CLEANING UP THE CLC'S ACT

Reeling from an indictment of its longtime leader that includes charges that his $2.2 million worth of plundering included $185,000 from its own coffers, the AFL-CIO New York City Central Labor Council last week began trying to repair the damage to its operations and its reputation.

The suspension of President Brian McLaughlin following his indictment on 44 different counts by Federal prosecutors was inevitable. So was the decision by CLC board chairman Denis Hughes, who also heads the State AFL-CIO, to order a review of the CLC's governance, including its financial procedures.

Mr. Hughes last week said he believed that in the future, the CLC president should serve part-time, and the position should be rotated among labor leaders. One reason the alleged misdeeds of Mr. McLaughlin may have gone undetected internally for his entire 11-year tenure, according to the timeline given by the 186- page indictment, was that the job as presently constituted allowed him to accumulate too much power with virtually no controls.

That would explain the checks written by the CLC that, according to prosecutors, allowed Mr. McLaughlin to rip off a Queens Little League and commit what appears to be a violation of the city's Campaign Finance Law by using CLC checks to reimburse "donors" for checks they wrote to two City Council candidates. Even more so, it would explain how, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, a no-show job at the CLC could have been created without anyone questioning the payments to that individual.

The indictment charges that Mr. McLaughlin enlisted numerous employees to perform work for him and his family while they were getting paid by contractors. It indicates he was able to manage this in part by deploying four unidentified lieutenants who drew multiple salaries from organizations where he was in charge: from the CLC to one branch of Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; from his Queens Assembly office to his campaign committee.

Most labor leaders believed having a prominent union leader serve simultaneously as an elected official was an asset. This wasn't always the case, since there were times when labor's interests were not necessarily in sync with Mr. McLaughlin's political ambitions.

The allegations that he used the salaries of his multiple posts to build loyalty among his corrupt confederates further show the danger for empire-building if the CLC leader holds too much power.

Several CLC officials, even as they expressed chagrin about the alleged thievery and the damage it would do to labor's reputation, emphasized that the charges involved a single individual rather than a cabal of union leaders. Unfortunately, however, the CLC over the years has been home to more than a few corrupt unions, a matter about which it has seemed neutral, so long as those organizations made their dues payments.

That attitude produced twin ironies in the 1986 election for president of the CLC following the death of longtime leader Harry van Arsdale Jr. Victor Gotbaum, the then-leader of District Council 37, had his bid for the job short-circuited when it was discovered that two of his larger locals had failed to remain current on their CLC dues and their votes were nullified.

During his campaign Mr. Gotbaum sought to cut into the huge support that Harry's son, Tom van Arsdale, had among the trades unions by appealing for help to William Cutolo. Mr. Cutolo had just a few hundred bakery and confectionary workers in his union; his influence stretched beyond his membership numbers, however, because he was a comer in the Colombo Crime Family. He did not deliver for Mr. Gotbaum, however, and seven years ago Mr. Cutolo, known as Wild Bill, disappeared from his union job and all other business, believed to be the casualty of an internal crime family war.

Fifteen years ago, a prominent official of the CLC, who is still active there, complained to a newspaper publisher about columns that had appeared criticizing two presidents of the Carpenters union and the head of the building service workers union. Federal investigators had identified the Carpenters union officials as associates of the Gambino and Genovese families, respectively, and the building workers union leader, the thuggish Gus Bevona, would later be identified as a Genovese associate. Why in the world would a ranking official in the city labor movement be protesting negative references to such people?

If the CLC is going to redeem its reputation, it can't stop with a few internal controls. It has to take stronger steps to indicate it is not blind when it comes to criminal activity by its members.

A good place to start would be Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union. Over the past two months, two officials of the union have pleaded guilty in a labor-racketeering case, and Matty "The Horse" Ianniello, identified by the Federal Government as one of the leaders of the Genovese family, has admitted to exerting control over the local. Local 1181's international inexplicably has yet to act; perhaps it is waiting for the criminal conviction of the local's president, Sal Battaglia, who goes on trial in three weeks.

Mr. Ianniello's guilty plea by itself is proof of Local 1181's corruption, and should be reason enough for the CLC to expel the local from its ranks until it is operating under new, honest leadership. That is the kind of action needed if the CLC wants send a clear signal of an absolute intolerance for corruption.

 

Editorial RSS feed