Sunday, February 23, 2014

Not Shocking From a Historical Philadelphia Perspective

Karen Heller at the Philadelphia Inquirer comments on recent federal indictments of 10 Ironworkers Local 401 officials:
The Ironworkers were such busy, industrious goons. They allegedly destroyed sites and threatened developers who dared not hire them. Their specialties were not iron and steel, according to the recent federal indictment of 10 top Ironworker Local 401 officials, but extortion, arson, intimidation. You know, the works. Nothing was immune from these thugs' wrath, from a Quaker meeting house in Chestnut Hill to a toy store in King of Prussia.
The Ironworkers actually called themselves goons, so give them credit for candor, in an indictment that reads like lost pages from On the Waterfront. They were also self-described THUGs, as in "The Helpful Union Guys."
And, boy, were these Ironworkers helpful - at least to the union - allegedly brandishing their favored implements of destruction: acetylene torches, baseball bats, knives, crowbars, bolt cutters. In an act of creative accounting, they appeared to sometimes bill the union for tools and time. Members also used extortion to be hired for the long-suspected specialty of, as the feds put it, "unwanted, unnecessary and superfluous labor."
We might have thought the city was past this. The last big labor indictment involved the Roofers in 1987. This catalog of thuggery reads like a throwback to a seemingly bygone era, but several former federal investigators shrugged at the activities.
Wow.  You don't see that very much these days.  Not exactly a good way for the union crowd to attract sympathy.  I did think this note was interesting, in a confusing, Irish, labor, Democratic machine type of way:
Among the indicted is Joseph Dougherty, 72, the 1,010-member local's grand pooh-bah, its "business manager-financial secretary-treasurer," seemingly for life. (Joseph Dougherty is no relation to the electrical workers leader and Democratic political player John Dougherty.)
Ok, now that that is cleared up...here is a thought-provoking piece on the UAW's failure in the VW organizing drive.

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