A federal judge in Manhattan has rejected a federal prosecutor's call to hold the carpenters' union in contempt, saying it had not violated a 1994 agreement intended to fight corruption in the union.þþThe United States attorney's office and many carpenters argued that the union had agreed to several important changes in a job referral system that improperly favored construction contractors. þþProsecutors asserted that a 1994 consent decree that the union signed with the government to help remove the influence of organized crime required it to seek a federal monitor's approval before making changes in the referral system. þþIn the 1990's, federal officials criticized the union for letting the Genovese crime family pick carpenters to put up and take down displays at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.þþBut in a decision last Friday, the judge, Charles S. Haight Jr. of United States District Court in Manhattan, ruled that the agreement did not require that changes in the job referral system be approved by the monitor because they are part of a collective bargaining agreement. The union, the New York District Council of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, negotiated those changes as part of its 2001 master contract covering 25,000 carpenters in New York. The judge refused to void the contract.þþAs part of a longstanding 50/50 rule, the union used to let a construction contractor choose half the carpenters on a project so long as those carpenters had worked for the contractor within the previous six months. The union designated the other half of the workers, taking them from an out-of-work list.þþ
Source: NY Times
