Jesse A. Brewer, Jr.	Manuel J. Reyes
Carol Corrigan	Honorable Peter W. Rodino, Jr.*
Justin J. Dintino	Charles H. Rogovin
William J. Guste	Barbara A. Rowan
Judith R. Hope	Francis A. Sclafani
Philip R. Manuel	Samuel R. Skinner
Thomas F.McBride	Honorable Strom Thurmond
Eugene H. Methvin	Phyllis T. Wunsche
Edwin L. Miller
James D. Harmon, Jr. Executive Director and Chief Counsel

* Commissioner Rodino, in view of his position as Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States House of Representatives, takes no position concerning the recommendations included in Section Eleven of this Report.

The Most Controlled Union

The leaders of the nation's largest union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), have been firmly under the influence of organized crime since the 1950's. Although many of the hundreds of IBT locals and joint councils operating throughout the country are not criminally infiltrated, organized crime influences at least 38 of the largest locals and a joint council in Chicago, Cleveland, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and other major cities. Former Teamster president Roy L. Williams told the Commission, "Every big [Teamster] local union...had some connection with organized crime.''¹ These locals operate in the nation's major business and economic centers and include the majority of the union's 1.6 million members. They are the foundation of organized crime's union-wide influences.

For decades organized crime has exercised substantial influence over the international union, primarily through the office of the president. In the period 1952-1985 there have been five IBT presidents. The first, Dave Beck, was convicted in 1959 for violating federal income tax laws. His successor, James R. ("Jimmy") Hoffa, was convicted of jury tampering in 1964, and disappeared (presumably murdered by organized crime) in 1975. Although known to have accommodated organized crime, the next

president, Frank Fitzsimmons, was not indicted during his tenure and died a natural death in office in 1981. His successor, Roy L. Williams, served as president from 1981 until 1983, when he was convicted of conspiracy to attempt to bribe a United States Senator.²

Hoffa and Williams were indisputably direct instruments of organized crime. Fitzsimmons established a measure of detente whereby he was allowed to head the union, while organized crime stole the workers' benefit funds and used the unions for numerous criminal ventures. While the precise current relationship, if any, between organized crime and the current IBT president, Jackie Presser is not known to the Commission, Presser's past activities indicate that he has associated with organized crime figures and that he benefited from their support in his elevation to the IBT Presidency in 1983.

In the late 1950's Jimmy Hoffa convinced the American public that corruption and the Teamsters were synonymous. His intransigence and arrogance at the McClellan Committee hearings in 1957-1958 gave the public a personification of the evils of corrupt leadership in a vital economic institution in this country. According to Roy Williams, Hoffa was the first IBT leader over whom organized crime had a "powerful hold." How organized crime gained its control over Hoffa remains a matter of conjecture, even for IBT officers like Roy Williams who were insiders during the decades of Hoffa's rise, fall, and eventual

disappearance. Hoffa is reported to have begun an unholy alliance with organized crime to obtain "mob" muscle to fight management in the rough and tumble years of the Teamster organizing drives of the 1930's. Others have theorized that Hoffa came in contact with organized criminals through his own personal ties.³ It is agreed, however, that Hoffa had relationships with major organized crime figures, such as Nick Civella, and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano.⁴

It would be incorrect to explain organized crime's power over the IBT solely in terms of the personal ties between Hoffa or any other individual and organized crime. To understand organized crime's attraction to the IBT, one must look beyond personalities to the nature and structure of the trucking industry.

Trucking operates primarily in a local rather than a national product market; that is, if truckers refuse to deliver materials to a plant or remove materials from a construction site, the affected company is frequently unable to secure alternative carriers. This was especially true prior to deregulation. Control of the truckers thus provides leverage over thousands of businesses dependent on Teamsters' deliveries. Moreover, trucking is characterized by numerous under-capitalized firms, which have significantly less economic staying power than the union itself. This disparity in power allowed Hoffa, and to a lesser degree his successors, to whipsaw or threaten individual companies whose survival would be imperiled by labor strife.

Hoffa proved to be a master at manipulating individual companies in this manner, but anyone who held the office of IBT president might have succeeded in obtaining the same results.

Organized crime has also been attracted to the IBT because it oversees hundreds of individual benefit funds, including some of the largest union benefit funds, such as the Central States Pension Fund, and because it generates significant monies from the dues paid by its 1.6 million members. By controlling the union racketeers can receive excessive salaries and benefits, put friends and relatives on the payroll, and embezzle union monies.

In testimony taken by the Commission, Roy Williams confirmed that organized crime has continued to maintain a firm grip on the IBT long after Hoffa's reign. This chapter will examine both Williams's and Presser's tenures at the IBT and analyze the methods that organized crime has used to control the IBT. In addition, it will develop profiles of mob influence at certain select locals and describe how organized crime uses violence and intimidation to quash opposition. Finally, by describing the operations of a nationwide labor-leasing scheme involving the LCN, corrupt Teamster officials, and legitimate corporations, it will indicate how organized crime can use corrupt unions to give organized crime businesses an edge in the market place.

Organized Crime's Influence and Corruption: The Williams Administration

Roy Williams's rise in the Teamsters from 1981 to 1983 was directly linked to his association with organized crime. Williams admitted to the Commission what law enforcement believed for several decades: that Williams had a "special relationship" with Nick Civella, the boss of the Kansas City family of La Cosa Nostra. Williams and Civella were members of an informal but powerful group of five men. The members of this group, which changed over time, included Civella, Williams, Bill Cerman, Tim Moran, and Sam Gross, the former head of the Carpet Layers, Dyers and Cleaners Union. The "group of five" met periodically to settle disputes and to decide which candidates for public office would receive political nominations in the Kansas City area.

The association between Williams and Civella began in the mid-1950s after Williams, knowing Civella's position as the head of the Kansas City LCN, met with Civella to discuss their "relationship." The two agreed to assist and promote each other. Civella would promote Williams's IBT career with other mob-controlled IBT leaders, especially Hoffa, and reward Williams financially. Williams, in turn, would promote Civella's interests, by such means as the placement of people that Civella favored in IBT or industry jobs, and the exertion of influence on

the Central States Pension Fund to make loans and arrangements that would benefit organized crime.⁵

Civella became the man to see to get favors from Williams and the Teamsters. Chicago La Cosa Nostra territorial boss Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, who was convicted with Williams for attempting to bribe a United States Senator, was overheard by Federal agents importuning Civella:

Nick, you're the only one who can get to Williams, to have him listen and act. Williams has to be the one to do it, and it has to go through you.⁶

Other intercepts reveal that when members of the Chicago LCN approached Civella to obtain favors from Williams, Civella sometimes adopted a protective tone, saying, "I want to protect Roy. He's a friend of mine."

Illustrative of Civella's hold over Williams is a 1979 meeting of Williams, Civella, Allen Dorfman, and Sam Ancona in Kansas City. Dorfman wanted significant new Central States Pension Fund business to be directed to Morris Shenker, Jimmy Hoffa's lawyer-confidant. Williams disagreed. As a result of the disagreement, Williams had to attend a midnight session at the house of an LCN associate at which Dorfman and Williams presented their cases to Civella. Ultimately Civella sided with Williams and tore up Dorfman's contract with Shenker.⁷ In this instance Williams, an IBT president and a fiduciary for the

union, had to appeal a union decision to the La Cosa Nostra crime boss of Kansas City.

Throughout the three decades of their arrangement Williams and Civella met periodically. When Civella and Williams could not meet or talk on the phone for fear of being observed or overheard, Sam Ancona--an associate of the Kansas City La Cosa Nostra, president of Teamsters Joint Council 56, and IBT International representative--was messenger to both. Ancona and Williams exchanged messages in the union's parking lot outside Williams' office. As a reward Ancona used Williams's name and gained authority to obtain favors and other assistance from other IBT officers.⁸

Roy Williams became president of the IBT in large measure because he had the backing of organized crime. When incumbent president Frank Fitzeimmons died, members of La Cosa Nostra set out to choose a new Teamster president. Although there was agreement that someone controlled by La Cosa Nostra should be chosen, the negotiations centered on which faction would have its candidate elected. The key groups were the Kansas City, Chicago, Cleveland, and New York families. One of the participants in these negotiations was Angelo Lonardo, underboss of the Cleveland La Cosa Nostra. Lonardo, now serving a life sentence in federal prison, has provided the FBI with inside information on precisely what transpired.

