Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Del Monte to shift port cargo from Camden to Gloucester- Attack On ILA Longshore Workers

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20100828_Del_Monte_to_shift_port_cargo_from_Camden_to_Gloucester.html
Posted on Sat, Aug. 28, 2010

Del Monte to shift port cargo from Camden to Gloucester

By Linda Loyd

Inquirer Staff Writer

In a move that changes labor dynamics on the Delaware River, Del Monte Fresh Produce Co. is shifting 75 ships and a half-million tons of banana cargo annually out of Camden and south to privately owned Gloucester Terminals L.L.C., which employs less-costly labor.

The switch is seen as devastating to the International Longshoremen's Union, which says it will lose 200 to 300 jobs, or 400,000 ILA labor hours a year on the river.

Although Del Monte's lease does not expire with South Jersey Port Corp. until 2020, its labor agreement with Delaware River Stevedores, which employs ILA workers in Camden, expires at the end of this year.

Six weeks ago, Del Monte challenged DRS and the longshoremen's union to come up with about 25 percent, or roughly $5 million, in wage savings, said Robert Palaima, president of Delaware River Stevedores.

Del Monte also asked South Jersey Port Corp., which runs the Broadway and Beckett Street Terminals in Camden, to come up with changes.

Corruption Charges Expose Mob Control Of ILA Locals In New York, Newark

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/36556659.html

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Posted on Mon, Dec. 22, 2008

In court case, a view of N.J. mob

Documents suggest a hit man and boss who ran the waterfront while hiding in plain sight.

By George Anastasia

Inquirer Staff Writer

He's the quintessential New Jersey gangster, part Sonny Corleone, part Tony Soprano.

A suspect in two gangland murders, one dating to the 1970s, he spent more than 10 years on the run before being arrested on Manhattan's Upper West Side last year.

And all the while, federal authorities now say, he oversaw a mob crew that controlled the port of Newark, N.J., generating hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Genovese crime family.

The case against suspected hit man Michael Coppola, laid out in documents filed this month in federal court in Brooklyn, is a snapshot of how organized crime controls the 45,000-member International Longshoremen's Association and, by extension, the ports of New Jersey and New York, authorities say.

Fleshed out with transcripts from wiretapped conversations and the testimony of mob informants, it's On the Waterfront revisited.

By Kurt Richwerger

On April 19, the election of officers in the 450-member Longshoremen's Local 1588 in New Jersey --- the first since it came under federal court trusteeship --- brought into office an executive board and top leaders without mob ties. A group of eight reformers, running unopposed on a "Unity, Power, Respect" slate, take over a local union that, just six years ago, was called "corrupt from top to bottom" by Assistant U.S. Attorney V. Grady O'Malley.

After a round of indictments in 2002, a federal trustee was appointed by a U.S. District Court judge. Speaking of the days under mob control, Jorge Aguilar, a 19-year ILA veteran and newly elected Local
1588 Warehouse Vice President, told the Newark Star Ledger, "Every once in a while you'd find out somebody got assassinated ...the only copy of the contract was kept in the union office and you didn't want to ask for a copy." He said that since the trusteeship had been imposed in 2003, "You see more democracy and folks are more willing to speak."

Bennett Baumer writes in The Indypendent that "Local 1588 members greeted the government trusteeship with suspicion at first, though most agree it kept the mob away and allowed reformers to emerge." What is remarkable --- and encouraging --- about the outcome of this election is that it demonstrates that, with effective monitorship, a mobbed-up local union can be returned to the membership.