WASHINGTON
Two decades ago, the late Sen. John McClellan, D-Ark., the embodiment
of righteous wrath, held hearings that shook the labor movement.
He exposed links between labor bosses and crime lords. His investigation
led to the conviction of Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa.
The flamboyant Hoffa has been liquidated,
according to underworld informants, by the mobsters he befriended,
and McClellan has succumbed to old age. But little else has changed.
The labor racketeers still infest the unions.
WE HAVE SOUGHT TO
bring the story of labor racketeering up to date. The Teamsters
for example, brought in the former All-American football player,
Daniel Shannon, to clean up its Central States Pension Fund, which
allegedly has made illegal loans to gangsters.
Last year, he testified before the Senate
Investigations Committee about the mobsters he had discovered
in the shadows. He blasted Allen Dorfman, a convicted racketeer,
by name. Intelligence documents in our possession describe Dorfman
as "the man to see to get a loan '
SHANNON WAS FORCED
to resign as a pension fund trustee, say our sources, because
he dared to stand up to the mob. Now we have learned that Shannon
has received death threats. In view of Hoffa s experience, these
cannot be dismissed lightly.
The Justice Department and Senate Investigations
Committee are conducting a low key investigation of the death
threats. The federal authorities will try to determine whether
they are related to Shannon's previous testimony and are intended
to prevent him from testifying again.
SINCE HE IS STILL
under Senate subpoena, it would be a federal crime to prevent
him from testifying. Our sources believe this should defer any
underworld hit men. But as a precaution, the government is protecting
him.
We have also been checking into Local 210
of the International Laborers Union, a brass knuckles local, which
controls the construction industry in Buffalo, N.Y.. We have identified
Local 210 as the power base of the late Stephano Magaddino, who
has been named in Senate testimony as the former boss of Buffalo's
"powerful, well-entrenched organized crime syndicate."
THE SYNDICATE'S
"principal remaining source of power," according to
the Senate testimony, "is complete control of a single though
important union local." We have determined this is Local
210. It was run by Victor Randaccio whose brother, Freddy, is
listed in federal records as a Mafioso.
A Mafia killer is carried on the union payroll
as a "custodial" worker. "He specializes in enforcer-type
activities and he is believed to have been responsible for some
four unsolved murders." testified Robert Stewart, who heads
the federal organized crime strike force offices in Buffalo and
Newark. Earlier, he was "convicted of bank robbery in 1968
''
LABOR DEPARTMENT
records show he started out as a "business agent" for
the notorious Local 210. But the Labor Department forced the union
to oust him after he was convicted of "making a false loan
application to a federally insured bank." The local immediately
rehired him for two "custodial" jobs, paying him a combined
annual salary of $ 18,500
A companion local in Niagara Falls, according
to Senate testimony, is also dominated by an organized crime
figure. Without naming the union, Stewart testified: "There
have been persistent rumors over the past five years of extortionate
demands upon industry, acts of property destruction and assorted
misconduct".
"AUTHORITIES HAVE
found it impossible, however, to develop a viable prosecution
because the atmosphere of intimidation is so complete that no
one us willing to testify." We have identified this racketeer-ridden
union as Local 91, which is run by Michael "Butch"'
Quarcini.
Stewart summarized the problem in urgent
language. "Unless there is a drastic improvement in the enforcement
capabilities of the federal government," he declared, "the
trend created... by the labor racketeering problem cannot be reversed.''
Footnote: Our associate Marc Smolonsky tried
without success to get comments from the two locals. An attorney
for Local 210 said only: They "didn't know what Stewart was
talking about." An official of Local 91 said: "There
is no one here' and I can't talk to you." He refused to put
Smolonsky in touch with anyone else who could speak for the union.