Lonardo stated that the Cleveland LCN wanted Jackie Presser to serve as IBT president, while the Kansas City LCN wanted Williams. Nick Civella, boss of the Kansas City family, informed Milton "Maishe" Rockman, a Cleveland LCN associate, that Kansas City was intent on Williams's candidacy. Civella characterized Williams as someone the LCN could "talk to." To obtain support for Williams, Civella sought the assistance of the other crime families across the country. They were asked to throw the support of IBT locals they controlled to the Williams candidacy.

Ultimately, according to Lonardo, Civella and Rockman made a deal. Rockman agreed that, if Jackie Presser were to take Williams's place as head of the Central States Pension Fund, the Cleveland family would see that Presser, persons loyal to Presser, and the Cleveland LCN family would support Williams and seek to obtain the approval of the arrangement from the Chicago LCN family. Cleveland representatives Lonardo and Rockman met with Jackie Cerone and Joey Aiuppa, ranking members of the Chicago LCN. Cerone and Aiuppa claimed that they were skeptical of Williams and stated that they were considering another candidate. They were doubly suspicious of Presser, claiming that he was unreliable. Rockman reassured them concerning Presser. The meeting broke up without a decision, but within several days the Chicago LCN indicated its agreement. Rockman told Lonardo that he had contacted Presser, who agreed to support Williams's candidacy by producing delegates for Williams.

According to Lonardo, the Cleveland La Cosa Nostra family is not an independent group. Its leaders report to and show "respect" to the New York-based Genovese family. To obtain further support for their plans, the Cleveland representatives flew to New York to meet Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno, boss of the Genovese family. Lonardo and Rockman explained Civella's plans for Williams and Presser. Salerno stated that he would throw his support to Williams through Salvatore Provenzano's delegates. In return, Salerno sought favors, including a Teamster local union charter for his friends.

As a result of these maneuvers, Williams was ultimately elected president. Because Presser was never promoted to the Central States Pension Fund, Rockman later instructed Presser not to cooperate with Williams.

Williams stated that while he was IBT president, he physically stayed out of the northeast portion of the United States and did not attempt to control or influence what he characterized as a Teamsters region dominated by the mob. Williams identified locals in St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, the West Coast, and elsewhere, as dominated or influenced by organized crime. Williams admitted that these large locals had been under the domination of organized crime for 30 years before he was elected President. He said that trying to do something constructive about the Provenzano's Local 560 or Harry Davidoff's Local 295 would be tantamount to entering a

"viper's nest," and that, as IBT president, he did not have the power or the "interest" to take on organized crime in that manner.

Williams indicated that, during a period of tension with the New Jersey branch of La Cosa Nostra, he received anonymous calls at home telling him to "get right with Tony Pro [venzano]". He said that no important IBT decision can be made without taking into account organized crime's control of the key union locals. Williams stated his belief that any IBT president would be relatively powerless in the face of this mob control: "They was here a long time before any of us ever got here and they have got pretty powerful."⁹

Long before Williams assumed the presidency of the IBT, Jimmy Hoffa shared pension fund kickbacks with Allen Dorfman, a former asset manager and service provider to the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. Before Hoffa began serving his prison sentence in 1963 he convened a meeting of the Fund trustees to state, unequivocally, that Allen Dorfman was his spokesman while he, Hoffa, served time in jail. Hoffa and Dorfman were the moving forces behind the Central States Pension Fund's entry into speculative real estate loans in Las Vegas, an action that eventually robbed the Teamsters of millions of pension fund dollars and resulted in the government's decision to place the Fund in receivership.¹⁰

During the Williams administration the mob's desire to plunder the Central States Pension Fund continued. In 1979, at a meeting at the Crown Center Hotel in Kansas City, Nick Civella met Central States Pension Fund "representatives" Allen Dorfman and Sol Schwartz, and Chicago LCN member Joey Lombardo. In their discussion about regaining control of the fund from the government's asset managers, Joey Lombardo stated:

We got a lot of work to do. We got to get the Fund back. Get good lawyers. Got moves to make, lot of scheming to do . . . . we got to try to put it back together like it was. For now and for the future . . .¹¹

Similar conversations took place at meetings attended by Williams, Civella, and Dorfman.

The history of Allen Dorfman's dealings with the Teamsters benefit funds illustrates the problems that have plagued other multi-employer benefit funds. Even after his conviction for accepting a $55,000 bribe or kickback while acting as a special consultant to the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund,¹² insurance companies that Dorfman controlled continued to receive substantial fees for handling various Teamsters funds' insurance business. When Dorfman's contract to service the Fund was scheduled to be re-evaluated, he offered Roy Williams, IBT president, 17 acres of land at a California resort, known as La Costa, in return for an automatic contract renewal. Williams claims that he turned down the bribe, but the contract was renewed in any case.¹³

Any possibility that Dorfman would disclose what he knew about the Teamsters-LCN association ended on January 20, 1983, when he was gunned down in a parking lot in Lincolnwood, Illinois. Dorfman's murder took place one month after a federal jury convicted Dorfman, Williams, Chicago LCN boss Joseph Lombardo, a trustee of the Teamsters pension fund, Thomas F. O'Malley, and an employee of the pension fund, Andrew G. Massa, for conspiring to attempt to bribe United States Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada, then Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. The defendants conspired to offer Cannon favors from the Central States Pension Fund in return for his influence to block or delay a measure to deregulate trucking freight rates.

Williams used the Central States Pension Fund, the Central Conference of Teamsters, and the IBT to pay for his million dollar defense of conspiracy charges. Massa and O'Malley received $1.3 million dollars from the fund for their defense expenses. Dorfman received $1.7 million dollars for his defense fees from his insurance firms, whose sole customers were Teamsters entities. Both Dorfman and Joey Lombardo received the considerable benefit of private investigators and transcription services, for which the Central States Pension Fund paid.

In addition to paying the legal expenses of Massa and O'Malley, another Teamster entity, the Central Conference of Teamsters, paid Roy Williams $76,000 as its chairman during the trial years. Neither Frank Fitzsimmons, Williams' predecessor a chairman of the Central Conference, nor his immediate successor, Jackie Presser, received a salary while occupying that position at the Central Conference. During the same period, some members of O'Malley's family received IBT-related jobs paying high salaries.¹⁴

In a consent decree with the Department of Labor, the Central States benefit fund's insurance companies agreed to pay the Fund $6.5 million for the payments of the legal defense of IBT president Williams and his co-defendants, and for other improper expenditures. In the one-year period after the repayment, the Central States insurance premium was increased 352 percent, to a staggering $2.7 million. None of the money was

ever recovered from Williams or the other Labor racketeers who benefited from it.

Organized Crime's Influence and Corruption: The Presser Administration

Angelo Lonardo, underboss of the Cleveland LCN, who provided the FBI with details of the LCN's influence over Roy Williams's election, also told the FBI how the LCN "chose" Presser as Williams's successor. According to Lonardo, after Williams's conviction of conspiracy to attempt to bribe Senator Cannon, the LCN families again maneuvered to pick an acceptable candidate. This time the Cleveland family took the lead for their candidate, Jackie Presser. Lonardo participated in this effort by seeking the Chicago family's support for Presser from Jackie Cerone. Cerone again indicated that Chicago had its own candidate. Lonardo then traveled to New York to seek the support of Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno and the Genovese family. Salerno agreed to back Presser for the job. The methods that Salerno used to support Presser have not been revealed, but Salerno's backing ultimately made possible Presser's elevation to the Teamster presidency.

