The politically influential Duff family, at the center of a controversy involving $100 million in city-related contracts, runs a day-labor company that allegedly undermines members of the union the family also controls.
Through Windy City Labor Service, the Duffs have allegedly been supplying nonunion workers to liquor distributors even though the family also runs the Liquor and Wine Sales Representatives, Tire, Plastic and Allied Workers Union Local 3.
In recent interviews, homeless men and other laborers have told the Tribune that they were hired by Windy City to work in the liquor industry. For instance, James McCrae said two years ago he was unemployed and homeless when Windy City Labor sent him to one of the city’s main liquor distributors, where he helped load alcohol onto trucks for delivery to stores, among other tasks. “We’re basically muscle,” McCrae said.
And union officials representing truck drivers who deliver the liquor to stores said in interviews that Windy City laborers have been replacing virtually all of the Local 3 union workers who loaded trucks at Pacific Wine & Spirits in Chicago, one of the city’s major distributors of alcoholic beverages.
Former employees and industry insiders said the jobs provided by the temporary workers represent a conflict of interest for the Duff family, since day laborers are doing some of the same jobs normally handled by members of the union the Duffs control.
Legal experts said the liquor distributors’ use of temporary workers could be a violation of national labor laws if Local 3’s contracts require that only full-time union-represented workers be employed. Past contracts, dating back to the early 1980s have included such provisions, but the current contracts are not available for public review.
The Duff family, through its attorney, declined to comment, and an attorney for Local 3 didn’t return phone calls. The union had 1,387 members at the end of 1997, the most recent figures available.
The Tribune revealed Sunday that companies tied to the Duffs, including Windy City Maintenance, have made about $100 million from city-related business in the decade since Mayor Richard M. Daley has been in office. The family, which includes members who have been tied to organized crime, has raised money for the mayor’s campaigns and has provided workers to campaign for Daley and Daley-backed candidates.
The Duffs’ dealings with City Hall illustrate how the family has used political clout to further its business interests over the last decade, but the family can trace its power in organized labor back at least 40 years.
In 1960, John Duff Jr. was an official for the Retail Liquor Salesmens Local 162 when he testified on behalf of then mob-boss Anthony “Big Tuna” Accardo when Accardo was on trial.
Duff later became a vice president of the Allied Distillery and Wine Workers International Union and an official of the union’s Chicago affiliate, Local 3.
In 1982, Duff, 74, began serving 17 months in prison for embezzling union funds. His sons have run the union ever since.
Patrick Duff is Local 3’s $99,500-a-year president, and John Duff III is the $97,000-a-year secretary/treasurer, according to federal Labor Department records from 1998, the most recent year available. Duff’s third son, James, a former unpaid union vice president, was paid a total of $107,500 as an employee of one of the union’s pension funds in 1995 and 1996, federal records show.
John Duff III is facing internal union charges that he was a ghost payroller at the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. Following the charge, he resigned as an employee of the union, where he was paid $35,000 a year from 1990 to 1996.
A federal monitor hired to ferret out union corruption said in a report last year that Duff “performed no meaningful service for the (union) for a substantial period of his employment” and that Duff “knowingly associated with” associates of organized crime.
Federal authorities are investigating whether John Duff III’s alleged ghost payrolling represented an embezzlement of hotel union funds, according to federal sources.
The alleged conflict between the Duffs’ business and Local 3 was detailed as far back as 1990, in a federal lawsuit filed by James Williams, a former employee at Romano Brothers Beverage and onetime member of Local 3.
“(The union leaders) were in bed together with the company, saving the company a tremendous amount of money in insurance and overtime wages,” Williams said in an recent interview.
The lawsuit also questioned the role of Windy City Labor’s president, Patricia Green, who is married to John Duff Jr. The lawsuit alleged that Green used her maiden name to hide the interests of her sons, Patrick and John III, who allegedly ran the company.
Williams alleged in his lawsuit that the union failed to adequately represent him in a grievance against Romano Brothers, citing the Duffs’ business dealings with Romano as an example of an ongoing conflict of interest. A federal judge dismissed the case, ruling that the alleged conflict had no bearing on his dispute with the company.
Told about the Duffs’ business and union dealings, Mark Spognardi, an attorney at McBride Baker & Coles specializing in labor law, said, “If Windy City is controlled by union officials, it’s doing the exact opposite of what good unionism is. It would be like a doctor selling cigarettes.”
Officials at Judge & Dolph, Romano Brothers and Pacific Wine and Spirits didn’t return calls. An official at Union Beverage declined to comment.
