Press release 99-05-07;:
On Tuesday May 11th, 1999 the honest hard working members of Laborers
local 2, the Sewer and Mine Tunnel Workers union, will try to take back
control of their union from organized crime by overturning the vote of the
executive board that rejected the offer of supervisorship in favor of fighting
a complaint for trusteeship.
Local 2 is controlled by the John Matassa, organized crime member
who has been formally charged by LIUNA's GEB Attorney, Robert Luskin,
with "barred conduct" under the Ethics and Disciplinary Procedure LIUNA
formally adopted as an amendment to its constitution in January 1995 to ward
off the RICO complaint DOJ was going to file.
See http://members.xoom.com/jimmcgough/Serpicobrief.html
While it is true that Vince DiVarco and Dominick DiMaggio of local 2 got
their
jobs because of the influence and control of organized crime in the Laborers
Union, the same truism applies to Arthur Coia and to Terrence Healy, local 2
member and LIUNA vice president whose father in law was Angelo Fosco.
Vince DiVarco and Dominick DiMaggio do good work for the local and protect
the members' interests to the best of their ability is what the members tell me as
leader of the reform group, Laborers for JUSTICE.
LIUNA's constitution provides, like most union constitutions, that decisions
of a
union's executive board have to be approved by the membership at a union meeting
in order to be binding. Local 2 members will be called upon to reject the reading of the
minutes
of the executive board meeting wherein the offer of supervisorship was rejected
and motions will be put
to the membership to accept an amended offer of supervisorship, cancel the retainer
of Matassa's
attorneys to serve as both counsel to local 2 and to Matassa personally, bar non
members from union meetings
ie attorneys, provide copies of Matassa's disciplinary hearings to members on the
internet or CD-ROM, promote
union democracy, allow members complete access to the union's books and records under
reasonable
conditions under the theory it is their union, and a host of other reforms to assure the
practical
exercise of a union member's right of self governance- a right at the core of the LMRDA.
Laborers for JUSTICE is an informal group of educated, computer savvy LIUNA
members who have
zero tolerance for corrupt union practices. We have good ideas and no money. We are trying
to raise funds
to provide an internet site that will give all LIUNA members unfettered access to all the
information
in LIUNA's docket in Washington, D.C., information they have a constitutional right to
inspect
and copy at .07 cents a page but which they can not afford to exercise.It is an empty
right if one
can not afford to go to Washington, D.C. to exercise it. Laborers for JUSTICE is
requesting
that good men and women everywhere donate to the cause by sending a contribution to
Laborers for JUSTICE care of the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, Scott Lassar, 219 S. Dearborn
Street,
Chicago, Il 60604. If DOJ can not eliminate corruption from the Laborers union, the
least it can
do is help the members do it themselves.
Laborers for JUSTICE supports the internal reform effort and the integrity
of members of the reform
team, DOJ and DOL, all of whom operate under budgetary and other restrictions that do
not allow
for the zealous, completely dedicated, concentrated effort required to eliminate the
influence
of organized crime in the Laborers Union, so pervasive and endemic for so long. It is
the members' obligation and duty to make their union the moral, economic, political and
social entity
it has to be to secure just wages and decent working conditions for its members. It
is a matter of
JUSTICE. Make things JUST and you will have peace and domestic tranquility-classical
political theory
no longer operative in the body politic.
Laborers for JUSTICE
2615 W Peterson Av.
Palatine, Il 60067
773-878-1002 (tel)
773-409-1503(fax)