On the Mob-controlled waterfront: at the Waterfront Commission's public hearings

AUD Research Director Jim McNamara recently attended a series of public hearings of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. The hearings focused on organized crime’s influence in the International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA). Here is his report:

 

 

The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor is poised to make a remarkable transformation. The 75-year old bi-state agency has long been under attack for being ineffective in loosening the mob’s tight grip on the locals of the international. A New Jersey politician, Ray Lesniak (D), wants the Port Authority to take over the Commission. Ronald Goldstock, newly appointed Commissioner succinctly said “I don't know what Senator Lesniak thinks he is doing, but the mob certainly agrees with him.” It is puzzling to switch responsibility to regulate the New York-New Jersey waterfront to a different agency not known for its zeal or ability to detect corruption.

 

New Waterfront Commission Hearings

 

The newly reorganized commission held a series of six public hearings starting on October 14th at its 39 Broadway headquarters. The hearings focused on ILA locals’ and employers’ kickbacks to the mafia.

 

At the first public hearing, Edward Aulisi, a dock worker, was questioned about $100,000 per year pay when he rarely showed up for work. A Commission detective testified that Aulisi was paid for a twenty-five hour day, plus overtime, when he was actually at home driving a lawn mower.

Aulusi invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. Aulisi's father headed an ILA local, was a mafia capo, and now is a fugitive from justice.

 

Shipping and Employers Hearing

 

Shipping Association executives professed under oath their virtual ignorance of their key role in waterfront corruption. On December 2, the six ILA contractors, all accompanied by lawyers, dodged lamely questions about abetting criminal activity on the piers. Commissioner Goldstock asked why they appointed shop stewards as opposed to the workers electing them. The response was they helped keep the men in line. Years ago Chin Gigante’s nephew admitted that he filed only one grievance in fifteen years as a company-appointed shop steward. Today, no shows can sign in and disappear for the day.

 

Many years ago, the Commission ordered the Shipping Association and the union to print the collective bargaining agreement and make it available to the members as required by the federal Landrum-Griffin Act. When asked why so many rackets continued, the shippers and their lawyers responded that they are long established custom and practices. They stated that they will probably seek some changes in their collective bargaining agreement, but only after they read what the Commission’s Report says.

 

Robert C. Stewart, the Commission’s star witness, testified on December 2. He stated that the huge Port Newark and Elizabeth terminal was the biggest container port. Mr. Stewart stated that no show jobs are very important because they provide W-2 income to organized crime members who spend most of their time at the mob’s social clubs or on the street taking care of criminal business. Theft of $2,000,000 worth of perfume containers at Global terminal was organized by a shop steward who received a “gift” of $25,000 as his piece of the action.

 

Vincent “Chin” Gigante, who died at age 77 in 2005, earned nearly $2 million a year on the waterfront according to Jerry Capeci, an organized crime expert. Eleven Chin Gigante family members, including a nephew and son-in-law, collect an average of $175,000 per year while card-carrying members of the ILA.

 

Union Jacket Racket and Other Hustles

 

Excess profits from the sale of union jackets at twice the legitimate price went to a girlfriend of Joseph Lore, who put the girlfriend on the payroll at the union hall. Christmas Party tickets for $300 were foisted on the members, who were told not to go unless personally invited. (As reported by Journal of Commerce senior editor Joseph Bonney, recently, federal agents found $51,900 buried in the backyard of a delegate of Local 1235, who confessed that the money was a “tribute” payment to organized crime, and in an affidavit the delegate stated that “he could lose his job ...or could be killed if he did not make a payment every year at approximately Christmastime,” see “Buried Cash Tied to Docks Payoff, say Feds,” Journal of Commerce, http://www.joc.com, Dec. 10, 2010). In July 2009, Michael “Mikey Cigars” Coppola was convicted of federal racketeering charges that he exercised criminal control of New Jersey ILA Local 1235 for 33 years. (Some background: Anthony “Tough Tony” Anastasio, who died in 1963, was a Gambino soldier, and was convicted of racketeering. A court ordered bug of Anastasio caught him bragging about the Gambino crime family’s grip on the New York waterfront. A Local 1588 member witnessed former local 1588 officer John Digilio giving a beating inside the union hall to an out-of-favor union official. He slapped the victim senseless, screaming the union was his, and the union officials had better never forget it. Digilio was murdered in 1988.)

 

New York Labor History Conference

 

By sheer coincidence the New York History Association sponsored a conference just after the Waterfront Commission’s first public hearings. The conference featured author William J. Mello and his new book New York Longshoremen: Class and Power on the Docks. In addition, author James Fisher spoke about his just published On the Irish Waterfront, subtitled “The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York.” Mr. Fisher's lecture featured video clips from the

movie “On the Waterfront.” Jane LaTour, former AUD staffer, organized the well-attended conference at which Commissioner Ronald Goldstock and Executive Director Walter Arsenault were present. Budd Schulberg’s waterfront movie, filmed over 60 years ago, featured longshoreman Thomas Hanley in a memorable scene with Marlon Brando. Hanley cursed out longshoreman Brando as a stool pigeon witness before the waterfront commission.

 

The scene, shot on a Hudson River tenement roof with pigeon coops as background, did not lead to a movie career for young Hanley. Hanley later went on to become a longshoreman, and in time an active union dissident. He now serves as an elected board member of Local 1588. Young Hanley’s father worked as a longshoreman on a Manhattan ILA Pier near Greenwich Village, where he was murdered by the mob.

 

Malcolm Johnson’s Powerful Expose

 

Malcolm Johnson’s twenty-four articles in the New York Sun in 1948, had a tremendous impact that led to the creation of the Waterfront Commission. Johnson’s powerful series won him a Pulitzer Prize, Book-of- the-Year award, and inspired the waterfront movie which won an academy award in 1954.

 

Cocaine Trafficking at the Port of New York and New Jersey

 

Eight longshoremen and three others were charged with cocaine trafficking at Port of New York - New Jersey on October 5, 2010 by the U.S Attorney in Manhattan. Federal agents seized 1.3 tons of cocaine worth over $34 million. In addition, 11 others were named in a connection with a multi-million-dollar “pump and dump” stock fraud scheme. The drugs were hidden on Panamanian ships that sailed through the Panama Canal and went up to dock on New Jersey piers.

 

Positive Changes in the ILA

 

The present Commission noted that after the federal government imposed a trusteeship on Local 1588 very important changes took place. Former NYC Police Commissioner Robert J. McGuire and his assistant Robert Stewart, a former federal prosecutor, stopped the rampant shakedowns, looting of the union’s treasury, and the stealing of elections. Carl Biers, former AUD Executive Director, was appointed Education Director, a key position in educating the rank and file about past corruption and in the importance of reformist members to be not just passive dues payers but to take over their union. In May 2007 the new leadership conducted elections which produced positive results: seven of eight executive board positions were won and again in December 2009 positive results in elections occurred.

 

No Cheap Fixes

 

There are no cheap fixes in ridding unions of entrenched corruption. The Government agencies involved must be prepared for a long-distance effort and the assignment of considerable staff: otherwise, forget it.

 

Clyde Summers

 

At the conclusion of the Commission’s public hearings on December 2, 2010, commissioner Ron Goldstock announced that its report will be dedicated to the memory of Professor Clyde Summers, “a great champion of union democracy” an appropriate award to AUD’s co-founder.