In addition to the LCN's help, Presser's rise to power, like Williams's, was facilitated by the governance structure of the IBT. Its structure and constitution have remained substantially unaltered since Hoffa's reign. The officers of the international

consist of a president, secretary-treasurer, 16 vice presidents, and numerous employees. All officers are elected, but the union membership does not necessarily vote directly for the candidates. The international officers are elected by local delegates at a union convention held every five years, the maximum interval permitted under the Landrum-Griffin Act. The locals send delegates to the convention in proportion to their membership strength. If organized crime influences a local, it names the delegates to the convention.

Once international officers are in office, they are able to favor and advance their allies through the IBT's election and appointment system. The president and all vice presidents, although drawn from different areas of the country, are elected at large. To win union-wide office as a vice president, a union member needs the support of the IBT president or persons who can influence the president. With that support, the would-be office-holder can be appointed to a vacancy in an international office and serve during the long period between conventions. At the convention he enjoys the benefit of incumbency, and his election is no more than a ratification of his prior appointment.

The early years of Presser's career in the IBT are instructive. Presser was initially appointed to head a new local, Local 507, in Cleveland. Later, Frank Fitzsimmons, at the urging of Roy Williams, appointed Presser a Teamster vice president to fill a vacancy created by Bill Presser's ill health.

Presser's fellow vice presidents then elected him IBT president to fill the remainder of convicted former president Roy Williams' term. Thus Presser advanced to the IBT presidency without ever having initially to submit himself to the ordeal of an election by rank-and-file members for his various offices.

A review of the IBT vice presidents who serve or have served on the union's executive board that elected Roy L. Williams or Jackie Presser demonstrates how unlikely it is that a reform minded Teamster president can be elected in the near future. The following profiles describe only a handful of the Teamsters vice presidents.

Maurice Shurr, former Philadelphia area vice presider built his career at IBT Local 929 in Philadelphia, and was particularly energetic in the benefit fund area. Shurr was convicted of racketeering activities, including receiving payoffs to provide labor peace over 11 years. Convicted with Shurr was Harry Roetsky, a union business agent.¹⁵

Joseph Morgan, the Southern Conference area vice president, was appointed to his post at the same time that Roy Williams became an IBT vice president. Soon after his imprisonment Hoffa sent a message, through his lawyer, to Frank Fitzsimmons that both Williams and Morgan should be made vice presidents.

According to Williams, Morgan is significantly influenced by organized crime figures.¹⁶

Joseph Treretola is an international vice president in the New York area and president of Joint Council 16, the largest of the IBT joint councils. He obtained his vice presidential post only after the New York LCN gave its approval. Roy Williams stated that, although he had no reason to doubt Treretola's personal honesty, he knows that Treretola is blind to the rampant mob control of the locals that constitute Joint Council 16, and to the influence of organized crime in the IBT generally.¹⁷

M. E. "Andy" Anderson was a powerful director of the Western Conference of Teamsters. Roy Williams stated that Anderson had a very close relationship with labor consultant Sidney Korshak; according to Williams, organized crime controlled Anderson's local.¹⁸ In 1979 Nick Civella stated, "Anderson has trouble with his own people. The union guys hate him. He was supposed to be eliminated a long time ago. It was my firm, firm understanding that he was out.''^l9

Harold J. Gibbons was an IBT vice president who, for a time, turned his St. Louis local into a model of achievement on behalf of his workers. By the end of his career in the early 1980's, however, Gibbons had learned to co-exist with organized crime. He had an understanding with Jimmy Hoffa to refrain from publicly criticizing Hoffa's dealings with the Provenzanos and Allen

Dorfman. Gibbons's reluctance to renounce organized crime's involvement in the IBT is attributed to his greed or fear that Hoffa would have him killed if he crossed Hoffa or the gangsters.²⁰

Salvatore "Sammy" Provenzano of New Jersey succeeded his brother, LCN Genovese family soldier Tony Provenzano, as international vice president. Judge Harold Ackerman, who ordered the Provenzanos' Local 560 into trusteeship under the civil RICO statute characterized Salvatore Provenzano, a 30-year IBT veteran, as a person who wields great power for corrupt purposes:

....Sam and Nunzio played musical chairs in minding the store for Tony to satisfy the technical requirements of the law. At some point in the '70's, Sam came into his own. With power at his finger tips, he ran the show and still does. Did he stay 'more or less' clean. . . .He did not. Most of the time he helped to steer the ship the way Tony wanted it and made sure the same crew remained on board. . . .Was he naive, blind or deaf? No. Salvatore Provenzano, in my judgment, knows the truth and is oblivious to it.²¹

Even before assuming the IBT presidency, Jackie Presser had compiled an extensive record of organized crime associations. Presser ascended in the union hierarchy through organizations, particularly Cleveland Local 507 and Cleveland Joint Council 41, that were infested with LCN associates and convicted felons. For example, officials of Presser's hometown Local 507 included John Trunzo, a former business agent of Local 507, convicted for

"shaking-down" Cleveland employers for labor peace payments; John J. "Skippy" Felice, Jr., an associate of the Cleveland La Cosa Nostra, convicted of embezzling funds from IBT Local 73, where he was vice president, and from Local 293, where he was secretary-treasurer; and John Nardi, a Local 507 "ghost" employee, convicted of embezzling $110,000, and chauffeur and bodyguard for Cleveland La Cosa Nostra member Anthony Liberatore. This record belies Presser's promise, in Senate testimony, of a "new era" for the Teamsters Union.²²

In the 1970's, Presser and his longtime associate Harold Friedman, two of the top officers in Local 507, paid themselves almost 40 percent of the members' dues as salaries. When he became IBT president, one of Presser's first appointments was to name Friedman, a convicted felon, as an IBT vice president. In 1984 Presser earned approximately $755,000 for his services as IBT president, president of the Central Conference of Teamsters, president of the Ohio Conference of Teamsters, president of Joint Council 41, and secretary-treasurer and business manager of Cleveland Local 507.²³

While Presser served as secretary-treasurer of Local 507, Allen Friedman, Presser's uncle, was also on the payroll of the local and received $1,000 per week. Friedman was a "ghost" employee who performed no work, and he was convicted of embezzling $165,000 from the local. Presser relied on the "ghost" investigation as a basis for refusing to answer the

Commission's inquiries.24 Although the Department of Justice's Organized Crime Strike Force in Cleveland recommended prosecution of Presser on charges of fraud and conspiracy, because he signed the payroll checks for Friedman and other "ghost" employees, officials in the Department decided not to indict Presser. Recent press accounts have stated that Presser had been a government informant, and have attributed the demise of the Strike Force investigation to that relationship. In any case, Friedman and Nardi have now been released from imprisonment, thereby making further public disclosures on this subject unlikely, although the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and the Committee on Labor and Human Resources have announced intentions to investigate the matter further.

In the 1970's, Jackie Presser was also an integral part of a multi-year contract between the IBT and Hoover-Gorin and Associates, a public relations firm. Under the terms of the contract, the IBT was to pay the firm $1.3 million per year for advertising and public relations work, including a $350,000 retainer. The choice of Hoover-Gorin and Associates was a surprise because, prior to obtaining the IBT contract, the firm had gross receipts of less than $20,000 per year, and the firm's partners were completely inexperienced in public relations work. Hoover was a Nevada disc jockey and car rental agency employee. His partners, Abner Gorin and Harry Haler, had no public relations experience.

IBT officers instructed Hoover-Gorin and Associates to spend some of the IBT public relations money in Cleveland. Cleveland LCN capo Anthony Liberatore, an official of Laborers Local 860, received $2,000 per month for a job promoting the Teamsters. Liberatore, who served 20 years for killing two policemen, actually did nothing for this monthly retainer. Another associate of the Cleveland LCN family and a distant relative of Liberatore, Tom Lanci, also received $2,000. Lanci rented an office to Hoover-Gorin, but it was simply a front. Lanci told the Commission that he had also been a ghost employee and did nothing to earn the salary paid to him by Hoover-Gorin.²⁵ Subsequent to his involvement with Hoover-Gorin, Lanci was convicted of participating in the murder of Danny Green, a Teamster official. Both Liberatore and Lanci were convicted of bribing an FBI clerk to obtain the names of secret informants on the Cleveland LCN family.

