The mob remains up to their old tricks in the construction industry with an added twist. Organized crime syndicates now target nonunion builders – intending to avoid detection due to the Mafia’s history of union connections – to collect kickbacks.
Are unions still involved with the mob, though? Oh yes.
A series of corruption prosecutions laid bare how the mob influenced a top union figure, James Cahill, who was once the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council president, to accept $100,000+ in bribes to funnel business toward nonunion labor sites. Cahill, who pulled other union officials into the scheme, was recently sentenced to 4 years in prison.
This trend has been growing since 2015. Associated crimes have led to construction worker deaths following safety violations on these mob-linked work sites. Still, the list of recent offenses, which have resulted in 1,100+ violations tied to at least seven indicted contractors, pales compared to the 1980s – when mobs colluded outright with unionized construction companies and installed crime-family members as union officers.
Here are a few more corruption stories of note:
- SEIU has been rejected by one-third of the Illinois workers that the union claims to represent. This correlates with a finding that the union only devotes 22% of its spending to worker representation. SEIU has also been questioned over donating $350,000 to the campaign of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, who has been keen on unionizing the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
- In Canada, retired Unifor President Jerry Dias somehow ducked criminal charges following a kickback scandal involving COVID-19 test kits. The union also declined to discipline Dias despite his exorbitant expenditures that totaled half a million, a sum that has drawn comparisons to the UAW corruption scandal. That UAW mess may still exist in some shape or form, given the union’s recent “travesty of democracy” election process.
