LABORERS UNION MEMBERS CHALLENGING
U.S. CHIEFS
Ontario Unionists Risk Jobs As Revolt
Surfaces
By John Deverell
March 24,1985:
Ontario members of the Laborers International Union are taking big risks in a battle to break iron grip of their Washington overlords. The International union's control in Ontario has been slipping for several years. In response, its top officers- president Angelo Fosco and treasurer
Arthur Coia have resorted to selective trusteeships to maintain
their hold over nearly 30,000 dues paying Ontario members.
The union's U.S. membership has slumped from 600,000 in 1980 to a
recently reported 450,000 but the Canadian membership has held much steadier at about
58,000.One danger facing Washington leaders is that Canadian Laborers
might follow the example of Canadian Auto Workers and pull out of their International Union entirely.
In addition to other problems a breakaway might cause, the
financial stakes are important to Fosco and Coia. In statements filed with the U.S.
Department of Labor, Fosco acknowledged receiving salary and expenses of $140,000 in 1983
and Coia acknowledged $146,000.Some of the Ontario unionists are risking their careers. If
they are on staff, they can be fired. If they are ordinary members, they can be denied
work in the union hiring halls. Still, a long simmering revolt is now surfacing.
Paying a per capita tax of $4.50 per member per month, the Ontario
locals send more than $1.2 million a year to Washington. In return, the
international pays the salary and expenses of Toronto based vice-president Ugo Rossini
($101,000 in 1983), a staff representative and a secretary.
The top union officials are reluctant to discuss their financial
arrangements, but it appears the international spends about $250,000 to maintain its three
person Toronto office and realizes a surplus of about $1 million a year on its Ontario
Operations.
Ontario leaders of the union claim that in recent years the international union has been selectively harassing locals and officiers who don't play ball with Fosco, Coia and Rossini.
In the latest power play, Fosco has clamped a trusteeship on Local
506, a 4000 member union of construction laborers in Toronto. All local officiers and
staff are now on notice of the dismissal, working at the pleasure of the international
union.
The reason Rossini has offered for the intervention
is that some members have been complaining about hiring hall irregularities. Ontario union
insiders scoff at this explanation. They point out that if such a thing was serious
concern, the Washington Officiers long since would have put Sarnia Local 1089 under
trusteeship. They have not.
The Ontario Labor Relations Board last year found the Sarnia union
guilty of a pattern of discrimination against dissident members in job dispatching from
union hiring hall. Sarnia Business Manager Rocco D'Andrea has also been convicted in court
of falsifing documentary evidence presented to the labor board. Still Fosco, Coia and
Rossini have not seen fit to take control of the local.
A more likely purpose of the trusteeship over Local 506, insiders speculate, is to rescue business manager Mike Gargaro from possible defeat in an election that was to have been held in June. The election is now in limbo.
A day before the trusteeship was imposed
treasurer Coia appeared in Toronto and conducted a "loyality test" meeting of
the Local 506 staff, asking whether they intended to support Gargaro's bid for
re-election. A number said no.
At a membership meeting of Local 506 last week about 250 laborers greeted Rossini and Joe Mazza of Chicago with undisguised hostility and chanted "We want an election".
Why would Washington want to squelch opposition to Gargaro?
A possible objective, some insiders suggest, is
to prevent the Ontario Provincial Council of union from becoming a united body and
demanding full regional status within the union. The Washington leaders seem to fear these
developements as the prelude to a breakaway. The Ontario provincial council led by
business manager John Stefanini performs or co-oridinates most union business, not
conducted by the locals, such as province-wide collective bargaining.
The embattled Gargaro for years has fought what he calls
Stefanini's empire-builing. He is a Fosco-Coia loyalist who in the past four years has
helped collect an estimated $40,000 in "volunteer" payments from a resentful
Local 506 staff. The money was sent to help the international officiers
in a survival fight against the U.S. Justice Department. The Laborers International Union
is a kind of hereditary union monarchy that has long been linked with organized crime in
the United States.
Peter Fosco, Angelo's late father, became international president in 1968 after a 50 year union career in Chicago in which he was closely associated with members of the Al Capone Mob. Angelo became Chicago boss of union when his father moved up and then succeeded to the presidency in 1975.
In the family tradition Angelo's son, Peter Fosco II, became
Laborers regional manager in Chicago, a position he resigned last year.
According to a U.S. Justice Department report citied in
hardhitting 1980 article in Mother Jones, a San Francisco based magazine with several
awards for investigative journalism, the Foscos have been linked over
the years with known members of La Cosa Nostra.
In the late 1970's the U.S. justice department attempted to prove
that both the Coia and Fosco families were involved in a fradulent union life insurance
scheme. It alleged in 1981 that millions of dollars of union trust fund money had been
directed as life insurance premiums to National Farmers Life and a complex network of
crooked companies run by U.S. swindler Joe Hauser.
In return for the help of the union officiers in capturing this
business, the justice department alleged that Hauser made kick-back
payments through insurance agencies he set up for Arthur Coia Jr. and Peter Fosco II. The
justice department alleged that the kickbacks were shared by the union officers and their
respective organized crime patrons.
Angelo Fosco and Chicago crime boss Tony Accardo were acquitted in
1982 in a Florida court. Eight other men were convicted and recived sentences ranging from
five to twenty years. The portion of the case directed against Peter Fosco II and three
others has been delayed by defence challenges to the admissability of
certain state evidence.
A similar prosecution against Arthur Coia Sr.
and his son Arthur Coia Jr., Rhode Island crime boss Ray Patriarca and two others was
recently dismissed because the alleged fraud occurred more than five years before the
indictment was brought to court.
During the long U.S. legal battle some Ontario union members have
been concerned about the integrity of the union's $100 million Central and Eastern Canada
Pension Fund. Construction employers have refused to share responsiblity for administering
the assets with five union trustees.
Chairman of the trustees is Arthur Coia Sr.. The
others are Joe Mazza, who replaced Peter Fosco II last year, Rossini, Stefanini and Henry
Mancinelli of Hamilton.
It is not clear how much of arumored $2.5 million in legal expenses for Coia and Fosco was raised by appeals to union officers, but Gargaro in Local 506 was the most effective fundraiser.
The use of a trusteeship to save a friend is a new wrinkle in the
Fosco-Coia - Rossini battle for Ontario. In the past, insiders speculate, trusteeship may
have been used to punish enemies.
For more than a year Washington has been trying to regain control
of Local 1059 in London. The 1300 member London Local kicked out its Rossini supported
business manager after finding him guilty of election fraud.
As a trustee, Rossini moved in and told the rebellious local
officers they were fired. They defied him and carried on with business. The Supreme Court
of Ontario found Rossini's sweeping intervention unjustified and refused his application
for an injuction to enforce his will.
President Angelo Fosco is now threatening to abolish the London Local. It is possible the entire matter will get to the Ontario Court again soon. The London local last year took it's battle against the U.S. imposed trusteeship to Queen's Park. The legislators will soon be confronted with even more heat on the trusteeship issue as the Toronto and London situation ripen at the same time.