According to Hoover-Gorin partner Harry Haler, Presser received substantial kickbacks from various participants who profited from the Hoover-Gorin public relations contract. The Justice Department investigated Presser's role in the Hoover-Gorin affair, but ultimately took no action against him.

Presser's past also includes other instances of misconduct. including a bribe offer to Roy Williams as trustee of the Central States Pension Fund, the alleged receipt of payoffs in a corrupt labor-leasing scheme, and questionable investment transactions in the Front Row Theater in Cleveland.

According to sworn testimony by Roy Williams, in 1974 or 1975 Jackie Presser, then a trustee of the Central States Pension Fund, offered a bribe to Williams, who was then an IBT vice president and Central States Pension Fund trustee. Presser sought Williams's active support and vote for a loan related to the Tropicana Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The meeting between Williams and Presser took place probably in Chicago. The bribe was not consummated, however, and the Tropicana loan allegedly sought by Presser was never made.²⁶ Although Presser and Williams were alone when the bribe was offered, Central State Pension Fund records indicate that in 1975 Tropicana made a one-page loan application seeking $49 million for the Hotel Conquistador, Inc., doing business as Tropicana Hotel and Country Club of Las Vegas.

Receipt of Payoffs Related to the Labor-Leasinq Schemes of Eugene Boffa

In the 1970's Eugene Boffa, an associate of La Cosa Nostra boss Russell Bufalino, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and the Provenzano family of New Jersey's IBT Local 560, created and

owned a series of labor-leasing companies throughout the country These labor-leasing companies provided truck drivers and labor peace to the corporations that hired them. The corporations would fire all of their drivers, Boffa would rehire them at a reduced wage, and they would resume work for their previous employer. Boffa received contractual payments and the corporations reduced their labor costs. If a corporation did not voluntarily hire one of Boffa's companies, Boffa employees or corrupt union officials created labor disputes to suggest the need for labor peace, which then could be "guaranteed" through the use of Boffa's leased labor.

Roy Williams confirmed that certain Teamster officials-including international vice president Sam Provenzano, Teamster joint council president and Kansas City La Cosa Nostra family associate Sam Ancona, IBT Local 326 president Frank Sheeran, and then-international vice president Jackie Presser--helped Boffa to mollify and threaten honest Teamster officials into accepting Boffa's way of doing business. The high-ranking officers occasionally arranged bribes to local officials for selling out their membership. Boffa was ultimately convicted of racketeering and sentenced to imprisonment, largely because of the testimony of self-described "leg-breaker" Robert Rispo, who later became a protected witness.

In testimony before the Commission, Rispo stated that Jackie Presser was a recipient of Boffa's bribes. On at least one occasion, Rispo testified he was the courier who delivered a cash payment directly to Presser. Afterwards, Presser told Boffa not to use Rispo or anyone else to make such payoffs. Rispo described instances where Presser intervened on behalf of Boffa, when the bribe paid to a Teamster local official was less than the official had expected.²⁷ Presser also participated in making arrangements to switch to Boffa's labor-leasing companies. In a typical switch, agreements were drawn to reduce compensation to union workers and actions were taken to dismiss dissidents from employment.

When he appeared at Commission depositions and at the public hearing, Presser consistently refused to answer questions concerning his actions, invoking his Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination.

The Front Row Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio, is a theater-in-the-round which features live performances by entertainers. In late 1974 Jackie Presser invested a nominal sum in the Theatre, and he has been quoted as acknowledging that he became a millionaire through this investment.²⁸

Two months after Presser became an investor in the Theatre, he began a one-year tenure, from February 1975 to February 1976, as a trustee of the Central States Pension Fund, while his father Bill Presser was imprisoned for one year.

The transactions involving the Theatre, its purchase by a group of investors that include Presser, and its sale and subsequent sale back to the group of original owners minus Presser, are highly suspect. A review of the records obtained by the Commission -- including documents subpoenaed from the Theatre's lending institution, the Theatre's accounting firm, the company that purchased and then sold back the Theatre, and the published remarks of Presser -- raises questions whether the Front Row Theatre was used as a vehicle to provide approximately one million dollars to Presser for unspecified favors, and whether Jackie Presser breached a fiduciary duty by failing to disclose to the Department of Labor his profit from the sale of the Theatre. The sale was to an entity that employed Teamsters and was consummated during the time Presser served as a fiduciary of the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. Presser himself invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege in refusing to answer the Commission's questions about his transactions with the Front Row Theatre on the ground that his answers might incriminate him. The Commission has referred this matter to the Department of Justice for possible criminal follow-up.

Violence as an Instrument of Organized Crime's Control of the Teamsters

Title I of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) guarantees all union members various rights, including the right to nominate candidates, to vote in elections or referenda of a labor organization, to attend membership meetings, to participate in the deliberations, and to vote on business at such meetings. Members also have the right to meet and assemble freely with other members and to express their views, arguments, and opinions.

Organized crime-influenced unions, including the IBT, rely on fear and violence to deny these rights to members. The violence takes many forms, literally ranging from verbal harassment to murder, to quell all forms of dissent, criticism, and opposition. Violence need not be an everyday occurrence. Occasional "examples" are often sufficient to persuade members that any opposition may create a substantial risk of injury or death.

Within the IBT there is an organized dissident group of Teamsters, known as Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). TDU is extremely critical of the union's current leadership, as it

has been of past IBT leaders. On October 15-16, 1983, TDU held its annual meeting at a Hilton Hotel in Romulus, Michigan, outside of Detroit. TDU members rented rooms and a meeting hall and met to express their view.

On the first day of the TDU convention, another group of Teamsters--the Brotherhood of Loyal Americans and Strong Teamsters (BLAST), which was founded to oppose TDU and to support the IBT international leadership--set out to disrupt the meeting. BLAST is composed of Teamster members and officials and is backed by incumbent Teamster officials in Ohio and Michigan, including IBT president Jackie Presser. BLAST members travelled to Romulus in cars and at least nine chartered buses, from Cleveland, Youngstown, Columbus, Dayton, and Toledo, Ohio, and from Jackson, Flint, and Detroit, Michigan.

At the TDU meeting site, the BLAST members shouldered aside a policeman, tried to wrest his service revolver out of his holster, and pulled his keys and hat off and threw them away. The BLAST group took over the microphone at the podium, ran the TDU members out of the meeting hall, and tore down banners. Order was restored only after local, county, and state police arrived on the scene.

On the following day, TDU members at the convention received anonymous bomb threats at the Hilton Hotel. Police searched the premises but found no bombs. The BLAST participants in the

October 15 raid were not rank and file Teamsters. Records from the National Labor Relations Board indicate that the participants in this raid included two local IBT presidents, one local IBT vice president, two IBT secretary-treasurers, three union trustees, one organizer, and at least ten IBT business agents.

The BLAST raid is not simply another instance of violence against dissenters. It is violence specifically endorsed by the union president, which demonstrates the ability of the president's officers and close associates to carry out such violence with impunity. At the October 31, 1983, meeting of Teamsters Joint Council 41, in Cleveland, Ohio, IBT president and president of Joint Council 41, Jackie Presser, praised Teamster officials who led the raid against the TDU convention. The Commission subpoenaed copies of this transcript from the IBT in which Presser remarked:

I want to say something to you. I know all about that BLAST program taking Place in Michigan. I must have gotten a hundred calls. I know exactly what happened there. I was pleased to see that there are Teamsters that want to stop all that crap, but I want to say something to all of you that I think is very dramatic, okay.

* * *

The thing that affected me the most about last Sunday in Detroit, Michigan, was that there were a lot of guys there, I got the pictures of who was there. I could have imagined a lot of stronger, tougher guys going there, and tough truck drivers, but I was looking through the pictures, and you know who was in the front line of a real wild fight with state highway patrolmen and police there?

