A large body of information shows that the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) union, whose leader rejected 50% raises and threatened to “cripple” the United States unless greater demands were met, has pervasive and enduring ties to the Mafia.
Just a few years ago, the union responded to anti-mob investigations by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor by successfully lobbying New Jersey politicians to neuter the oversight body, despite uncertainty of whether that was even legal.
The Waterfront Commission was formed in the 1950s to police mob activity at shipping ports, and in recent years, the International Longshoremen’s Union argued it should be abolished because it slowed down hiring and was no longer necessary. But a Daily Wire review of the Commission’s recent annual reports shows that the hiring holdup was because it found that nearly 1 in 5 of the union’s proposed hires were connected to the Mafia, and 1 in 3 had other ethical barriers to employment.
The union often steers what they call “special packages” to mobsters, giving them pay of up to $500,000 for largely no-show work. These “special packages” have only grown in recent years, according to Commission reports. In 2020, 18 port workers made salaries more than $450,000, 41 made salaries of $400,000 to $450,000, and 82 made $350,000 to $400,000.
“Today, every terminal within the Port still has special compensation packages given to certain ILA longshore workers, the majority of whom are white males connected to organized crime figures or union leadership. Based on the industry’s reported figures, the Commission has again identified over 590 individuals who collectively received over $147.6 million dollars last year in outsized salaries, or for hours they never worked,” the Commission found.
Two decades ago, current ILA boss Harold Daggett was acquitted of racketeering in a trial related to mafia ties in which co-defendant, alleged Genovese capo Larry Ricci, disappeared during the trial and was found dead in the trunk of a car.
Last month, Daggett said if his demands were not met, including a ban on automation and raises of 60% to 80%, “I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means.” Shipping companies on Thursday folded to many of the union’s demands after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sided with the union, putting a quick “tentative” end to a strike — at least until after the election.
General Foreman Paul Moe, Sr. was convicted in 2017 of wire fraud for collecting nearly $500,000 in pay while showing up as little as eight hours a week. But instead of disavowing him, others in the union seemed to go to great lengths to continue sending money to his family.
“Just one week after Moe’s conviction, the NYSA-ILA Employee Benefit Funds contacted his wife – a high school graduate who had not been employed for 47 years – and gave her a newly-created $70,000 a year job which had never been advertised and for which she had never applied. The very same week that Moe was arrested, the industry submitted his grandson to be a longshoreman. Incredibly, citing contrived dire labor shortages – the industry actually enlisted the unwitting assistance of the New Jersey Governor’s office in efforts to get Moe’s grandson through the hiring system,” the Commission found.
Longshoreman Peter Boragi made more than $350,000 a year, purportedly working 25 hours a day in some days. The lucrative, union-blessed pay may have had to do with mob ties: Boragi submitted a character letter to the judge on behalf of Louis Romeo, a Colombo crime family associate, and visited him in prison. The Commission said that in one of its hearings, one of the defense’s own witnesses conceded that “the mob has exercised its control of the docks by determining who get work, who gets which position, and who gets overtime.”
In another case, Genovese family soldier and former longshoreman Stephen Depiro was sent to prison for forcing union workers to turn over Christmas bonuses to the Mafia. After that, the union kept referring relatives of Depiro for jobs. Checker Dock Boss Patrick Cicalese, who was paid a $487,000 a year “special package,” surrendered his employment after wiretaps picked up conversations between him and Depiro, as well as Depiro’s girlfriend.
The Commission’s 2019 report said the mafia problem was only getting worse, with an “increased number of mob-connected union referrals this year,” including “members of the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese, Bonanno, and Bruno-Scarfo organized crime families.”
Gambino associate Anthony Pansini II pleaded guilty to exerting “control over the Brooklyn and Staten Island piers and, in particular, over International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO (ILA) Local 1814 in a conspiracy to control the awarding of union jobs.” The union might have claimed that Pansini was a bad apple who was victimizing the union without its knowledge—except that after Pansini was busted and the union nominally put him on a list of barred individuals, the Local President “sponsored Pansini’s son, Anthony D. Pansini III, to be a longshoreman. He was allowed to ‘jump the line,’ and was referred by the union for employment ahead of 40 other prequalified union candidates.”
