Joe Romano, a veteran official from the United Steel Workers
union, was removed two weeks ago as head of the 1,200-member
Laborers local by the union-appointed attorney in charge of its own
cleanup effort.
Though Romano's backers said
his outspoken efforts to reform the local prompted his ouster, union
officials in Chicago and Washington insist that he had failed to do
his job
, and the local needed someone with roots in the Laborers
Union.
Romano, who could not be reached for comment, is featured
prominently in an article in Sunday's Tribune Magazine on labor
unions in Chicago and their efforts to reform themselves as they
reach out to new members to halt their longtime decline.
In the article, Romano voiced his criticism of the union's reform
efforts.
Romano "challenged the whole scheme of things to the point that
they couldn't accept it," said Ed Sadlowski, a former United Steel
Workers official from the South Side with a history of rank-and-file
involvement, who served until recently as supervisor for Laborers
Local 5.
A close ally of Romano, Sadlowski complained that the current
heads of Chicago's 15,000-member Laborers were eager to remove
Romano because they "don't want reform."
But Frank Riley, president and secretary of the Laborers'
District Council, insisted that Romano was removed because "he just
didn't have the knowledge and expertise to do" the job.
Romano was replaced by Randy Dalton, the head of Laborers Local
681, because the local needed someone to "integrate it" with the
Laborers' District Council, said Robert Luskin, an attorney in
Washington, D.C., who has overseen the union's reform efforts.
In 1994 the U.S. Justice Department confronted the Laborers Union
with findings that the union had been under the thumb of
Chicago-based mobsters since the 1920s and gave the union the option
to clean itself up or face a government takeover.
The union accepted the government's offer and began cleaning
house. In Chicago, the union appointed new officials to run Locals
2, 5, 225 and the District Council, a loose umbrella group for the
union's 21-area Chicago locals. Today, only Local 2 remains under
union-appointed leadership.
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