By Stephen Franklin
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 31, 2002

A union oversight panel has barred William Hogan Jr., once Chicago's most powerful Teamster and a union kingmaker, from the union for his role in a plot to drive down wages and benefits for Las Vegas Teamsters to help a Chicago-based company in which his brother had a stake.

If approved by a federal judge, the action will end the tumultuous career of the tough-talking, gregarious member of a powerful union family, who once was the voice of labor on decisions about Chicago's convention and movie industries.

Hogan stepped down from running for the union's leadership with James P. Hoffa in 1996 because of union investigators' allegations of "nepotism and favoritism" within his power base, Chicago Local 714.

He retired, but upon Hoffa's victory in 1998 returned to the union and stepped into his old job as president of Chicago-area Teamsters Joint Council 25 and three more union positions. Together, they provided more than $210,000 a year in pay, union investigators said last year.

Hogan and Dane Passo, a Chicago Teamster who became Hoffa's right-hand man at union headquarters in Washington, tried to get a Las Vegas local to sign a "substandard" contract with the Chicago company, where Hogan's brother, Mike, was an official, according to the union's independent investigators.

In a unanimous decision by the three members of the union's Independent Review Board, Hogan, 60, and Passo, 48, were banned for life from the union. The board was created in 1989 as part of a deal with the government to prevent a takeover of the union because of extensive corruption.

The board's action against such an influential figure in the union as Hogan comes at an especially embarrassing moment for Hoffa, who has been lobbying the Bush administration to lift the government's involvement in the union.

Hoffa has argued that his 1.4 million-member union is corruption-free and should not have to bear the costs of the government-imposed investigators.

Teamster officials in Washington would not comment on the impact of the board's ruling, which was handed down Wednesday, or their effort to end the government's monitoring.

Nor would they comment on the board's action against the two Teamsters, explaining that they still can fight the board's recommendation before U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska in New York City. She must uphold the board's ruling for it to take effect. They can also appeal her ruling to a federal appeals court.

Neither Passo nor Hogan could be reached for comment.

When faced with the charges a year ago, Hogan strongly denied them and predicted they would be dropped.

"It is a long time coming, but it is welcome to have top Hoffa aides who sold members out to be removed from the union," said Ken Paff, the head of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a small dissident union group based in Detroit. "They got the stiffest charges, and that's appropriate."

According to the board's 79-page ruling, Passo and Hogan "colluded" with Richard Simon, chief executive officer of United Service Companies, to sign a contract with Teamsters Local 631 that would allow Simon to undercut the pay then received by Teamsters who work in Las Vegas' conventions.

"There was no benefit to Local 631, its members or the United employees. In fact, they were repeatedly harmed," the board said.

If the local had signed the contract, because of its agreements with other employers, the others could have demanded the same wages. And that would have driven down the salaries of several hundred Teamsters in Las Vegas' convention industry, said an investigator in New York City with the oversight panel.

Simon disputed the claim that the contract was substandard and said the goal of his offer to the local "was to have the wages raised. The workers who we're talking about are entry-level, non-skill workers."

Rather than $20 an hour, as required by the union contract, the workers would be paid $12 an hour, said Simon, whose firm provides janitorial and labor services.

He added that he had not been aware that Teamsters wages in Las Vegas would have dropped if the local had signed a contract with him.

Hogan told the investigators that he became involved in Las Vegas because he was a "concerned union official trying to be of assistance." At the time, Hogan was serving as an international representative for the Teamsters.

But, according to the board's ruling, "Hogan's pattern of conduct showed that his interest was to help United, Simon and his general contractor brother [Mike]."

The union suspended Hogan from his position as an international representative and Passo from his job as Hoffa's assistant last year when the charges were aired.

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