Week of September 22, 1996

by F.R. Duplantier

Why did the Clinton Justice Department go so easy on a labor union with acknowledged ties to organized crime?

"An agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and an allegedly crime-ridden labor union is being scrutinized in Congress because of allegations that political considerations may have led the government to adopt a lenient stance toward the union," reports Kenneth Weinstein of the Heritage Foundation. "One aspect of the relations between the Clinton Administration and the Laborers' International Union of North America which merits particular examination," says Weinstein, "is the string of federal grants that have continued to subsidize LIUNA even as government investigators were uncovering evidence of organized criminal influence in the union."

Weinstein points out that "labor unions have been among the major beneficiaries of federal largesse, receiving literally billions of dollars for educational, training, and construction programs. The maze of federal grants to unions in areas ranging from job-training to AIDS education is so vast, and public disclosure so limited, that a precise figure is unavailable." Weinstein reports that the AFL-CIO continues to receive federal grants even though the union has "earmarked $35 million to defeat conservative members of the 104th Congress."

Weinstein concedes that "any group should be free to pursue legitimate political aims," but insists that labor unions have two unfair advantages: "federal grant subsidies and the ability to force workers to subsidize political efforts with which many union members disagree. Both of these privileges allow organized labor to use dollars earned coercively -- either from taxpayers through federal grants or from union members through mandatory dues payments -- to support a narrow ideological agenda."

Weinstein opposes federal funding for "politically active groups" and expresses dismay over "the lack of accountability in the federal grants process." In 1994, the same year that LIUNA "received more than $11 million in federal grant money," its political action committee "donated over $1 million to Democratic Party congressional candidates. Whether federal grant dollars effectively subsidized political activity is a legitimate subject of inquiry," says Weinstein, "but the grants to LIUNA raise an even more significant question: Why did LIUNA continue to receive millions in federal grant dollars when it had been singled out for a decade as probably infiltrated by organized crime?"

Weinstein urges Congress to "end the corruption of the federal grants process." He recommends that bureaucratic grantmakers be required to "testify about their knowledge of allegations of criminal infiltration of LIUNA." He argues that "organizations whose officers have records of criminal wrongdoing" should be prohibited from receiving federal grants, that restrictions on lobbying by federal grantees should be broadened, and that LIUNA's handling of federal grants should be investigated by the General Accounting Office. "It is bad enough that mandatory dues from union members are used to pay for corruption and political activities," says Weinstein. "Taxpayers should not be forced to pay as well."

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