The Company He Keeps
Gov. John Rowland's Ties To The Troubled
Laborers' Union
By Ken Krayeske and Jarrett Murphy
Published 04/15/99
To say that the 750,000-member Laborers Inter-national Union of
North America had a good reputation would be--hmmm, how should we put it?--way off.
Congress has investigated the union, the Department of Justice has ordered it to clean
house or face a government takeover, an internal probe just fined the union's leader
$100,000 for ethics lapses and there's a racketeering suit by former members of the
Connecticut Laborers chapter, Local 230, underway in federal court in Bridgeport. One of
the plaintiffs in that suit, former Local 230 vice president Steve Manos, says he was even
threatened with physical violence by business manager Charles LeConche
because Manos questioned LeConche's finances. Mob ties to Laborers' locals in other states
are a matter of record.
Still, when the Connecticut Laborers District Council met in late
March for an awards ceremony, Gov. John Rowland showed up as a special guest in what
people who attended say was a regular buddy-buddy back-slap fest.
Manos says he has called the governor's office to tell them about
the Laborers' troubles. But according to Rowland spokesperson Dean
Pagani, the governor was "probably not even aware of it."
The LIUNA gave almost $50,000 to the 1998 gubernatorial campaigns,
but that expenditure is not out of line for the union, whose leaders are
top Democratic donors. National union president Arthur Coia and President Clinton have
swapped golf clubs, according to the National Review, and Coia has given the Dems $1.2
million over the past two years. Perhaps that cozy relationship is why the Department of
Justice went soft on the national organization, and might be why Johnny Gov feels so
comfortable shootin' the stink with the boys at the District Council.