Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry: Final Report to Governor Mario M. Cuomo

New York State Organized Crime Task Force, Ronald Goldstock

NYU Press, 1991 - Business & Economics - 285 pages

This book, Corruption and Racketeering In The New York City Construction Industry: The Final Report of the New York State Organized Task Force, lays out in close and compelling detail the intricate patterns of currupt activities and relationships that for the better part of a century have characterized business as usual in the construction industry in America's largest metropolis.
The book is the end product of more than five years' worth of investigation, prosecutions, and research by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, a unique agency that has set a national example for marrying law enforcement initiatives with comprehensive and exhausting analysis of the causes and dynamics of industrial racketeering. This is a sobering analysis of the construction industry , one of New York City's largest industries, and in effect, one of the city's most significant economic sectors. In any given year during the 1980s, billions of dollars of construction were being carried out at any one time. The industry regularly employs more than 100,000 people in the city, involving some one hundred union locals and many hundreds of general and specialty contractors as well as a large number of architects, engineers, and materials suppliers. The book shows—in great and provocative detail—how organized extortion, bribery illegal cartels, and bid rigging characterize construction in the city. The basis for much of this crim is labor racketeering, controlled or orchestrated by organized crime. It reveals how this world of corruption affects not only the private sector but the city's vast public works program, and it spells out the ways in which both organized crime and official corruption each sustain the dynamics of ongoing criminality.
Wrong-doing on a massive scale is documented at length. But this book is more than a recitation of extensive and systematic criminality. The book recommends a number of plausible options for genuine reform. Necessarily these are profound and radical solutions, but everyone who reads this book will conclude that only profound and radical solutions could hope to solve such an entrenched and intractable crime problem.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Chapter 1A Catalog of Corruption and Racketeering: 13
• Chapter 2Analysis of Why Racketeering and Corruption: 45
• Characteristics of the Collective Bargaining Process: 53
• Racketeering Potential in the Industry: 61
• Chapter 3How Racketeers Have Exploited and Rationalized: 73
• Cosa Nostras Influence in Construction Unions: 79
• Cosa Nostras Exploitation of the Industry: 85
• Implications of Organized Crime Racketeering: 94
• Chapter 4Official Corruption: 101
• Chapter 5Fraud in Public Construction: 125
• A Comprehensive CrimeControl: 155
• Chapter 7Attacking Labor Racketeering: 175
• Chapter 8Attacking Corporate Racketeering: 201
• Why Corporate Racketeering Thrives in: 204
• Chapter 9Attacking Official Corruption: 227
• Chapter 10Attacking Fraud Waste and Abuse: 251
• Epilogue: 275
• Past and Projected Capital Commitments: 280

Bibliographic information

• Title: Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry: Final Report to Governor Mario M. Cuomo
• Authors: New York State Organized Crime Task Force, Ronald Goldstock
• Contributors: New York (State). Governor (1983-1994 : Cuomo), Construction Industry Project (N.Y.)
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: NYU Press, 1991
• ISBN: 0814730345, 9780814730348
• Length: 285 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Industries / Construction; Business & Economics / Labor / Unions; Law / Construction; Law / Criminal Law / General; Political Science / Corruption & Misconduct; Social Science / Criminology; Social Science / General; True Crime / General; True Crime / Organized Crime