Another Memory Jolt

This week there was a story in the NY Times about the Schiavone Construction Company. It turns out they are still under the influence of “the mob.” The key word here about Sciavone is “still.” It is as if somehow over time the mob sort of goes away, then shows up again. Periodically we have Gangbusters like Tom Dewey or Rudy Guiliani who proudly make announcements such as, “these arrests will deal the death blow to organized crime in this city.” Horns and trumpets should accompany these declarations as they are meant to assure the public that the District Attorneys have once and for all rid us of the scourge of the mob.

Until Schiavone was sold to a Spanish conglomerate last year, it was headed by Raymond J. Donovan, who was Secretary of Labor in the Reagan Administration. In 1987 he was indicted for stealing 7.4 million dollars from a subway contract. He was finally acquitted of the charges, but in the course of the trial a key witness testified that the Schiavone Construction Company was part of the Genovese Crime family. The present indictment charges them with setting up ghost organizations that are supposedly owned and run by women as part of affirmative action on Federal Contracts. As I read this stuff I wondered if we will ever learn that the mob business will never ever go away as long as there are ready and willing corrupters.

In massive construction contracts, such as the new fresh water filtration plant that is being built 10 stories down in the bedrock under Van Courtlandt Park, the price is now figured at about 3 billion dollars having started at 660 million. Hows that you ask? Quite simple. Every truck load of waste from the project is to be dumped in New Jersey. And guess what. It costs the project an extra 40 bucks per truck to get “yard clearance” in Jersey. The price starts to escalate.

In the Reagan years I was at the Ford Foundation. My major responsibility at Ford was employment. That inevitably lead to regular meetings in the Labor Department. It was during Donovan’s term at Labor that he invited me to a meeting in Virginia on minority employment. Because of my concern regarding his ties to organized crime, I figured I better check with my bosses Mike Sviridoff and McGeorge Bundy as to the advisability of my attending. As I said to them,”We have got enough problems being accused of stirring up Blacks with our voter registration drives. I don’t think we needed to be seen as connected to the mob.” Bundy laughed and thought he would trust my judgement as to what I might commit us to. Anyhow off to the meeting I went.

I was used to fairly regular meetings with Labor Secretaries in the Johnson and Carter Administrations, but I was never given the reception I received from Mr. Donovan. He wanted to make sure I was satisfied with the accommodations, and assured me, emphasizing “if you needed anything, anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.” It seemed apparent to me that he was looking for the imprimatur of respectability from the Ford Foundation. And most likely more. It reminded me of my dealings with the Mafia in the Labor Movement, who also had a way of assuring someone who they wanted as a friend with, “If you need anything, just let me know.” I knew they weren’t just being polite.

After the meeting in Virginia I received my first Diploma from a government official simply for attending a meeting. Donovan couldn’t help being forever grateful that I even came to his meeting. My point of this story is simply to tell how corruption will never go away until there are no corruptees to accept the payoffs from the corrupters. Those will only be people who are motivated by something else besides making money. How do we achieve that?