Volume 45 Number 2262 Wednesday, January 26, 2000	Page 1313
ISSN 1523-5688
Lead Report
Laborers LIUNA, Justice Approve New Agreement Continuing Reform Program Until 2006

The Department of Justice and the Laborers' International Union of North America Jan. 20 announced an agreement that will end government oversight of internal reforms in the union by 2006.

Under the new agreement, the union will continue over a six-year period what the Justice Department termed its "anti-corruption, pro-democracy reforms" that began in 1995 under the first LIUNA-Justice oversight agreement.

Justice announced the agreement at a press briefing in Washington, D.C., while LIUNA issued a separate announcement.

James K. Robinson, assistant attorney general for the criminal division at Justice, told reporters: "It is my hope that this reform program may set an example that more can be achieved through cooperation than through conflict. Today's news indicates that the resolution of often difficult issues does not necessitate hostility and court action."

"This agreement is a clear acknowledgment by the government that our union's innovative internal reforms have been effective in ridding the influence of organize crime and corruption, and in building a union that is more open and responsive to its members," LIUNA President Terence O'Sullivan said in a Jan. 20 statement.

Robert Luskin, the in-house prosecutor who has been responsible for prosecution of disciplinary actions and trusteeships under the prior agreement, was upbeat in assessing LIUNA's reform efforts. "In the five years since these reform programs were first adopted, LIUNA has made extraordinary strides in eliminating the influence of organized crime and corruption," he said.


Removes Threat of Takeover by DOJ
Unlike previous agreements, the new agreement removes the threat of Justice imposing the terms of a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act consent decree that previously allowed Justice to place the union under federal court receivership if the pace and extent of reform did not meet department expectations.

In exchange, the union agreed to more than doubling the length of the previously negotiated reform program. Under the new agreement, Justice has the right to veto any major change in the existing reform program. The agreement guarantees independent oversight of the next two international union elections at the 2001 and 2006 conventions.

The new agreement replaces the one expiring Jan. 31, 2000, and is the second extension of the original oversight agreement that was implemented on Feb. 13, 1995. The original three-year oversight agreement allowed the union to root out corrupt practices through internal reforms. Under previous agreement, the department has retained the authority to impose a consent decree and appoint officers to take over the union's day-to-day operations if the union is not making what the department considers to be adequate progress toward reform and purging itself of organized crime influence.

The initial agreement was modified and extended for one year in January 1998, and again in January 1999.


Government Goals Being Achieved
Pleased with the pace and extent of the LIUNA cleanup, Robinson said the reform program has substantially achieved the government's goals of internal reform "with no litigation and at no expense to taxpayers."

Under the cooperative program, Robinson said LIUNA has adopted an ethical practices code and disciplinary procedures that, to date, have caused 226 individuals--127 of whom were alleged to have ties to organized crime--to leave the union because of expulsion resulting from disciplinary charges, retirement, or resignation.

LIUNA has imposed 40 trusteeships and "supervisions" of local unions for alleged ties to organized crime, financial mismanagement, or lack of democratic practices, he said. The trusteeships and supervisions have resulted in removal of approximately 200 officers as well as implementation of better financial management and greater democracy for local union members, Robinson said.

Robinson considered it significant that no one named in the department's original 212-page consent decree remains in office, as a result of the reform program. This includes Arthur A. Coia who announced his retirement last month as president of the union (45 CLR 1107, 12/8/99).

Robinson said LIUNA agreed to court-appointed officers in pockets of organized crime activity at the Mason Tenders District Council in New York City, the Chicago Laborers District Council, and LIUNA Local 210 in Buffalo.

Asked whether the department would be announcing the same new agreement if Coia had remained president of the union, Robinson did not respond directly. The agreement between LIUNA and the government "does not cover any individuals, including Mr. Coia," he said. Robinson did say, however, that there were "many reasons why the government felt it was appropriate to reach this agreement at this time" and that a "major development" was "significant changes in the leadership of LIUNA."

Asked about negotiations Justice may be having or has completed with directly with Coia regarding a possible plea agreement, Robinson said it would be "inappropriate for us to comment on actions the government might or might not take" regarding any individuals. He added, however, that there "is nothing in this agreement that would preclude the government from taking any action against any individual if such action was considered to be appropriate."

Michael Bearse, LIUNA's general counsel, said negotiations for the new agreement began before Coia decided to resign. "From outset, the tenor of the negotiations and goals were the same," he said. "This was process that had to do with the union as an institution and did not have anything to do with a particular person."

Luskin added that the negotiators "sat down looking at the merits to try to figure out if we were on the right track to an institutional solution to an institutional problem." According to Luskin, "everyone at table agreed that the reason for entering into the agreement was the right thing to do on the merits" and that Coia's status was not an issue.


Election Monitoring to Continue
An important improvement in LIUNA operations, according to Robinson, was the first direct secret-ballot election for international president and secretary-treasurer at the union's 1996 convention. He said the vote was the first contested election for a LIUNA presidency. The election, conducted under supervision of Stephen Goldberg, a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, cost the union $5.9 million, according to union reports.

Goldberg has been retained by the union to serve as the independent elections officer for the 2001 election, LIUNA said, and has agreed to a budget that is "significantly less" than the 1996-1997 budget. The supplemental election agreement states that $3.8 million has been budgeted for the 2001 election. A additional reserve of $600,000 is available if needed.

LIUNA said the new agreement allows delegates to the 2006 convention to change or modify reform programs so long as the general executive board has not solicited or supported such action. There is no provision for extension or renewal of the final agreement, the union said.


Negotiators' 'Shared Premises'
Michael Bearse, LIUNA's general counsel, and Luskin agreed that the union and Justice agreed on the terms of the new agreement with relative ease. In Bearse's view, LIUNA and Justice were "striving for the same goal: a union that is more free, more open, more democratic and which is firmly set on the path of reform that has been strictly followed for the past five years."

Luskin said the negotiations were "one of the most significant and, at the same time, one of the least contentious negotiations in which I have ever participated." The negotiations began with "the absolutely shared premises," he said, that organized crime "has no place in the union," that it is the union's obligation "to clean its own house."

According to Luskin, Justice was "happy enough about how this worked out that they hoped that in other appropriate circumstances this could serve as a model by which institutions with similar problems could adopt less intrusive ways of dealing with them."

With regard to the annual cost to the union of the reform program, Luskin said the "landscape" facing the reform program in 2000 and 2001 is "fundamentally different" than in 1995 and 1996. Since 1995, a contested election of international officers was conducted for the first time, more than 125 members and officers of the union who were members or associates or organized crime have been removed from the union, and local unions representing 68,000 members that were dominated by organized crime have been placed in trusteeship, he said.

Text of the agreement begins on page 1333.



By Brian Lockett

Copyright © 2000 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.