Mobsters, Unions, and Feds: The Mafia and the American Labor Movement

12. Evaluating Civil RICO

12 Evaluating Civil RICO Furthermore, it can be argued that the long-term effect of this type of RICO suit may be to decrease the overall level of democracy in the labor movement. A proliferation of RICO trusteeships could foster a siege mentality among members of organized labor...This siege mentality phenomenon underscores the importance of the judiciary clearly articulating the reasons and standards for imposing a trustee. Only by making clear to union members that corruption and not organized labor is the target of the RICO litigation can the government and the courts avoid exacerbating the very problem they seek to correct. —Professor Clyde Summers, University of Pennsylvania Law School, at http://www.ipsn.org/court_cases/ union_receiverships_under_rico.htm Where you can identify individual criminal conduct, it should be investigated and punished severely. But where it has gone on for so many years and it has become so much a part of the fabric of the organization that you are dealing with, civil RICO represents a drastic, but nonetheless often necessary solution. —Benito Romano, U.S. Attorney, SDNY, Hearings before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, 101st Cong., 1st sess., April 4, 1989 Evaluating the success of RICO union trusteeships is essential, but extremely complex. It is incredible that more than twenty years of civil RICO litigation against racketeer-ridden unions has been conducted without any evaluation whatsoever. Not a single conference or workshop has ever been convened. Successes and failures have never been 238 identified, much less documented or analyzed. All U.S. attorneys considering civil RICO union suits have had to begin from scratch or with only vague ideas as to what kind of relief to ask for. They have no record to guide them in anticipating or addressing posttrial or postsettlement problems of organizational reform. Evaluation questions abound. At what point in the remedial process is an evaluation appropriate? If the life of the trusteeship has been extended, should evaluation similarly be delayed? In the event that the trusteeship was established for an indefinite term, should evaluation await the trusteeship’s termination, no matter how long that takes?* Ideally, a trusteeship should be evaluated at several points in time. We would like to know, for example, what progress has been made after the first two years, and then after five years, if the trusteeship lasts that long. (Indeed, this is essential so that midtrusteeship corrections can be made.) We should also like to know what the situation looks like several years after the trusteeship’s termination. Did the union revert to its pretrusteeship condition? Is it now a democratic union accountable to the membership? The conceptual problems are matched by the problems involved in obtaining accurate empirical evidence on which to make an informed judgment about successes and failures. How can an evaluator assess the status of organized crime’s influence on union affairs? Dissidents may believe that new union officers are corrupt. They can hardly be blamed for being suspicious, but they may be incorrect. Developing reliable informants is a major challenge for investigators and takes a great deal of time, energy, and resources. If FBI and DOL agents have remained on the case, they may have informants who can provide accurate information about the current relationship between organized crime and the union. Unfortunately, the FBI and DOL agents may have moved on to EVALUATING CIVIL RICO 239 * Another concern is that it may not be obvious when a trusteeship has ended. In a number of cases, when the original trusteeship ended, the judge maintained the court’s jurisdiction and continued monitoring through a new arrangement. For example, in the Mason Tenders District Council case, after the expiration of the trusteeship, a “supplemental ” consent decree was entered into in January 1999 that provided that the trustee, Lawrence Pedowitz, would act as a “Review Monitor” for an additional thirty-six months, with power to apply to the Court for restoration of his trustee powers if he concluded the union was being run corruptly. United States v. Mason Tenders District Council of Greater New York, 1994 WL 742637 (S.D.N.Y. 1994); interview with Lawrence Pedowitz (Nov. 2002). other cases or, if still involved, lack accurate information about new of- ficials. Even if the investigators have or think they have accurate information , they are likely to be holding it for future prosecutions and therefore be...