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Laborers' International Union of North America
The Laborers' International Union of North America(LIUNA), also commonly referred to as The Laborers' Union, is an organization which seeks to advance the interests and rights of its members, which include but are not limited to laborers in the construction industry. The term Laborer encompasses over one hundred different occupations. It has become the largest laborers' union in North America since it's inception in 1903 and represents one third of all laborers in the United States of America. It has sixty different District Councils throughout North America with over five thousand district offices.. LIUNA is one of the largest unions in the United States with over seven hundred thousand members in its ranks and covers both the U.S. and parts of Canada. It was originally named the International Hod Carriers and Building Laborers union but in 1965 it changed its name to one which encompassed laborers of all types and became known as the Laborer International Union of North America, to include the locals it held in Canada as well. The general president of LIUNA is Terrance M. O’Sullivan who was elected in 2001.

History
In 1903, Samuel Gompers announced the need to organize the laborer into an international union, and so began the push to start the International Hod Carriers and Building Laborers’ Union. On April 15, 1903, a delegation was held which established the international laborers union with 8,000 members and no representatives that resided on the western end of the Mississippi river. It began as an attempt to organize, what were believed to be, unskilled workers in the construction industry. The main surge of organization of laborers began on the west coast when the first local, local 61 which is now known as local 300, was established in Los Angeles, in California in 1903. The international union began accepting many different types of laborers including street pavers and cement mixers as well as those who worked with air compressed tools, but by 1995 encompassed over one hundred different occupations. In 1906, wages for an average union laborer could reach up to $.23 per hour and $.25 the following year, and by 1920 LIUNA was striking for $6 a day. It has always been generally inclusive of all races and ethnicities, though African American workers were made to join separate locals early in its history. LIUNA fought to institute a pension fund among its ranks and did so by striking for over six weeks in 1962 and demanding ten cents for every hour go to the future welfare of retired laborers. In 1965 it changed its name from the International Hod Carriers and Common Building Laborers union to the Laborers International Union of North America. LIUNA was considered to be a union of mostly unskilled laborers until it began training and educating its members. In 1968, The Laborers-AGC Construction Skills Training Program was established and began training laborers in many aspects of the construction industry. A few of the classes offered were An Orientation to the Construction Craft Laborer and Foreman Preparedness, and all classes range from eight hours to eighty hours. Today, the laborers now hold the only accredited training facility in the nation and continue to educate their apprentice members in the English language, naturalization exam classes as well as skills needed on the job site.

Fight for Health and Welfare Fund
In 1962, LIUNA was the last international union without a health and welfare fund to support laborers once they retired. They had been influential in raising wages almost every year of their existence but had not established a pension fund for their members. The hod carriers and laborers were considered the lowest skilled workers on the construction site, and many contractors considered them unskilled and not deserving of a pension. Hod carriers were the laborers on job sites that basically carried bricks, mortar and concrete all over the site to other workers who needed the supplies. They were considered the powder monkeys of the construction site. The hod carriers and other laborers proved to be an overwhelming force that was needed on the job site when they decided to strike on May 1 1962 which left most of Construction in the Los Angeles area at a halt. The strike, which lasted fifty seven days and included an estimated thirty eight thousand workers who left their job sites, fought to set forth a new three year contract. This new contract would gain a seventy cent an hour increase in wages and would be divided into separate parts: forty cents would go to wage increases, five cents would go to the welfare contribution, fifteen cents would go toward a new vacation fund and ten cents would go to LIUNA’s first pension fund.

Training and Education for Members
LIUNA sought to not only gain benefits and wages for their workers, but also to train and educate their members in their craft to make them more resourceful and less expendable on the job site. The international laborers union already had a previous model in place that sought to meet the demand for a more skilled laborer by the group known as the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). As LIUNA grew it began to understand that training and education was vital to the importance of the laborer and partnered with the Associated Contractors of America in creating a new plan to further the training of these individuals which became known as the Laborers-AGC Construction Skills Training Program in 1968. This program offered many classes that sought to make the laborer a necessity on every construction site. The courses ranged from an orientation to the construction craft laborer, which lasted only eight hours, to a forty hour Foreman Preparedness courses. Still more extensive training was offered to laborers in the form of asphalt raking courses, trench protection and principles of pipe laying courses, concrete practice and procedures courses and practices and procedures of mason tending courses, all of which were eighty hour training sessions needed to work in these fields of labor. In total, thirty two million dollars were spent in the establishing of the new training program and its five facilities all over the United States of America.

Today, LIUNA holds the only accredited training facility where all of its trainers are certified. It is now used mostly as a training tool for apprentices and helps them gain the skills needed to become journeymen. The courses include an introduction to air compressed tools, asbestos and abatement removal and machine certification courses and various others. LIUNA also requires certain safety courses be taken before a laborer works on a certain job site. For example, asbestos and abatement removal safety courses must be completed at LIUNA facilities before beginning work in demolition.

These training facilities all over North America have allowed for the Laborer to no longer be considered a simple worker, but a skilled craftsman in the construction industry.

Accusations of Ties To Organized Crime
Many labor unions have been believed to be linked to members of organized crime families. The Laborers International Union of North America is not the only union to come under fire for its affiliation with the mob, but it has had events throughout its history which point to the influence that organized crime had on the union. Ties vary but most notably site representatives collecting dues and not reporting the collections was the widest known illegal action of labor leaders in the early twentieth century. However, larger names and union officials have been tried and charged with ties to organized crime families.

In 1981, Angelo Fosco was the president of the laborers international union and was indicted on allegations of receiving over $2 million dollars in kickbacks, in partnership with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Arthur A. Coia became the President of the Laborers International Union of North America in March of 1993 and was elected by the members. He had a very good relationship with the president at the time, Bill Clinton. They visited together many times and also sent each other gifts, like golf clubs. Though, Coia only held his office for one year when he was served in 1994 with a 212 page report with accusations of violating the federal racketeering law known as the RICO act. The federal government had not lost a single RICO case up until this point, gaining nineteen decisions in their favor. The Government sought to find and do away with organized crime ties in large and powerful organizations, and had removed several officials with ties to unions including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, The Longshoremen and LIUNA. The report served to Mr. Coia included charges of him being tied to the Cosa Nostra mob family along with accusations of receiving kickbacks from smaller companies in exchange for their voters influence in future elections. This was common influence tool used among large unions that were tied to organized crime families in order to elect officials of their favor. As the proceedings followed, the Laborers International Union and its leaders were to attend a two day hearing which would follow up with a judgment by the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary. As the committee finished its hearing, it decided to bring judgments down onto many figures at the top of the Laborers International Union of North America and forced many of them to resign. Arthur A. Coia, however, was not found guilty of the racketeering charges and was the first to beat the RICO charges brought on him by the federal government. Coia held his office as president of LIUNA and maintained his strong commitment to the union and its beliefs. Aside from the allegations brought on Coia, he was a major part in building the foundation for the Laborers International Union of North America for the twenty first century.