick their foreman, and that’s it... all the guys doing non supervisory bargaining unit work should come from the hall....
Of course, the more priviliged longshoremen would scream about this, since it would hurt their interests... but, looking at the best interests of the majority of longshoremen AS A WHOLE, it would be better if everybody made a steady $ 50, 000 a year, instead of SOME guys breaking $ 100, 000 and most making far less than that....
It would take independent organization of longshoremen, in particular the casuals, to put together a fleshed out version of the program I outlined above and at the present time, to my knowledge, no such dissident political movement exists among longshoremen (I HOPE I’m wrong about that.... but I haven’t heard anything about it if such a movement exists)
There is a “rank and file” movement in the ILA... led by Ken Riley, the president of the ILA local in Charleston and an ILA international vice president
Unfortunately, Ken Riley IS ONE OF JOHN BOWERS’ CO DEFENDANTS in the racketeering case...
Now, it’s not at all clear how deep Riley’s role is in the case... but he was a top officer in the union while all this gangsterism stuff happened, and he had a fiduciary duty (not to mention a MORAL one) to do something about it, or at the very least to expose it.... ESPECIALLY since Riley holds himself up to be some kind of “militant”....
More importantly, so far as I know, Riley’s local is run basically the way every other longshoremen’s local in America is.... there is a heirarchy, some guys make 6 figures and most guys are rightless casuals who are unrepresented by the union...
Also, Riley’s group’s program, to my knowledge, mainly focuses on electoral stuff (that is, getting Ken Riley elected to John Bowers’s job) and has little to say about the institutionalized nepotism and systematic unfairness of they job referral system.... I have read stuff they put out that touch on the multiple pay scales, but they basically leave the underlying multi tier job referral system unchallenged...
From what I’ve come to understand, (mainly from email communications from longshoremen) the way that the Longshoremen’s unions maintain social control of the casuals is by holding out the promise that, if you tolerate the abuse and the low pay, you can get to the top tier, so don’t rock the boat...
Also, considering the high number of casuals to “registered longshoremen”, I wonder if many dissatisfied casuals simply leave the industry, rather than stay and try and change it???
Also, in light of the widespread officially sanctioned nepotism, casuals who have relatives already in the union possibly are more likely to put up with the casual deal, since they know that in a few years they’ll be living large, while those who don’t have a connection on the docks might just drift away after a while...
I’m sure casual longshoremen could shed more light on this question, since they live the reality that I’m trying to write about here... much as I’ve been able to expose the superexploitation of local man carpenters in my union, because I myself have been on the recieving end of that very superexploitation for the last 13 years... I see it every day on the job, and, more importantly, I’ve dedicated myself to reading and studying every bit of info I can get my hands on, and, using that info I’ve been able to develop and write about the abuses in our industry, and to come up with a program to fight against those abuses
In any case, those are real obstacles to an independent movement arising among longshoremen to “support Bowers with a gun to his back”...
We do have the nauseating spectacle of at least one leader in the West Coast’s International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10’s Jack Heyman, arising up as a passionate, and largely uncritical, defender of the (allegedly) cosa nostra dominated ILA... my disgust with that craven support for labor gangsterism is what motivated me to write on this issue in the first place...
In Heyman’s post, which you forwarded to GANGBOX and which began this discussion, he launched into a rant about “corporate corruption” and almost totally whitewashed 85+ years of labor racketeering in the ILA
Heyman DID briefly mention the murder of Peter Panto, a communist longshoreman from Brooklyn who was kiled by wiseguys over 75 years ago... (Jack whitewashed that one too... since he dubbed the Communist Party USA member Panto a “leftist” rather than mentioning Panto’s actual politics)
The Panto murder took up one sentence of Jack’s article... his irrelevant off topic rant about “corporate crime” takes up nearly 1/3rd of the piece...
Beyond the Panto killing Heyman didn’t say word one about any other crimes on the docks in the subsequent quarter century....
This is truly odd when one is discussing the ILA, a union who’s Atlantic Coast District here in New York was run for decades by the likes of Anthony “Tough Tony” Anastasio (who’s brother, Albert “Mad Hatter” Anastasia ran the biggest cosa nostra family in the city at the same time) and who was succeded in office by Anthony Scotto, another guy with relatives high up in the cosa nostra world...
The ILA has a long history of organized crime ties.... and Heyman basically danced around that unpalatable reality....
Which is even odder, considering that the ILWU’s very existance as an independent union is due to a revolt led by Harry Bridges against “King” Joe Ryan, the President-for-life (yes, that was actually his job title) of the ILA back in the 1930’s... another dude who had many friends in the organized crime community....
Jack didn’t even challenge the grotesquely high salaries of President-for-life Ryan’s successors, the present day ILA officials... he basically left that out of the conversation...
That’s also odd... Jack Heyman has nothing to say about a union leader living like a modern day emperor on $ 400, 000 dollars a year, while the lowest paid employees get by on $ 20 grand...
