The International Longshoremen’s Association is in a bind. For the last two years the New York City-based union has been the target of a federal civil racketeering suit alleging a longstanding pattern of corruption that reached into the top suites. ILA officials, led by outgoing longtime President John Bowers, the indictment noted, knowingly ceded control of locals at New York, New Jersey and Miami ports to the Genovese and Gambino crime families. The union vigorously has denied all charges, and indeed recently requested that U.S. District Judge Ira Glasser dismiss the suit, which seeks the ouster of Bowers and other ILA officers and the placement of several union benefit funds under federal control. There’s an outside chance the union may get what it wants. Yet the reality of mobbed-up locals has been undeniable. Now the ILA, on the advice of its ethics counsel, has taken the dramatic step of taking over one of those unions.