The Secretary/Treasurer of our Joint Council, Bill Evans, who's had two heart attacks. I wouldn't have let him go there in a hundred years. . . . There's plenty of locals that can send 4, 5, 10 guys. I really got upset because I saw Bill there. His value is too great to me and to this Council.

. . . Bill, I want to tell you, you're a hell of a guy to take it on yourself. I would have been there, but I'm not you.

He was screaming and fighting and shoving and pushing and swinging like the rest of them, so you know, when the chips are down, that's where it's all at.

* * *

I'm going to tell you something. We should be doing more of that. I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to let up on these people. . . . (emphasis added).

Presser also praised other union officers from Michigan and Ohio who participated in the BLAST raid. IBT officials distributed copies of Presser's comments for display at union halls in Ohio. Presser invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege when questioned about this incident.²⁹

Finally, evidence before the Commission suggests that union funds may have been used to support the activities of BLAST. While the secretary-treasurer of IBT Joint Council 41, William Evans, disclaimed all knowledge about the source of payment for the buses used in the BLAST raid, he told the Commission that no collection was taken up to pay for the buses. In addition, the IBT local and Joint Council officers who attended or sanctioned their members' participation in the BLAST raid were respondents in civil litigation seeking injunctions against their activities, a National Labor Relations Board complaint for the same subject, and a civil damage action. The Commission questioned Jackie

Presser and IBT counsel John Climaco about whether union monies were spent to support the raid and its legal aftermath. Despite several oral and-written requests for a response, there has been no definitive response from- the IBT or Presser. It is therefore possible to infer that IBT members' dues were used to rent the buses and to hire lawyers to defend the participants in the raid.

The BLAST raid is not the only instance in which IBT members have resorted to violence against union dissidents. For example, on December 4, 1983, the Detroit metro chapter of TDU held a membership meeting in Detroit, Michigan. Toward the end of that meeting, BLAST members, who had previously left when police arrived, returned and broke down a door that was being held secure by TDU members. In their subsequent attempt to gain entry to the meeting, the BLAST members assaulted several TDU members. At least one TDU member required stitches, and another was cut with a knife.

Indeed, even the Commission's own investigations have been affected by violence. A six-foot four-inch shop steward of Chicago IBT Local 705 beat a rank-and-file member because he attended the Commission's public hearing on labor racketeering in Chicago. While beating him, the shop steward asked the member if he wanted to go to more "hearings."

The plight of rank-and-file members, once their unions slip under the control of mobsters, was vividly described by Charles Allen, self-confessed killer and "strong arm" man for LCN members Russell Bufalino and Tony Provenzano in IBT and HEREIU union locals in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware areas. In 1982, in testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Allen described his responsibilities for the 10,000-member HEREIU Local 54 of Ralph Natale and Albert Diadone in Atlantic City and the 2,500-member IBT Local 326 of Frank Sheeran in Wilmington, Delaware:

Allen:

I actually did anything I was told to do, from murder to selling drugs, from extortion to beating up people, highjacking. Whatever they told me to I did.

Sen. Rudman:

And as a matter of fact, by your testimony, you would do what was asked of you?

Allen:

Yes.

Sen. Rudman:

So that if it looked like some legitimate union or a person were going to move into the leadership position in the union and you were told to go down and make sure they were discouraged or something like that, you would do that?

Allen:

Yes.

Sen. Rudman:

Including beating up people?

Allen:

Yes.

Sen. Rudman:

Including murdering people?

Allen:

Yes, sir.³⁰

The point of recounting instances of evidence related to violence is not simply to demonstrate that they occur. It is to show that the aggregate effect of such violence is to sap the ability and willingness of rank-and-file members to regain control of corrupt locals. Until IBT members are free to criticize their union officers without fear of retaliation, there is little or no chance that efforts other than those of law enforcement can turn the union back to its members.

The "Electric Chair": Organized Crime Threats to Teamster Presidents

There is no doubt that organized crime is fully capable of terrorizing and killing rank-and-file Teamsters. The disappearance of Hoffa in 1975 suggests that such terrorist tactics can also be directed at union leaders. Hoffa's disappearance was only one event in a pattern of mob terrorism against IBT presidents and high-ranking officers. Both before and after that disappearance, every Teamsters president since Dave Beck has been threatened with death by organized crime.

Such threats serve to remind Teamsters presidents that the LCN should get whatever it wants and expects from the IBT. To reinforce this understanding is important to organized crime, as a series of Teamsters leaders in the past 30 years were beholden to, or deeply in fear of, the LCN. The following exchange in 1979 between Joseph Hauser, who looted the Central States Pension Fund of millions of dollars, and New Orleans La Cosa Nostra boss

Carlos Marcello, shows that the individual officers are not of interest.

Hauser:

Who you closer with, the guy in Kansas City [Roy Williams] or the guy from St. Louis, Missouri [Harold Gibbons]?

Marcello:

It don't make no difference, either one of 'em. It's all the same.³¹

During the 1960's, as they left a hotel, IBT president Jimmy Hoffa directed Roy Williams not to walk near him. Hoffa told Williams to do this for his own safety because the Detroit La Costa Nostra family was violently displeased with Hoffa and had sent a signal that Hoffa would be killed. According to Williams, Hoffa made a pilgrimage to Detroit to rectify the problem. Williams remarked that Hoffa did not "make a move" without the approval of the "boys" [LCN in Detroit.³²

During his imprisonment in the 1960's, Hoffa shared quarters at one time with Tony Provenzano. Provenzano later told Roy Williams that he developed an intense dislike for Hoffa during that period. Partly because of Provenzano's opinion, Williams said it was no surprise to him that Hoffa was murdered in order to prevent him from making another bid for the international leadership.³³

Frank Fitzsimmons was also the target of mob death threats. At one point during his presidency, Fitzsimmons confessed to Williams that he was "in worse trouble in Detroit than Jimmy Hoffa ever was."³⁴ Eventually, Fitzsimmons achieved a measure

of detente with the Detroit LCN, apparently agreeing to give them authority in their running of IBT locals.

Prior to becoming president of the IBT, Jackie Presser allegedly characterized that office as an "electric chair" and a "death chair." Presser discussed the success of government prosecutions of IBT presidents Beck and Hoffa and noted:

[I]f you are totally honest and if you try to clean up the union. . . and you try to do it fast enough and without accommodations so the government won't get you, the other guys - the hoods - will get you. Just like they got Hoffa when he threatened them. So that's a death chair either way.³⁵

During the 1970's, when two factions of the Cleveland La Cosa Nostra engaged in a bloody battle for control of illegal businesses in that city, Presser was the target of such death threats. Presser told Roy Williams that he, Presser, had backed the "wrong" faction in the mob and that his life was in danger. During this period, Presser relied on personal bodyguards and, according to Williams, eventually things returned to normal.³⁶

Organized Crime and Teamster Locals

Organized crime cannot control a union's international officer without controlling important locals in that union. The list of locals controlled or influenced by organized crime is long and sobering. On the basis of information from federal law enforcement agencies, the Commission has found a documented relationship between La Cosa Nostra organized crime factions and 36 influenced Teamster local unions, 1 joint council, and a conference. Profiles of several IBT locals demonstrate the pervasive hold that organized crime has over various local Teamster bodies.

New Jersey Local 560: Organized Crime "Captures" a Local

For more than two decades, organized crime controlled Teamsters Local 560 in Northern New Jersey. Its control was so pervasive that in 1984, the civil racketeering provisions of a federal law (RICO) were used for the first time to impose a trusteeship on a local union. Judge Harold Ackerman, who presided over the case, found that organized crime had "captured" Local 560, its welfare and pension funds, and its severance pay plan. He ordered all members of Local 560's executive board removed and put the local into trusteeship until such time as the membership can freely nominate and elect new officers.³⁷

Under the leadership of Anthony Provenzano, Local 560 was used for more than 20 years by a "group of gangsters, aided and abetted by their relatives and sycophants," who engaged in a "multifaceted orgy of criminal activity" against the rank-and-file membership.³⁸ Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano began as a business agent for Local 560 in 1954, became president of the Local in 1958, and later served as secretary-treasurer between 1975 and 1978. Lapses in his union service were ceased by several prison sentences he served for offenses ranging from extortion to murder.