I can bet Heyman would (correctly) scream blue bloody murder if a CEO was making $ 400k a year while his casual employees made only $ 20, 000... why the dead silence about John Bowers?????
Above all, Heyman did not challenge the nepotism ridden and deeply unfair job referral system on the docks... or the fact that most longshoremen don’t even have the right to vote in their union....
I can see why Jack would exercise his Right to Remain Silent on that one...
Since the ILWU’s job referral system is very similar to the ILA’s!!!
They have a large pool of non union casuals, who make up a majority of the longshore workforce, get uneqal pay for equal work ($ 20. 66 an hour to a registered longshoreman’s $ 28. 68) get no benefits and are excluded from the union....
The ILWU’s BA’s don’t extort kickbacks from their casuals, as many New York ILA BA’s do... and that appears to be the primary difference between the East Coast and West Coast longshore unions...
On the other end of the spectrum, the ILWU also has a pool of privilged longshoremen, the most well paid of whom, the Steadymen hand picked by the bosses, earn upwards of $ 190, 000 bucks a year..
The ILWU also has, reportedly, a nepotism problem... hell, ILWU local 23 in Tacoma, Washington State, actually went to court, jointly with the Pacific Maritime Association, to DEFEND NEPOTISM, and the union’s “right” to give special job referral system priviliges to the relatives of current members...
In other words, Heyman cannot attack this system, since he and his unit are part of it... and, if he called for equal distribution of work, the steadymen and A Men (the small minority of West Coast longshoremen who are the only folks allowed to run or even vote for local officer candidates in the ILWU) would probably vote him out of office...
So, Heyman, a sincere militant who’s done a LOT for leftist causes that are basically unrelated to the California docks (he’s even gone to jail and gotten shot at... and I sincerely applaud him for all of that), has no choice but to defend a millionare (alleged) labor racketeer like John Bowers.... and, more importantly, Heyman ends up defending the SYSTEM that spawns slime like Bowers and puts them atop our unions....
Basically, that’s what I was criticising...
I do like your idea, Charlie.... the only problem is, I don’t see it materializing anytime soon... and that’s the biggest tragedy of this whole situation..
Oh, one last point... last but not least...
You speak of rank and file workers linking up with “socialist political groups”
Now, I agree with that in principle.... I belive the only way forward for our class is to build a revolutionary party and fight to overthrow capitalism and create a communistic society ruled by the workers...
I was wondering which particular “socialist political groups” you were thinking of... I read a lot of leftist stuff on the net (and I’m a former member of a couple such groups - specifically the Communist Party USA in the late 80’s and early 90’s and the Progressive Labor Party for a couple months in the late 90’s)
Now, from what I’ve seen, most “socialist groups” are focused on college students and white collar professional type folks... that’s the bulk of the folks they recruit, and that’s the background of most of their leaders...
They talk ABOUT the working class, but don’t appear to have much to say TO us (and, in my experience, on the rare occasions when they talk to us, they talk DOWN to us like we’re all a bunch of dummies)...
That’s a bit of an overgeneralization, I admit... but on the whole it’s the reality of the situation...
I was wondering if you had a specific “socialist group” in mind.. or you were thinking we need to start a new one, that would actually be working class oriented???? That might be the better approach....
FRATERNALLY,
GREGORY A. BUTLER, LOCAL 608 CARPENTER,
FOR GANGBOX, CONSTRUCTION WORKERS NEWS SERVICE
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/gangbox/
http://www.geocities.com/gangbox/
“UNION NOW, UNION FOREVER”
On Mon 07/11, Charles Minster friscoworker@sbcglobal.netwrote:
Brother Greg,
i’m for defending Bowers with a gun to his back. The only way forward for the American working class is for rank and file workers to link up with socialist political groups and struggle for leadership under a revolutionary program. There are no short cuts and no help from the enemy.
GREGORYABUTLER@aol.com wrote:
Brother Charlie,
In a perfect world, workers in gangster-dominated unions [East Coast Longshoremen, Teamters, and, of course, your Laborers Union and my Carpenters Union] would organize themselves to drive out the wiseguys....
Reality Check... we do NOT live in a perfect world.... but, you already knew that....
Now, of course, the capitalist state has it’s own reasons for attacking gangster unionism - when it reaches a point where the bribes collected from the companies by the wiseguys exceed the superprofits that the companies can collect by paying substandard wages to a portion of the workforce, then the government comes in to protect the capitalists from the racketeers...
And, of course, they almost always make things harder for the workers... and weaken the unions....
But, as true as that is, it is NOT a reason to defend the John Bower’s of the world... for God’s sake, that guy makes over $ 400, 000 bucks a year... and the majority of the longshoremen on the “unionized” docks - the non union casuals - make less than $ 20, 000 dollars a year.... and, at least at New York’s Passenger Ship Terminal, many of them have to pay a 10% kickback for the ‘privilige’ of working...
