Word: bateson
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Slow Motion. With such supervisors in charge, the building proceeded at a sluggish pace. One spot check of the building at 8 a.m. lasted 90 minutes and turned up not a single Local 210 laborer at work. Bateson foremen searched the building site in vain for certain workers whose time cards showed that they were on the job. The mystery was somewhat cleared up when FBI agents investigating another case discovered that many of the workers often wandered far away from the building site, tending their more lucrative bookmaking and loan-sharking activities. Pilferage was so widespread that Bateson officials...
When the laborers did deign to stay on the building site, their performance was desultory at best. Chided by a Bateson supervisor for not working, two Mafiosi claimed that the criticism had made them ill and walked off for the rest of the day. Others worked in slow motion. Attempts to dismiss the Mob supervisors resulted in more walkouts as well as threats. In February 1970, with the completion deadline six months away, Bateson officials tried a crackdown. Shortly afterward, a fire flared on the second floor of the building, causing $100,000 in damages before it was finally extinguished...
Straw Boss. Bateson received a six months' extension of its deadline, but by then it was obvious that what was needed was more practical assistance from Local 210. At the suggestion of Mafiosi already on the payroll, the contractor hired a "job coordinator"-Magaddino Capo John Cammillieri. In his sharply tailored suits, pointed-toe shoes, dark glasses and pinkie ring, Cammillieri was an unlikely looking straw boss for an office building construction gang. But his effect on the work force was immediate and far-reaching. For $7.10 an hour, Cammillieri did with one memo what Bateson foremen had tried...
...simply tacked a notice on the bulletin board at Bateson's Buffalo headquarters. In it he stated that the laborers' attendance record was a "disgrace." From then on, wrote Cammillieri, there was to be "no excuse" for missing work-not even illness. "If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work." Additionally, there would be no more leaves of absence for surgery: "We hired you as you are and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for. Anyone having an operation will be fired immediately." Trips...
...office workers must pick their way through mud and construction material to reach their still incomplete quarters. The role of the Mafia in the construction of the building-first in slowing down work, then in Cammillieri's speedup-is dismissed with studied ignorance by the contractor. Said Bateson Superintendent Paul Boyd: "Cammillieri kept Local 210 off my back. That alone was worth what we paid him. He did a job for us-but I don't know...