First convicted of extorting labor peace payoffs between 1952 and 1959, Provenzano was later convicted of conspiracy to receive kickbacks relating to a proposed loan from a Teamsters benefit fund. In 1978, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1961 murder of Local 560 secretary-treasurer Anthony Castellito, who was a contender for Provenzano's office in Local 560. Finally, in 1979, Provenzano was convicted on RICO charges for receipt of labor peace payoffs from the Seatrain Corporation.

Convictions and jail sentences did not deter Provenzano from consolidating and exercising his control over Local 560. His brothers, Nunzio and Sam, acted for him in his absence. The Provenzanos and their organized crime associates were allegedly responsible for the May 24, 1963, murder of IBT member Walter Glockner, who protested the appointment of a member of the Provenzano ring as a business agent. After a shouting and pushing incident at the union hall, Glockner was murdered in

front of his house. The members of Local 560 never again made a serious attempt to protest the Provenzanos' rule. Union members knew that dissent could earn them a death sentence. As Judge Ackerman wrote in connection with the murder of Anthony Castellito:

The disappearance [of Castellito] generated a perception among the membership that anyone who represented an actual or potential threat to the Provenzano Group's dominance and control over Local 560 ran the risk of physical injury. The nature and intensity of that perception has been such that it survives to the present day.³⁹

Tony "Pro" Provenzano used his control of the local to increase his salary between 1962 and 1963 from $20,000 to $95,000. Business agent Stephen Andretta--later convicted of loansharking, counterfeiting, and extortion--had his salary raised to $95,000 a year during the same period. Both Provenzano's and Andretta's salaries exceeded IBT president Jimmy Hoffa's salary at the time. Provenzano family members were also provided with jobs. Tony "Pro's" daughter, Josephine Provenzano, was elected secretary-treasurer at age 23, and received a salary of $64,000. Asked to state why she was appointed, she told the court "because. . . I was a Provenzano."⁴⁰

Other criminals also participated in the looting of Local. For his part in the Castellito murder, Salvatore Briguglio was rewarded with the role of business agent. Briguglio was later convicted of grand larceny and counterfeiting, and was suspected of having participated in the

murder of Jimmy Hoffa. Ironically, Briguglio himself was eventually murdered at the time of the indictment of Castellito's killers.

The officers of Local 560 also used the union to extort millions of dollar. from trucking companies which paid for labor peace and the right to do business. They took millions more in payoffs from cooperating companies eager to enter into sweetheart contracts providing for reduced labor rates. Some employees of Local 560, forced to work under sweetheart contracts signed by the Provenzanos, received few of the promised benefits of the IBT Master Freight Agreement. The officers of Local 560 also conspired with benefit plan administrators to embezzle in excess of $160,000 from the union's dental program and to cover the theft by falsifying documents. Some of the conspirators received thousands of dollars of free dental services, while rank-and-file members had to pay for their treatment.

Roy Williams stated in Commission testimony that the officers of the international were fully aware of the violence, extortion, and embezzlement that Local 560 officers were committing. Williams stated that even as IBT president he could do nothing about the problem.⁴¹ The reason for this was that after capturing Local 560, the Provenzanos and other organized crime nominees "captured" the international.

For two decades a member of the Provenzano family was a member of the IBT's Executive Board. The Provenzanos were consulted on the appointment of other union vice-presidents. Salvatore Provenzano was named leader of the Eastern Conference of Teamsters. Instead of placing the local in a trusteeship and electing a clean slate of officers, the international confirmed the control of the Provenzanos. Only extraordinary effort by the Departments of Justice and Labor, including the first use of the civil provisions of the RICO statute, led to the unprecedented decision by a federal court to take control of the local and wrest it from the hands of organized crime.

IBT Local 814, which services moving companies, is influenced by the Bonanno and Genovese organized crime families. Organized crime uses the local to extort labor peace payoffs from moving and storage companies in the New York area. The depth of organized crime's influence has led witnesses to refuse to testify before grand juries concerning the local, perhaps because they are afraid of organized crime's retaliation should they answer. In January 1984 the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York held John Konovitch, shop steward for Local 814, in contempt and ordered his incarceration for failure to answer grand jury questions.

The corruption within the union spills over into the industry. In January 1984, the same District Court ordered Frank Narcisco, owner of the largest moving and storage company in New York City, held in contempt and jailed for his failure to answer questions before a grand jury.

Potential witnesses' fear of violence is not unfounded. In 1982, Anthony Gilberti, the vice president of Local 814, was shot nine times but survived, and has since entered the government's witness protection program.

IBT Local 295 in New York represents the truck drivers and warehousemen of the air freight forwarding and trucking businesses. This representation enables Local 295 substantially to control John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens, New York. Recent court-authorized electronic surveillance indicates that Local 295 is controlled by the Davidoff family. Harry Davidoff, the patriarch, is a veteran of Murder, Inc., a 1930's-era group of organized crime hit men. His son and daughter are also employees of the locals. Frank Calise, an LCN associate, is the local's president.

IBT Local 851 also represents employees at John F. Kennedy Airport, including clerical employees who review bills of lading of the air freight forwarding companies. In certain respects,

however, Locals 851 and 295 are indistinguishable: their benefit funds are inveated jointly, and Harry Davidoff, who has served Local 295, is the vice president of Local 851 and his son Mark Davidoff is secretary-treasurer.

Davidoff's partnership with the Luchese crime family is currently the subject of an indictment in the Eastern District of New York. The indictment charges that Davidoff engaged in a variety of racketeering activities at the airport with LCN capo Paul Vario and LCN soldier Frank Manzo, and his associates, John Russo and William Barone. The complaint specifically alleges that certain air freight forwarding companies were not allowed to merge until certain payoffs were made to organized crime.

Local 813, which serves the carting industry in New York, is operated by Bernie Adelstein. Adelstein's power in the Teamsters is reflected in the fact that he ran for an IBT Joint Council office to keep the son of Anthony Corallo, boss of the LCN Luchese family, from winning the position. Adelstein has a long-standing relationship with the Luchese family and with Paul Castellano, deceased boss of the Gambino family.

A recent investigation by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force produced a number of court-authorized electronic

surveillance intercepts concerning Local 813. One conversation indicates that while Adelstein continues to work with La Cosa Nostra, the families are dissatisfied with their degree of control. To increase their control in the carting industry, Salvatore Avellino, a member of La Cosa Nostra, discussed with two carters the need to create a new local, Local 813A. On June 28, 1983, LCN member Salvatore Avellino began this conversation by discussing the "control" issue:

Salvatore Avellino:

813 is yours, "A" is ours and yours together. But now that we know it's the dog wagging the tail 'cause if we gonna go work. . . and we're gonna put these, ah, ah, 200, 300 people in it. Not let's take somebody, let's take a son, son-in- law, somebody put them into the office. They got a job. Let's take somebody's daughter, whatever -she's the secretary. Let's staff it with -

Thomas Ronga:

Our people

Salvatore Avellino:

--With our people, and when we say go break this guy's balls-

Thomas Ronga:

They go

Salvatore Avellino: --

They're there 7:00 o'clock in morning to break this guy's bails

Emedio Fazzini: --

With an "A" or whatever, and there we won't be under Bernie [Adelsteinl all the way, and meantime it will be-

Salvatore Avellino:

You follow me.

Emedio Fazzini:

Ya, I--

Salvatore Avellino:

Let Bernie [Adelstein] have all the five (5) boroughs, Nassau/ Suffolk is "A".

Thomas Ronga:

What them two rebels [Aponte and Gonzalez]⁴² wanted to do.

Salvatore Avellino:

Right

In a subsequent conversation, Avellino provides evidence that the LCN already controls the carters management association (the Private Sanitation Industry Association of Nassau/Suffolk Counties, Incorporated), but wants total control of the union itself, which it believes is better than controlling the employers:

Emedio Fazzini:

You've got to control the man; that's the power

Salvatore Avellino:

That's the power

.