As much as I oppose government takeovers of unions, I am NOT going to defend John Bower and his buddies from the Gambino and Genovese families.. after all, those guys have become millionares off the backs of the impoverished casual longshoremen, and they can use their filthy lucre to pay for their $ 300 dollar an hour mob lawyers.. They’re not going to get any free support from me....
GREG BUTLER
On 7/8/05 friscoworker@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Save us all from the U. S. Government looking out for our interests on the waterfront. Ask any Laborers Union member about how things are going since the government got control or how the Teamsters are getting more “democratic” with a government stooge in the headquarters.
We either clean things up ourselves or have the government controlling the show for the bosses benefit. That is their job! It is a bosses government not a workers government and it therefore controls things in the capitalists interests. The only way it does otherwise is when we get off our asses, under revolutionary leadership, and push the bosses to the wall.
BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO STAFF WRITER
from LONG ISLAND NEWSDAY:
July 7, 2005
Federal officials filed a massive civil racketeering lawsuit against the International Longshoremen’s Association Wednesday aimed at taking back the union and the docks from the grip of organized crime.
In an 83-page complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn, the government sued the union, scores of its officials and a number of reputed organized crime figures in an effort to unlock the organization, which represents 45, 000 dock workers around the country, from the influence and control of the mob.
Among those sued were union president John Bower, secretary-treasurer Robert E. Gleason, and dozens of others involved in the union and its health and welfare funds. One employer association and various International Longshoremen’s Association benefit funds also were named as defendants.
The lawsuit is seeking the appointment of a trustee, which is a common tactic in civil racketeering cases brought against other unions, including locals of the longshoremen’s union. It also seeks court orders barring certain union officials and mobsters from involvement in the labor organization.
Allegations that the mob has been in the thick of the waterfront have been around for decades, and they became part of popular culture since the 1950s film “On the Waterfront, ” starring Marlon Brando. To highlight the real-life mob connections alleged with the union, the complaint lists three reputed Gambino crime family members as defendants: former boss Peter Gotti and captains Jerome Brancato and Anthony Ciccone. All three men were convicted in 2003 on racketeering charges that alleged the Gambino family held sway over the docks.
Several other men with reputed mob ties were also named co-conspirators in the complaint but not sued. They are imprisoned Genovese crime boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante and reputed acting crime family boss Ernest Muscarella, as well as Gigante’s son Andrew.
The complaint contains a litany of criminal cases that involved allegations of Gambino and Genovese crime family control over the affairs of the longshoremen. In the recent case of Gotti, the brother of the late mob boss John Gotti, prosecutors introduced evidence that some of the defendants schemed with union officials to get a contract for a pharmacy company controlled by a mob associate. There was also evidence that Gotti, Ciccone and Brancato laundered money from waterfront rackets, the complaint stated.
According to court records, federal prosecutors are currently pursuing criminal cases against three union officials – Albert Cernadas, Harold J. Daggett and Arthur Coffey – as well as reputed Genovese crime family captain Lawrence Ricci for extortion and fraud conspiracies. Cernadas, Daggett and Coffey are also named as defendants in the civil racketeering lawsuit.
International Longshoremen’s Association officials could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.
Wednesday’s court filings disclosed that Bowers makes $413, 556 a year in compensation and Gleason $383, 012.
BY THOMAS ZAMBITO
from the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:
Federal prosecutors sued yesterday to take control of the International Longshoremen’s Association, alleging the labor union is a hotbed for corruption orchestrated by the Gambino and Genovese crime families. The lawsuit alleges a racketeering conspiracy stretching from Maine to Texas in a pattern of corruption that was first dramatized in the 1954 Oscar-winning film “On the Waterfront. ”
“For decades, corrupt ILA officials and their organized crime partners have maintained a stranglehold on the waterfront, enriching themselves through mob taxes siphoned from hardworking union members and legitimate businesses, ” said Brooklyn U. S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.
The feds charged that handpicked mob candidates were put in high-ranking union jobs, sidestepping election by the union’s 45, 000 members. And they say lucrative health and pension contracts were steered to mob-linked companies.
If the lawsuit succeeds, longtime ILA President John Bowers, who has held leadership positions since the early 1960s, and his cronies would be replaced with court-appointed trustees and barred from future involvement with the union.
The move follows the criminal convictions of more than a dozen high-level mobsters, which exposed the Mafia’s decades-long hold over an industry that moves goods through dozens of ports along the Eastern seaboard.
The Gambinos concentrated their power in the ports and shipping terminals of Brooklyn and Staten Island while the Genovese family focused on Manhattan, New Jersey and Miami.
Thirty-five union officials and mobsters were named as defendants along with trustees of the union’s pension and health plans.
In a statement, the union denied the allegations and said it will “vigorously defend itself” against the lawsuit.
Originally published on July 7, 2005
