Two members of a Philadelphia Ironworkers union admitted
roles in 13 acts of sabotage and intimidation Monday on behalf of a group that
prosecutors say routinely damaged school, business, and even church
construction sites to pressure builders into hiring union workers.
Francis Sean O'Donnell and William Gillin, both 43, each
pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and arson during a hearing before
U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson. Theirs were the first of eight pleas
expected from members of Ironworkers Local 401 during the next two weeks.
"I am guilty of all of the charges presented by the
government," Gillin said moments after confessing to a list of crimes
including the December 2012 arson at a Quaker meetinghouse under construction
in Chestnut Hill.
That attack prompted louder calls from area builders to
crack down on what they described as Philadelphia's entrenched culture of union
intimidation and violent retribution.
Both O'Donnell and Gillin face potential sentences of
decades in prison at hearings scheduled for January.
Prosecutors would not say Monday whether either man had
agreed to testify against the union's top leaders, including its longtime head,
Joseph Dougherty, who is scheduled to take his case to trial in January.
But in court filings, they described the union Dougherty
ran as one in which violence served as more than just a negotiating tool - it
was ingrained into the structure of the organization.
Dubbed "nightwork" by members, arsons,
vandalism, and beatings delivered on picket lines were meant to cow contractors
who hired nonunion labor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Livermore wrote.
Ironworkers who took on such off-duty work for the union
were rewarded with plum assignments during regular working hours, and members
ran for leadership positions based on the acts of sabotage they could claim on
their resumés, according to the filings.
"Older or retired ironworkers often regaled younger
ironworkers with stories of fisticuffs, tearing down buildings erected by
nonunion members or damaging equipment belonging to nonunion contractors,"
Livermore wrote. "The most violent or more destructive ironworkers became
legends within the union."
For O'Donnell, who joined the local in 1989 two weeks
after graduating from high school, that mind-set was part of his family
history.
His father was a member of the local. His uncle, now a
codefendant, did a stint as an elected business agent charged with drumming up
jobs for union members.
In 2011, O'Donnell attained a similar post, and was put
in charge of looking for work at construction sites in portions of Delaware and
Chester Counties.
Like all the union's business agents, he was expected to
negotiate jobs for members. His negotiating tool of choice, prosecutors said,
was an eight-pound sledgehammer.
O'Donnell admitted Monday that from 2009 to 2013, he
either ordered or participated in 11 attacks on sites that included future
elementary schools, firehouses, and shopping centers.
He kept detailed notes on each incident and later read
them aloud at the union's executive meetings.
In one, seized by the FBI in a raid on the union's
offices this year, O'Donnell reported that the contractor building a school in
Sharon Hill had "run into another anchor bolt problem . . . thanks again
to the Shadow Gang."
Asked Monday why he was pleading guilty, O'Donnell
responded, "To show my kids to do the right thing. There's nothing wrong
with being honest."
Gillin's case, prosecutors said, demonstrates that
willingness to break the law was also required of the union's rank and file.
Facing economic pressures at home, Gillin began to notice
that only union members who participated in nightwork were selected by the
leadership for long-term jobs with opportunities for overtime, his plea
documents said.
That realization led him first to the Ironworkers picket
line outside the construction site of the Goldtex Apartments, at 12th and Wood
Streets, in the summer of 2012. He and his fellow members blocked contractors'
supply trucks, slashed tires, and laid spike strips across the site's entryways
in hope of halting the nonunion project.
Gillin received a similar call for his services when a
nonunion contractor secured a job building a new meetinghouse in Chestnut Hill.
On the night of Dec. 20, 2012, he and two fellow union members broke into the
site under the cover of a rainstorm.
Gillin poured gasoline over the construction crew's crane
and set it ablaze, while his accomplices cut the building's metal
infrastructure with an acetylene torch.
Congratulating each other on the attack two days later,
Gillin received a text from an accomplice that was later detailed in court
filings.
"T.H.U.G . . . The Helpful Union Guys," it
read.
Gillin responded: "We should shut r phones
off."
Source: Philly.com
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