A trial is set to begin Monday for Joseph Dougherty, 73,
the longtime business manager of the Ironworkers Local 401 union.
Prosecutors allege that Dougherty and the Ironworkers
engaged in racketeering, conspiracy, arson and extortion. They allegedly
threatened and sabotaged nonunion contractors and those that hired nonunion
workers. The Ironworkers are even accused of burning a Quaker meeting house
that was under construction by nonunion workers.
Dougherty made
more than $200,000 each year in the union post, but membership had slipped from
about 1,000 to 700, and jobs were getting harder to come by, prosecutors said.
"Many
ironworkers were unemployed for long stretches of time," Assistant U.S.
Attorney Robert Livermore wrote in the 81-page trial memo. "In response to
the union's financial crisis, Dougherty and his co-defendants ratcheted up the
level of violence against non-union contractors and other trade unions."
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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