Robert Fitch, Solidarity for
Sale,
Public Affairs, New York, NY
432 pages $28.50
Reviewed by James McNamara
AUD Research Director James McNamara reviews
Fitch’s analysis and critique of the US labor movement.
Robert Fitch's Solidarity
for Sale is a provocative and
timely account of how organized labor contributes to its shrinking size by a
congenital blindness to internal corruption. Subtitled "How Corruption
Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise," Fitch's
book unsparingly chronicles how all too many unions were created or taken over
by labor racketeers.
Numerous building and
construction trades, the Teamsters Union, and the Longshoreman's Union (ILA)
have been exposed for decades by the media and law enforcement, but with few
effective changes in their deep-rooted corrupt practices.
Corruption thrives in the
building trades where job referrals are controlled by unscrupulous officers.
For openers, a younger
Fitch, then employed by a progressive union, recalls being sent to deliver a
modest campaign contribution to a Brooklyn City Council candidate based in ILA
Local 1814. On arrival, Fitch was shocked to see "The Anthony Anastasio
Memorial Hall" emblazoned over the doorway. Anthony "Tough
Tony"'s brother Albert, boss of Murder, Inc. and founder of the Gambino
Crime Family, controlled the ILA Local 1814. Fortunately defeated, Lou
Valentino, recipient of the contribution, was serving simultaneously as the
union's political action director while also a secret Gambino crime family
member.
Bigger revelations
highlight "a diet of daily corruption longer than the menu at a Long
Island diner." District Council 37's sordid tale involves thirty
convictions by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's labor
racketeering unit. Yet there is still no support from AFSCME President Gerald
McEntee for the membet's right to directly elect the executive director and
other top leaders of DC 37. "One member, no vote" continues in full
force despite DC 37 dissidents' demands for union democracy.
Fitch finds much that is
admirable in the relationship of European unions with their members and the
involvement of the rank and file in union and political matters. Overseas
unions are strong and respected institutions that are not dominated by high
paid bureaucracies enriched by job patronage systems for sycophants, Union
corruption is rare, and members respect and involvement are correspondingly
higher than in the U.S. Their strong support for social legislation, especially
national health insurance, contrasts with the AFL-CIO Building Trades
Department's shameful opposition.
Compared to the reported
financial crimes of corporate CEOs and Wall Street insiders, union crooks may
seem to operate more on the scale of subway turnstile jumpers. Fitch's point is
that "corporate leaders are expected to act on the basis of pure
self-interest, whereas union leaders are supposed to check corporate greed and
not embody it."
Association for Union
Democracy www.uniondemocracy.org