An F.O.B. and the mob.

• Author: Mulligan, John E.
• Position: Laborer's International Union of North America Pres. Arthur A. Coia

With droopy eyes and an engaging, boyish smile, Arthur A. Coia presents himself as the new face of American labor. Coia is the general president of the Laborer's International Union of North America, the sprawling association of toxic waste handlers, oil riggers, and tunnel diggers. An unabashed supporter of free trade and "worker-management cooperation," Coia has successfully sold himself to journalists and politicians as an avatar of reform.

Also a staunch ally and financial supporter of President Clinton, Coia was an early backer of the new leadership at the once-listless AFL-CIO. His efforts to recruit low-paid, disenfranchised workers and to raise the profile of labor in the political arena are part of a trend that many say has reenergized organized labor. Meanwhile, Coia claims decisive victories in breaking labor's longstanding and notorious partnership with organized crime.

But the odd case of Arthur Coia illustrates a less sanguine picture of unions in 1996: one of lingering corruption, mob ties, and political influence--a volatile mix. On November 4, 1994, Coia was served with a 212-page draft racketeering complaint from the Justice Department's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. The document accused Coia of extortion, pilfering union funds, and ruthlessly crushing dissent in his union. Charging that die Laborers' International was under the mob's thumb, the Justice Department served notice of its intent to take over and throw Coia out.

But then something strange happened. The racketeering complaint was never filed. Instead, Coia hired Brendan V. Sullivan Jr.--Oliver North's Iran--Contra lawyer--plus a veteran of the Organized Crime section to fend off prosecutors. Negotiations lasted three months and involved the Criminal Division chief at Justice. The settlement, when it came, was an enormous victory for Coia. Not only did he keep his position atop the union, he also beat back reforms that would have brought real democracy to the Laborers and handed power to the rank and file.

Coia's story is one of a great failure of law enforcement, set in a rarified atmosphere of multi-million dollar campaign contributions and intimate John E. Mulligan is the Providence Journal-Bulletin's Washington bureau chief. Dean Starkman is chief of the newspaper's investigative team.

White House dinners. Federal law enforcement officials involved in the case, who wanted Coia removed but were overruled, grumble about a link between the toothless settlement and Coia's political friendship with the President. The few union members willing to speak out say they don't understand how Coia slipped through the Justice Department's net. "It's like everything [Coia] does is okay because he's a friend of Clinton," says Alex Corns, a hod carrier in Northern California.

Carl Stem, a spokesman for Attorney General Janet Reno, says any such suggestion is "moronic." But whatever the case, the membership is further from taking control of their union today than a year ago, and deep corruption persists. Bizarrely, Reno echoes Coia's boast that the agreement is a model for future racket-busting, part of a trend toward self-regulation. In reality, prosecutors have farmed out the task of mob-busting to a union boss they once charged as a racketeer.

Son of the Union

Arthur Coia's father, Arthur Ettore Coia, was die general secretary-treasurer of the Laborers' International, which represents 750,000 unskilled workers in dozens of fields. Almost single-handedly, he molded the union into a political force that still holds Providence city hall in its grip. The union doled out pensions to City Council members and hired Providence political figures and their relatives. The old man had the ear of Rhode Island governors and the late House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.

Coia's father also had other, sinister contacts. He had a relationship--casual, he insisted--with the legendary boss of New England organized crime, Raymond L.S. Patriarca, that dated to their youth in the 1930s. FBI wiretaps, planted in the early 1960s, crackled with the sound of Patriarca meddling in everything from Laborers elections to decisions on who got kickbacks on union coffee machines. "Hit them, break legs to get things your way," Patriarca was overheard saying.

According to Ronald M. Fino, a Laborers executive turned government informant, the elder Coia reported regularly to mobsters around the country: the Chicago Syndicate, the Todaro family of Buffalo, and the Gambino and Genovese families of New York. Fino says Coia's father also confided that he took kickbacks and bribes, and used training funds as open-ended expense accounts.

The younger Coia followed his father into the union and, by his mid twenties, was the chief of the Rhode Island Laborers. In 1981, Coia, his father, and Patriarca were indicted for racketeering and taking bribes from an insurance swindler who had been the younger Coia's law client. The case never...