THE owner of a northwest Chicago suburban construction company, Schaumburg, has been charged with fraud for allegedly underpaying union employees and underfunding their pensions.
Joseph Lampignano, 43, of Itasca, is charged with one count of mail fraud, according to a statement from the US attorney’s office. Prosecutors said Lampignano, co-owner of A Lamp Concrete Contractors Inc., assigned workers to government-funded road construction projects without paying them the union-negotiated wage rate.
He is accused of underpaying workers by more than $1.5 million between 2008 and 2013. Over the same period, Lampignano submitted false reports to the union’s pension and welfare funds which underreported the number of hours some of the labourers worked, according to prosecutors.
These reports lowered the amount of contributions the company was required to make to the funds by more than $1 million. Lampignano and his superintendent, 46-year-old Giovanni ‘John’ Traversa of Bartlett, are also accused of making employees repay the company part of the settlements they received from a civil lawsuit over unpaid wages, the US attorney’s office said.
The company paid $545,357 to 24 employees as part of a lawsuit brought by the union, prosecutors said. Prosecutors claim Lampignano and Traversa used their positions of authority to solicit kickbacks totalling at least $64,000 from employees who received settlement funds.
The fraud charge against Lampignano is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said. Traversa was also charged with one count of making false statements to the FBI and the US labour department’s inspector general’s office, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. Both men are scheduled to be arraigned before US District Judge Sara L. Ellis.
• Meanwhile, for the first time since the announcement last summer of 600 job cuts at the Nabisco plant on Chicago’s Southwest Side, Mondelez International CEO Irene Rosenfeld fielded questions directly from some of those affected by the layoffs at the company’s annual meeting in suburban Lincolnshire on Wednesday.
Deerfield-based Mondelez, a $30 billion global snack food company known for brands like Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers, has worked to increase its profit margins by cutting costs and improving supply chain efficiency.
In Chicago, that means about half of the 1,200 workers at the longtime Oreo plant will be laid off as production is shifted to newer facilities in Mexico. The decision sparked an ongoing public dispute between Mondelez and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, which represents the majority of those being laid off. The two sides are also still involved in stalled contract negotiations.
Outside the meeting last Wednesday morning, dozens of protesters raucously chanted their discontent. Inside, an orderly back-and-forth between Rosenfeld and a handful of laid off employees and their advocates, dominated the conversation. Rosenfeld defended moving the jobs to Mexico as a difficult but necessary business decision for competing in a global economy.
Wearing a blue Oreo cookie shirt, Michael Smith stepped to the microphone and addressed the person responsible for cutting his job. Smith, 59, worked at the longtime bakery for about four and a half years before being laid off in March.
‘We implore you to please reverse course on the Mexico decision that disenfranchises so many of us here in Chicago,’ Smith said to Rosenfeld. Rosenfeld responded that ‘we did make a decision that was predicated on our ability to make quality products at an affordable price for our consumers’.
Several of the comments and questions aimed at Rosenfeld highlighted her pay and bonuses, which she defended as being largely performance based, juxtaposed against a decision to not make the $130 million investment necessary to upgrade the Chicago plant and keep jobs there.
Mondelez executives also have said moving the lines to Mexico – instead of upgrading the Chicago plant – saves the company about $46 million a year. Rosenfeld received a total compensation of $19.7 million in 2015, a decrease of 6.5% from $21 million in 2014, according to recent proxy filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Brandon Rees, AFL-CIO deputy director, was at the meeting to support a shareholder proposal for recyclable packaging, which failed. In his remarks, Rees also jumped on Mondelez’s decision to ‘offshore jobs to Mexico’ as an example of the company being ‘penny wise and pound foolish’. The AFL-CIO has joined the baker’s union in a boycott of Mexico-made Mondelez products.
• More than 8,000 Illinois trade unionists and their families rallied in Springfield on Wednesday to call on Governor Bruce Rauner and his allies to drop their extreme demands and make Illinois work for all.
‘Governor Rauner doesn’t care about the hundreds of thousands of people – seniors, students, parents, veterans – who are struggling as never before because of his destructive policies – policies focused first and foremost on destroying the labour movement in our state,’ said Illinois Working Together (IWT) Co-Chair and Illinois AFL-CIO President Michael Carrigan.
‘All of this devastation is due to one man – a mega-millionaire who thinks his huge wealth means he should be able to impose his will on an entire state. Governor Rauner is determined to ram through his extreme and harmful agenda – and he doesn’t care about how much damage he inflicts in the process.’
With the state approaching a full year without a budget, working families in Illinois are feeling the effects of Governor Rauner’s refusal to abandon his toxic agenda. Public colleges and universities statewide have announced layoffs, social service agencies are shutting down, construction projects have stalled, and businesses are owed billions for goods and services provided to the state. Rauner is pushing policies that will lower the quality of life for all Illinoisans, especially those who depend on a weekly paycheck.
‘The Turnaround Agenda would diminish wages, destroy worker protections, and completely wipe out what is left of the middle class here in Illinois. Governor Rauner, we are calling on you to end the devastating crisis you created,’ said IWT Co-Chair and Chicago Federation of Labour President Jorge Ramirez. It’s time to create an Illinois that works for all – for our students, seniors, state employees, tradesmen and women, and all workers struggling to provide for their families.’
Speakers at the rally included everyday Illinoisans who are already suffering the consequences of the Rauner agenda, including students, seniors, tradesmen and women, and state employees.
‘Every day I see first-hand the harm the governor is causing,’ said JoAnn Washington-Murry, a Child Welfare Specialist from Chicago. ‘Because the Governor is holding the budget hostage, treatment programmes have had to scale back or shut down. That hurts children and families, because if parents can’t get help to turn their lives around, my only choice is to keep that child in foster care.’
‘If we didn’t have a strong workers’ compensation law in Illinois, my family and I would have lost everything,’ said construction worker Amy Fasig, who was severely injured on the job in 2012. ‘We would have been responsible for millions in medical bills. If we let wealthy politicians and huge corporations lead Illinois in a race to the bottom, workers and their families will lose even more.’
‘Because of Governor Rauner – and his friends in the General Assembly – we’ve seen cuts at schools all over,’ said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign student Stephanie Skora. ‘Chicago State, Eastern, Western, Urbana-Champaign, and others are cutting staff and programmes – jeopardising my future and the future of my peers.’
Illinois Working Together is a coalition defending all working families from anti-worker attacks. Illinois Working Together believes that Governor Rauner’s wrong priorities seek to harm hardworking families and communities throughout Illinois while protecting the wealthiest.