Local 183 fends off U.S. parent

John Barber
Wednesday, December 8, 2004

 

One of the most heated legal feuds in Toronto spilled into the streets yesterday when a large crowd of construction workers gathered in front of the Ontario Labour Relations Board to protest against the attempted takeover of their union local by its Washington-based parent. With members of the Universal Workers Union Local 183 chanting on University Avenue and its lawyers fending off allegations of corruption upstairs, yesterday's confrontation ended in a ceasefire that few observers expect will last for long.

Local 183 and its increasingly influential leader, Tony Dionisio, sought the emergency arbitration after receiving a letter from the local's Washington-based parent, the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), demanding that the fast-growing local submit to "emergency trusteeship" following a LIUNA-directed forensic investigation into its business affairs. Arguing that the months-long investigation turned up no evidence of corruption, Local 183 succeeded only in winning the right to present its case to the union's own arbitrator in coming weeks.

For its part, LIUNA hailed the labour board's refusal to overturn the trusteeship. The move to impose trusteeship followed "an exhaustive independent investigation that revealed serious allegations of misconduct by Local 183 officials," according to a LIUNA press release. LIUNA lawyer Daniel Randazzo said they had a duty to protect the rights of its members.

LIUNA's attack on what is by far its most successful local -- now the largest construction local in North America -- began last spring when agents of The Inkster Group, acting on its behalf, raided Local 183's North York offices and removed thousands of records, documents and computers from the premises in order to investigate unspecified allegations made against Mr. Dionisio and other Local 183 leaders. The recently completed report documents breaches of the union's constitution, alleged exploitation of undocumented immigrant workers, "forging collective agreements" and fraudulent pension claims, according toLIUNA.

Local 183 officials counter that they are already aware of most of the problems documented in the report and have taken steps to correct them. "They went in looking for weapons of mass corruption and they got nothing," Local 183 spokesman Keith Cooper declared, adding that the charges were "part of a concerted effort by our American parent to take over Local 183 and bust it up into smaller units so it's easier to control."

Investigators whom Local 183 hired to examine its own operations concurrently with the Inkster probe agreed that neither effort produced evidence of corruption. A summary of the report on the Inkster investigation "mentions the word systemic a few times," said auditor Ken Froese of Grant Thornton LLP, "but it strikes me there's no evidence of corruption, deceit or dishonesty." Instead, he added, the report concentrates on irregular "processes," most of which his own firm had already identified in its work for the local. "They've been identified, and pretty much every one of them is being dealt with," Mr. Froese said.

By coincidence, the LIUNA demand for trusteeship arrived at Local 183 headquarters the hour that Mr. Froese presented the executive board with the results of his firm's forensic investigation of the local's business affairs, as well as the personal finances of its leadership, including Mr. Dionisio. Local 183 hired Grant Thornton to conduct a forensic audit last February in order to refute rumours then circulating about Mr. Dionisio and his practises, including one rumour that he had used union pension funds to build himself a "castle" in Portugal.

"We found no evidence of corruption concerning senior executive board members," the Grant Thornton report concluded after extensive research into the bank records, income-tax returns, spending habits, assets, debts and real-estate holdings of the top three Local 183 leaders, including Mr. Dionisio -- indeed "no evidence of impropriety of any kind." jbarber@globeandmail.ca

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