Emedio Fazzini:

You gotta control the workers (inaudible) right now you control the employers

Salvatore Avellino:

Do you understand me, now when you got a guy that steps out of line and this and that, now you got the whip. You got the [expletive deleted] whip. This is what he [Corallo] tells me all the time, "a strong union makes money for everybody, including the wise guys." The wise guys even make more money with a strong union.

Emedio Fazzini:

True.

Salvatore Avellino:

Because, because the envelopes [kickbacks] could be bigger and better

One case study demonstrates most clearly how the cooperation of La Cosa Nostra, corrupt Teamster officials, and corporations can result in a concerted scheme to obtain a commercial "edge."

Beginning in the late 1960s, Eugene Boffa, Sr. created and controlled more than 30 labor-leasing companies throughout the country. The companies were located in 30 states--including California, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, as well as in Canada and Puerto Rico. While these companies held themselves out as separate and individual concerns, in fact all of them were controlled by Boffa, and later his son, Robert Boffa. Many of the legitimate corporations, which used the services of these labor-leasing companies, were fully aware that the various entities were all connected to Boffa.

A Boffa labor-leasing company acted as the employer of IBT-organized truck drivers and warehousemen. A corporation needing drivers at particular locations would contract with the Boffa company and receive the needed drivers, as well as their replacements, when regular employees were sick or on vacation.

Boffa promoted his business by creating labor problems at both organized and unorganized job sites, frequently through a corrupt union official who had been bribed. At an unorganized shop, the bribed union official would threaten a union recognition campaign and then "suggest" that Boffa's intervention

could alleviate such problems. If the job site was already organized, the official would threaten wildcat strikes and slow downs. Once a Boffa company was selected as the labor leasing source, the company would fire its work force and "lease" the same labor services from Boffa. Boffa generally hired only those "discharged" employees who were not expected to be troublesome or to question the new arrangements. Boffa would then "lease" the services of those employees to their former employers.

Boffa's contracts invariably hurt the workers affected by the leasing arrangements. Sometimes wages would be reduced but, more generally, changes would be made in less obvious contract items. For example, routine work rules would be suspended for the benefit of the corporation. Drivers would not be paid "clean up" time or for the periods they remained in the terminal. Mileage and other indirect wage formulas might be altered. Troublesome employees not weeded out at the beginning of the labor-leasing contract would be discharged or offered work at distant locations. Because union officers were receiving kickbacks from Boffa, fired individuals seldom obtained favorable rulings from these officers at their grievance hearings. Drivers were often required to use unsafe equipment. Furthermore, because Boffa was the "employer," striking workers could only picket Boffa's office, not the corporation utilizing their services. In these and other ways a Boffa contract benefited the employer, who paid Boffa approximately 10 percent above his gross payroll costs as a "service fee." One Boffa labor-leasing

official remarked that the central benefit of labor peace "was a return to plantation days for employers."⁴³

Boffa's operation could not have succeeded without his La Cosa Nostra connections. Boffa was an associate of the powerful La Cosa Nostra boss Russell Bufalino of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In addition, the New Jersey Provenzano family acted as his partner, protector, promoter, and base of power, as well as a connection to the New York Genovese family. Boffa combined these organized crime partnerships with assistance from corrupt union officers who were willing to accept bribes and kickbacks. Teamster vice presidents Sam Provenzano and Jackie Presser, and Joint Council president Sam Ancona were the most important of these individuals because they provided a network of union friends who could be influenced and exert influence on behalf of Boffa. Frank Sheeran, president of Local 326 in Wilmington, Delaware, was another partner of Boffa in creating labor problems or guaranteeing labor peace, whichever was required under the particular scheme. Sheeran also reported to Russell Bufalino. Boffa himself was the conduit for almost all bribes paid to LCN members and union officials. LCN associate Nicholas Robilotto of IBT Local 215 in Albany, New York worked with Boffa, as did Robert Groves of IBT Local 910 in Ohio.⁴⁴

Occasionally, Boffa's corporate clients demanded that Boffa reduce labor costs even further. Boffa accomplished this by engaging in corporate shell games designed to reduce the wages

and benefits of the employees who worked for him. First, Boffa terminated all employees and the existing contract with a corporate client. Another Boffa-controlled company would then be chosen to supply labor services and would sign a new contract for less money, thus cutting the wages and benefits of the newly-rehired workers. As Robert Rispo, an enforcer for Boffa, described it, the drivers had no choice but to accept 90 percent or 80 percent of their former salary because "half a job is better than no job."⁴⁵ Any worker who protested too much was not rehired, and payoffs to union officials left the workers without an avenue for redress of grievances.

David Kelly, traffic manager for the Continental Can Corporation, told the Commission that Boffa companies won the right to enter into leasing contracts with his company by submitting the most attractive bid, and that he was unaware that Boffa owned more than one company involved in the shell games.⁴⁶ His testimony was refuted at trial by several witnesses, and the record before the Commission shows that most corporate managers knew or should have known exactly what was occurring. As Bobby Rispo noted, "it boils down to without the union, the corporate people, and us [Boffa and his connections], the scheme wouldn't work."⁴⁷

Eventually, Boffa's scheme unraveled. Several cars driven by LCN members and union officials in Detroit at the time of Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance were traced back to a leasing

operation owned by Boffa. The cars were used as payoffs to favored union officials. Subsequent investigation uncovered Boffa's empire of companies. Law enforcement authorities used federal RICO forfeiture provision. to seize Boffa's companies, including assets of $200,000 in cash and $150,000 in accounts receivable. For his role in the labor leasing scheme, Boffa received a 20-year prison sentence and was fined $47,000. IBT Local 326 president Sheeran was sentenced to 18 years in prison; his conviction was overturned and a retrial resulted in a plea of guilty and a three-year sentence.

Subsequent events indicate that the Boffa organization and operation continues even today. When law enforcement efforts prevented his companies from continuing to operate, Boffa simply formed new corporations. He controlled these companies from his prison cell, calling his employees several times each day to give directions concerning their operation. In addition, financial benefits continued to flow to the Boffas. Robert Boffa's wife was paid $750.00 per week for leasing company clerical work. Tens of thousands of dollars were paid to Eugene Boffa, Jr., an attorney and brother of Robert Boffa, for legal services that were either overpriced or undelivered. When subpoenaed to testify concerning the operations of the labor leasing business, both Robert and Eugene Boffa refused to answer questions and invoked their Fifth Amendment privilege.

Many corporations--including such large, prominent corporations as Inland Container: J. C. Penney; Spiegel: GAF: Atlantic Cement, Iowa Beef; continental Can, Crown Cork & Seal; Crown Zellerbach and various soda bottling companies -- did business with Eugene Boffa and his companies.⁴⁸ Some corporations did business with Boffa while he was under indictment and even after his conviction. Philip Silver, the recently-named President of Continental Can, admitted in retrospect that his company "should have disengaged more promptly and completely following Mr. Boffa's conviction."⁴⁹ Continental Can has adopted a constructive corporate policy designed to avoid such problems in its future labor leasing operations. Other companies were less responsive. Business arrangements with the Boffa family continued unabated for Crown Cork and Seal as of June 1985. In fact, when Crown Cork and Seal was formally notified of the Commission's interest in labor-leasing companies and invited to send a spokesman to the Commission's public hearing, the company's general counsel sought to obtain an affidavit from an employee of the Boffa company, which would exonerate Crown's corporate officers by stating that Crown did not know with whom it was dealing. The proposed affiant, Samuel Solomon, refused to sign such a statement because he was certain Crown Cork personnel knew that Boffa continued to control the companies.⁵⁰

At both the international and local levels, the IBT obviously continues to suffer from the relationship with organized crime. Indeed, so pervasive has this relationship become that no single remedy is likely to restore even a measure of true union democracy and independent leadership to the IBT. Sustained commitment of governmental resources to dislodge organized crime from the IBT through a combination of criminal prosecutions, civil action, and administrative proceedings is the only approach that offers even a modest hope of success in the long run. If the Local 560 case is representative of the depths of the problem, systematic use of trusteeships by the courts may be necessary to prevent organized crime from continuing to do business as usual in the IBT.

