Vol. 79/No. 32      September 14, 2015

The prosecutor maintained Dougherty created a regime of “corrupt union practices and bullying tactics” intended to force nonunion contractors to hire union members. Dougherty’s attorney, Mark Cedrone, said he would appeal both the conviction and the sentence.

John Staggs, Socialist Workers Party candidate for City Council at-large, protested the conviction and draconian sentence — a virtual death sentence if carried to term — and joined rank-and-file Ironworkers picketing outside the hearing.

The government’s case was based on notorious RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) conspiracy laws, originally adopted in the name of combating the mafia, but widely used against unions.

The guilty verdict “is a monumental decision,” the Philadelphia Business Journal said. “Both locally and nationally, the decision could be the first in similar criminal cases federal prosecutors bring against labor unions and begin a wave of civil litigation against them as well.”

This government’s campaign has nothing to do with concern about corruption or thuggery in the unions. The employers are comfortable dealing with corrupt officials, since corruption is intrinsic to the nature of capitalism. And they have no qualms about violence, having spent decades unleashing goons, cops and government troops against strikers and protesters — and against toilers from Vietnam to the Dominican Republic. Their goal is to undermine and weaken the construction trades unions and the entire labor movement.

The deepening of the capitalist economic crisis in 2008 hit construction in the Philadelphia area hard. Membership in the 23 larger unions that constitute the Building and Construction Trades Council fell 11 percent. The bosses were determined that as the industry began to grow again, it would do so with a higher percentage of nonunion labor.

Now construction projects are booming. But instead of charting a course to organize the growing number of unorganized construction workers in Philadelphia and the region, the response of the union officials has been to seek closer relations with the bosses and deepen their reliance on the Democratic Party.

The carpenters, electricians and other unions take money from workers’ dues each month for a special fund to give to contractors who hire union labor.

Other construction unions have agreed to two-tier wages in the suburbs, where union construction is less prevalent.

Ryan Boyers, business manager of the 6,300-member Laborers District Council of Metropolitan Philadelphia, which is one of a number of construction unions voting on a new two-tier contract, said the renewed emphasis on joint labor-management “marketing” could reassure potential customers put off by news of criminal convictions of the union ironworkers.

“We absolutely envision going out on sales calls with the contractors,” he said.

Officials more like ‘business people’

In the Philadelphia area, union officials have tied the unions more closely to the Democratic Party. U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, a member of the Carpenters union, is chairperson of the Democratic Party. In New Jersey, Democrat Steve Sweeney, a vice president of the Ironworkers union, is president of the New Jersey Senate. He was installed by the Ironworkers International to run Ironworkers Local 401 after the local’s leaders were charged.

This means the workers have no independent voice from the very government parties that now crow about the possibilities of further use of the RICO laws against the unions.

When class collaborationist methods don’t seem to be working, some officials respond with threats, intimidation and violent methods against nonunion contractors and each other in order to try to hold onto their dwindling dues base.

One small group in the Ironworkers called itself “The Helpful Union Guys” — T.H.U.G.S. for short. Some Ironworkers officials instigated a 2013 melee with members of the Carpenters union over jurisdiction.

Such methods hand the bosses and their government a weapon to use against our unions on a silver platter. As the legal assault on the Ironworkers played out, the so-called “friends” in the Democratic Party were nowhere to be seen. Many officials from other unions refused to offer support against the government indictments.

Government prosecutors, the FBI and other cop agencies had a field day, placing wiretaps on union officials and the union hall, under the guise of protecting the public from violence.

Workers need a different course — to build the unions, strengthen union democracy, organize the unorganized and champion the struggles of immigrant workers, who are a sizable proportion of nonunion construction workers superexploited by the bosses.

This course, along with solidarity with other battles — from the demand by fast-food and Walmart workers for $15 an hour and a union to the Black Lives Matter fight against police brutality — can increase the confidence and striking power of the union movement and win broad support.

On this basis the unions can take the lead in breaking with capitalist politics and parties and form a labor party based on the unions. As workers are transformed in struggle, gaining class consciousness and self-confidence, the road is open to fight to take governmental power away from the capitalists.
 
 
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Negotiations continue as contracts expire
Railroad Workers United calls Chicago rail safety conference
On the Picket Line
Wash. farmworkers expand fight for $15/hr, union
Why labor should oppose the imperialist war drive
 
 
 
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