One of the Commission’s main roles was to vet new hires proposed by the union before giving them the greenlight. Many of the interviewees seemed to adopt the Mafia ethic against “rats” in these interviews. For example, Pansini III claimed to be unaware of his father’s mob ties, as well as those of other associates, despite them being widely publicized. The union president who tried to get him on the payroll, meanwhile, claimed that he didn’t realize Pansini III was the son of his disgraced predecessor.
A former president of ILA Local 1235, Thomas Leonardis, was also a Genovese mafia family associate, and was convicted of collecting tribute payments to the mob from union members “based on actual and threatened force.” The Commission found that records showed that after that, Leonardis and another mobster were in contact, from prison, with longshoreman Nicholas Atria.
The now-defunct Commission’s papers are replete with specific documentation of the mob’s penetration of the waterfront and the ILA. For example, the union attempted to put on the waterfront’s payroll Michielangelo Palumbo, who was tied to alleged mobsters including “Frankie Jupiter” Martini, who convicted of RICO, and another convicted of conspiracy to commit arson.
One requested hire was a felon who struck a victim in the head with a baseball bat and whose uncle was a “made man.” Yet another lived at the home of, and shared a credit card with, a Colombo family soldier convicted of racketeering.
The Commission also sometimes removed longshoremen from the waterfront after they were hired because of mob ties. Longshoreman Vito Lavignani surrendered his job following charges of organized crime associations and stealing a police officer’s phone. Lavignani claimed that he didn’t know his associate “Tough Tony” Federici was a capo with the Genovese crime family, and that his associate “Mickey the Leach” Generoso was a mob underboss convicted of racketeering.
Another waterfront worker was Joseph Ferdico, who for seven years worked for Anthony Calabrese, a convicted racketeer and Bonanno soldier. In April 2019, a port warehouseman was suspended for possessing an improvised explosive device.
Access to international ports allows for drug and human trafficking. In February 2019, $77 million of cocaine was seized at the port. One man charged with promoting prostitution following a Waterfront Commission investigation “claimed to have ‘extradited’ women from Colombia to work in his brothels.”
Union “checkers” can have enormous salaries and potential for abuse. Checker John Riccobono was removed from the ports after the Commission found that he attended crew dinners where the Gambino crime family discussed business, and communicated with Gambino capo “Sonny” Juliano in prison.
Andrew Marano Jr.’s referral to work as a checker was blocked by the Commission after claiming he was “completely unaware” that his girlfriend’s father, “Charlie Tuna” Giustra, was in the mafia, despite having dinner with him the night before he went to prison.
In September 2019, former longshoremen were sentenced related to a loansharking and gambling scheme involving Genovese solder Vito Alberti. In 2020, longshoreman James Gunsherfksi Jr. was suspended after being arrested for assaulting a woman with a frying pan, and longshoreman Robert Florio was suspended after being arrested for allegedly possessing an illegal firearm with a filed-off serial number.
Efforts to discredit the Waterfront Commission’s work as unnecessary and overly restricted only seemed to make the opposite case: One of the people who sued claiming that the Commission’s background checks were slowing down hiring too much was the son of Pasquale “Pattty the Clubber” Falccetti, Sr., “a capo in the Genovese organized crime family who was convicted multiple times of extortion conspiracy and racketeering activities on the waterfront.”
Another who took to the courts to try to block the Commission’s actions was Frank Ferrera, a purported maintenance man with a $355,000 “special package” who denied knowing anyone in the mob, but who was associated with Falccetti, Genovese soldier “Little Carm” Della Cava, and Andrew Gigante, the son of former Genovese boss Vincent “The Chin” Gigante.
“Expert testimony during the trial revealed that Gigante had served as a messenger between his father and Falcetti regarding ILA matters,” the Commission said, with a judge noting “the uncontroverted power over waterfront labor and industry exercised by the Genovese crime family.”
In 2017, the Commission bounced the application of Anthony Battaglia, who wanted to be a “maintenance man.” Battaglia is the son of “Sally Hot Dogs” Battaglia, a former Local 1181 president who was sent to prison for taking bribes. The younger Battaglia also had his own history at the center of labor and the mob.
New Jersey withdrew from the bistate Waterfront Commission, leaving only a significantly weaker New York version, following lobbying by the ILA. The Democrat legislature passed a bill to do so, but Republican Gov. Chris Christie intially vetoed it, saying nothing in the law permitted one state to unilaterally withdraw. But on his last day in office, he signed it. The courts went back and forth on whether the withdraw was legal or not, until the Supreme Court said it was.
