It looms on the Buffalo skyline, a 16-story tower of white stone that will some day be the city's new $12.9 million federal office building. For now, it stands as a monument to the power of the Buffalo Mafia. It is unfinished, one year behind schedule and at least two months from completion; the contractor's losses have mounted to $500,000 while 30 Government agencies wait to move in. Reason for the delays: the Mob in Buffalo has a chokehold on Local 210 of the International Hod Carriers, Building and Common Laborers' Union of America and, as a result, on the construction of any major building in the city. Past investigations of Local 210 have revealed that union officials held stock in a concrete company that contracted with builders in Buffalo. "Phantom workers" placed on contractors' payrolls were using their bogus employment as alibis when questioned by police. Kickbacks for the privilege of joining Local 210—nine out of ten Buffalo Mafiosi are members—were routine.
The Laborers' Union is a "family" enterprise of the Stefano Magaddino Mob. Its rolls are swelled by the membership of Mafia capos and soldiers; its offices are a haven of bookmakers and shy-locks. The organization's power to call slowdowns and walkouts, to control pilferage and absenteeism, and to enforce threats against contractors runs through the history of the new Government office building.
Trouble at the building site began almost as soon as ground was broken. The Government's general contractor, J.W. Bateson Co., of Dallas, started construction in the fall of 1968. When the work crew arrived from Local 210, a convicted bookie was on hand to serve as union foreman. The union official in charge of keeping time cards for the laborers was 300-lb. Sammy Lagattuta. His stout figure is a familiar one to police. He is at present awaiting trial on a federal charge of loan-sharking conspiracy.
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 complained the union was "stealing us blind."
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. The origin of the blaze was never determined.