ENDNOTES

¹ Deposition of Roy L. Williams by the President's Commission on Organized Crime, September 13, 1985 [hereinafter cited as Williams Deposition].

² See United States v. Williams, 565 F.Supp. 353 (M D. Ill.), cert. denied,__U.S.__ (1985).

³ D. Moldea, The Hoffa Wars 26 (1978).

⁴ Williams Deposition, supra note 1.

⁵ Id.

⁶ FBI Report, March 30, 1979, known as the Crown Center Overhear, for the particular hotel that served as the site of the meeting of Civella, Dorfman, Lombardo, Tamburello and others. [hereafter Crown Center overhear]

⁷ Debriefing of Roy L. Williams by Commission staff [hereinafter cited as Williams debriefing].

⁸ Id.

⁹ Williams Deposition, supra note 1.

¹⁰ In 1977, the assets of the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund were $1.59 billion of which 60.6 percent was in real estate; at that time $260.6 million of the real estate portfolio was invested in Nevada, nearly all of that in gaming assets. By 1985 the fund had grown to $$5.3 billion in assets, but the mix was quite different. Real estate investments were down to $336 million, or 6.3 percent: Nevada real estate had been reduced to $34.7 million. The dramatic shift in the Fund's investment direction came after years of protracted litigation with the U.S. Department of Labor. This litigation culminated in the signing of consent decrees in 1983, enforceable in U.S. District Courts, for both the pension and health and welfare funds. The main provisions of the decrees are that the funds will be managed by a named fiduciary with complete responsibility and authority for the investments of the funds, the funds will maintain a qualified internal audit staff; an independent special counsel will monitor the funds' compliance with the consent decrees; and any fiduciary or administrator who has been convicted of certain crimes will be removed from the funds' service upon conviction, rather than at the conclusion of the appeals process.

Lastly, the funds took over, with Court approval in 1983, the assets of the late Allen Dorfman's Amalgamated Insurance Company, and began processing claims in-house. This step was not just significant for the funds in terms of the benefit monies saved which had been diverted to Dorfman and his cronies -- it was highly symbolic and accelerated the process of the fund's severing its ties with Dorfman's operation.

¹¹ Crown Center overhear, supra note 6.

¹² United States v. Dorfman, 470 F.2d 246 (2d Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 93 S. Ct. 1561 (1973)

¹³ Williams Deposition, supra note 1.

^l4 Deposition of Thomas F. O'Malley by the President's Commission on Organized Crime, April 5, 1985.

¹⁵ United States v. Shurr, (E.D. Pa. 1983).

¹⁶ Williams Deposition, supra note 1.

¹⁷ Id.

¹⁸ Id.

¹⁹ Crown Center Overhear, supra note 6.

²⁰ S. Brill, The Teamsters, 352-400 (1978).

²¹ United States v. Local 560, 581 F. Supp. 279, 293 (D.N.J. 1984).

²² Oversiqht of Teamsters Union, 1983: Hearing Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 98th Cong. 1st Sess. 10 (1983).

²³ This figure includes salaries, allowances and expenses, but no multiple pensions to which Presser will be entitled. Compiled from financial reports filed with the Department of Labor for fiscal year 1984.

²⁴ Presser sought to quash the Commission's subpoena, in part, on the ground that the criminal investigation into the Local 507 payroll-padding scheme was pending at the same time. The U.S. District Court rejected this argument and ordered Presser to appear at a deposition. At two depositions on March 26, 1985 and August 13, 1985, as well as at the Commission's public hearing on April 29, 1985, Presser invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in response to all questions, including inquiries about the history of the IBT, the criminal convictions of his predecessors, use of union-sanctioned violence against dissident groups, and payment of bribes and kickbacks to IBT officials. The Commission's active investigation of Presser ended when the Commission's request for authority to compel Presser's testimony was rejected by the Justice Department.

²⁵ Interview of Thomas Lanci, April 1985.

²⁶ Williams Deposition, supra note 1.

²⁷ Organized Crime and Labor-Management Racketeering: Hearings before the President's Commission on Organized Crime, April 1985, at 209 [hereinafter cited as Labor-Management Racketeering Hearings.

²⁸ G.. Stricharchak, "The Teamsters Jackie Presser," Cleveland Magazine, October 1980, at 71.

²⁹ Transcript of the Commission's March 26, 1985 deposition of Jackie Presser, which states in pertinent part:

Q. You have spoken harshly about rank and file men who oppose your administration. Do you support the use of union sanctioned violence against such dissident rank and file members?

A. Upon the advice of counsel I wish to invoke the Fifth Amendment right to not to testify.

Q. What explanation can you offer the Commission for your extensive statements supporting such violence, made by you on October 31, 1983, to Joint Council 41?

A.Upon the advise of counsel I wish to invoke the Fifth Amendment right not to testify.

Because Presser asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege in response to the Commission's questions about his support of violence against dissidents, the Commission subpoenaed William Evans, the Secretary/Treasurer of IBT Joint Council 41 and the individual whom Presser praised for his role in the raid. Evans provided testimony to the Commission under a grant of immunity in March 1985.

The depth of loyalty that Presser commands was evident in Evans's deposition. In an effort to exonerate himself and Jackie Presser, Evans dismissed Presser's remarks as exaggerated and boastful. On other points, Evans's testimony and his views of the facts differed significantly from other eyewitnesses' accounts on record concerning the BLAST raid. For example, Evans claimed he went to Romulus because he heard TDU had open meetings, and he thought it would be an "educational experience" to attend this convention. He claimed he did not know who organized the trip, who arranged or paid for the buses, or which persons led the group. He stated that he recognized only two other persons who travelled from Ohio to Michigan for the event. Evans claimed that he was simply trying to order breakfast when he came upon the fracas at the hotel, and that he could not remember any violence or threats of violence. He also maintained he does not know what the BLAST acronym means. He stated he did not see BLAST signs or hear conversations to indicate that activities at the Romulus convention were in any way sponsored by BLAST .

The Commission also subpoenaed Wendell Quillen, a trustee of Joint Council 41, and Secretary-Treasurer of Local 957, to provide testimony concerning the BLAST raid. Quillen refused to answer questions on the basis of his Fifth Amendment privilege. Subsequently, Quillen told Dayton Daily News reporters he went to the T W meeting to "see what it was all about," and said of his refusal to testify before the Commission, "Why should I tell them anything...."

³⁰ Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union: Hearings Before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs , 97th Cong., 2nd Sess. 69 (1982).

³¹ Court authorized electronic surveillance of a conversation between Joseph Hauser and Carlo. Marcello at the Maison Dupuy Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 2, 1979.

³² Williams Deposition supra note 1

³³ Id.

³⁴ Id.

³⁵ Presser was asked by the Commission to confirm or deny making this statement, as quoted in S. Brill, The Teamsters, at 349. He refused to answer this question at his deposition on March 26, 1985, on the grounds that the answer might incriminate him.

³⁶ Williams Deposition, supra note 1.

³⁷ United States v. Local 560, 581 F. Supp. 279 (D.N.J. 1984).

³⁸ Id. at 282.

³⁹ Id. at 312.

⁴⁰ Id. at 293.

⁴¹ Williams Debriefing, supra note 7.

⁴² In 1976, "rebels" Ray Aponte and Reuben Gonzalez attempted to begin a rival carters union. Shortly afterward, they were murdered and found in the trunk of a car.

⁴³ Labor-Manaqement Racketeering Hearings, supra note 27, at 197.

⁴⁴ Deposition of Robert Rispo, February 14, 1985 [hereinafter cited as Rispo Deposition].

⁴⁵ Id

⁴⁶ Deposition of David Kelly, before the President's Commission on Organized Crime.

⁴⁷ Rispo Deposition, supra note 44.

⁴⁸ Id

⁴⁹ Labor-Management Racketeering Hearings, supra note 27, at 276.

⁵⁰. Id.