Posted on 03/09/2006 11:22:41 AM PST by smoothsailing
The Mob And The Ports Deal
By Linda Chavez
March 9, 2006
With all the recent talk about security vulnerabilities at the nation's ports, one subject goes virtually unmentioned. The men who actually control many of the nation's docks, especially on the Eastern seaboard, are in the hip pocket of the Mafia and have been for decades.
Regardless of whether or not a Dubai-owned company manages operations at these ports -- currently the source of much hand-wringing in Washington -- many of those with the most direct access to the billions of tons of cargo that move through those ports owe their jobs to the mob.
How can that be? It all has to do with the peculiar institution of the union hiring hall. No matter who owns or operates the ports, the union, not the employer, actually assigns workers to jobs. You can't work unless you carry a union card. And on East Coast and Gulf ports, the union card belongs to the International Longshoreman's Association (ILA), one of the most mobbed-up unions in the country.
In July 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against the ILA, which targets the entire 31-member ILA executive council, including the president, secretary-treasurer, executive vice president, general vice president and more than two dozen others.
In a press release accompanying the suit, the Justice Department notes, "For decades the waterfront has been the setting for corruption and violence stemming from organized crime's influence over labor unions operating there, including the ILA and its affiliated locals, as well as port-related businesses. Since the late 1950s, two organized crime families -- the Gambino family and the Genovese family -- have shared control of various ports, with the Gambino family primarily exercising its influence at commercial shipping terminals in Brooklyn and Staten Island, and the Genovese family primarily controlling those in Manhattan, New Jersey and the Port of Miami."
The Justice Department has already won convictions against more than a dozen high-level Gambino and Genovese mobsters who controlled docks on the East Coast and is also seeking convictions of several ILA officials. The government has charged these men with extorting money from waterfront businesses and terminal operators and extorting thousands of dollars from individuals seeking employment on the docks, among other crimes.
And this recent spate of ILA indictments is only the most recent example in the long history of organized crime control over the union. New York University law professor James B. Jacobs describes that history in his new book, "Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement." "Cosa Nostra became the primary power on the New York harbor waterfront in 1937, when Anthony Anastasio . . . took control of the six New York harbor locals," says Jacobs, and it has remained so ever since. In the 1970s, the federal government won convictions of more than 100 mobsters, including 20 ILA officials, among them ILA Vice President Anthony Scotto.
Yet despite this sordid history, few lawmakers who profess concern about port security seem in the slightest bit worried that the ILA's role on the docks may constitute a huge security risk. The ILA contributes millions of dollars each election cycle. In the 2004 election cycle, the ILA's political action committee (PAC) had over $7 million cash on hand to distribute to candidates.
Among the top recipients of ILA PAC money in the last few elections were Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, Robert Menendez, D-NJ, Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, all of whom represent states with important ports. Some of these same senators are among the chief critics of the Dubai port deal, but they are noticeably silent when it comes to mob influence in the union that actually controls who works on these ports.
Union bosses who would rob their members of pensions and health benefits, extort money to secure jobs on the docks, and use the docks to run gambling, loan sharking and other illegal enterprises could just as easily facilitate terrorists hoping to slip agents or weapons into the country, perhaps unwittingly, for the right price. But few in Washington seem to have considered the risk. The Dubai deal is not the only port issue that deserves more congressional scrutiny; ILA corruption surely deserves a close look as well.
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Linda Chavez is the author of the new book, "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics."
COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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Yet I can still discern that even the mob tends to have patriotic ties to the ol US of A, slide a container or two off onto an ill-tracked truck laden with consumables and easily marketable wares generally with an incentive for materialism,..., whereas our Arab brethren might more easily pass a dirty bomb or two through the terminal with an incentive to praise Allah while slaughtering infidels.
I find the former the lessor of two evils.
up
oh, that's just the Sopranos. Better the terrorists we know and love, especially Catholic terrotists, they're OK.
We can't is not an option.
ON THE WATERFRONT is fiction. Yes, it's an OLD movie, but it's "tame", compared to what the truth is. Go watch the movie.
Can't stop countries from trading elsewhere. It won't bephysical just a slowing in trade.
A lot of people only imagine that they know things about topics, because they've read FICTIONAL books about the topic and/or seen movies and T.V. shows. OTOH, people who have read newspaper articles, NONFICTION books, and possibly known about various topics and people IN REAL LIFE, know just how silly many statements made on FR really are. :-)
Did you see Brit Hume's show earlier? He had an EXPERT on, who really went into the whole P&O sale to BPW and what it REALLY meant and WHY it was GREAT for America, vis-a-vis FOREIGN PORTS such as Singapore and the Netherlands, etc.! Funnily enough, the security there, how ships OWNED BY THEM, and the fact that THEY would have paid the costs for modernization ( this is where the Longshoremen were having apoplexy, but which would have be terrific for US, comes in! ), and a lot of other things, which have NOT been brought up much, if at all, was a real eye opener.
The show is repeated at midnight EST, and I suggest that you see it.
Let's look at history, for examples which you either don't know anything about, or choose to ignore. Ever hear of Mussolini? Are you at all aware of who we, THE ALLIES, fought in WW II? Many "mad men" LOVED him and America be damned. Oh yeah, "patriotism" came into play; just for the wrong country.
Some longshoremen ARE patriots; some aren't.
The "dirty bomb"/ nuke fear, is that of a small child and bogeymen under the bed. It would be far easier to sneak a "dirty bomb into this country, across the Canadian border, than in a cargo ship!
It's not so much that they cannot recognize fact, as it is they REFUSE to accept any FACTS, because if they did so, then they would have been wrong all along.
That too.
There's likely some of that on the pro-xfer side too. Count me as one who had an adverse sensation about COSCO, but not about this deal. Not sure I'd go so far as the label "hollow" in either direction, but I think there is some amount of at least superficial inconsistency that ought to be acknowledged.
Yes; sadly.
Have you looked at the reaction here to COSCO's efforts to gain a hold in Long Beach? Some of that predated President Bush's election, but a good deal of it was after, and even well into 2003.
The expressed sentiment was strongly biased AGAINST that effort to gain a toe hold. Limbaugh justified a stance against by virtue of a shipment of automatic weapons, intercepted.
Anyway, I'm at peace with my personal atitude becuase I know the difference in my level of detail knowledge and level of commitment to the outcome between the two instances.
My only "ultimate" point is that (as usual) the discussion on FR is heavy on the mud side, and light on the informative side.
Which is why al-Qaeda would use an expendable asset who is searching for 72 virgins.
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