‘Normally Illegal’ Threats Legal For Big Labor

Recorded Evidence of Extortion Not Enough to Convict Union Thug

As fellow members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 98, Greg Gibson, a project manager during the 2020 construction of a South Philly casino, and Greg Fiocca, the nephew of then-Local 98 Business Manager John Dougherty, were theoretically “brothers.” 

But when he heard an angry Mr. Fiocca was headed to his construction trailer that August 19, Mr. Gibson anticipated a less-than-fraternal encounter.

He prudently flipped on his phone’s audio recording before Mr. Fiocca, an electrician and a union shop steward, arrived. 

The nearly 40-minute tape made by Mr. Gibson features, in the words of Philadelphia Inquirer journalists Jeremy Roebuck and Oona Goodin-Smith, Mr. Fiocca’s “profanity-laced accusations” and “[m]uffled noises of him choking, slapping and spitting on” Mr. Gibson.

Greg Fiocca Demanded Pay For ‘Work’ Hours When He Evidently Wasn’t Working

Mr. Fiocca was furious he hadn’t been paid for “work” hours during which no supervisor could find any evidence that he had done anything to help the casino get built. Mr. Fiocca all the same demanded he be paid for the hours he claimed to have been working. 

Otherwise, he indicated, there would be a costly strike: “I’m calling my uncle already. We’re pulling everyone off the job.” 

After he had been verbally abused, choked, slapped, and spit at, Mr. Gibson still hoped Mr. Dougherty (AKA “Johnny Doc”) would finally own up to the obvious truth that his nephew was a menace to his fellow employees and shouldn’t be working there.

Johnny Doc’s Threat: Firing My Nephew For Misconduct Will Get You Blackballed

But Johnny Doc brushed aside everything he had heard about Mr. Fiocca’s poor job performance, his assault on Gibson, and his earlier frightening fits of rage. 

Mr. Fiocca would stay on the project—or else, he warned. 

According to electrical contractor Ray Palmieri, Mr. Dougherty threatened to pull all Local 98 electricians off the job and get Mr. Palmieri blackballed unless he continued to employ Mr. Fiocca. 

At the time, Johnny Doc was already facing federal indictments for bribery and embezzlement. 

Evidence amassed by federal law enforcement in the course of bringing Johnny Doc to trial on these two sets of charges, on which he was separately convicted in November 2021 and December 2023, made it possible for the feds to build an extortion case against him and his nephew.

Extortion That Advances ‘Union Interests’ Isn’t Extortion?!

That case went to trial in Reading, Pa., this April 17. 

Eight days later, on April 25, the trial came to a subdued end. With the jury hopelessly deadlocked, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Schmehl declared a mistrial. 

Why did this happen? As Mr. Roebuck and Ms. Goodin-Smith explained in their wrap-up of the trial: 

“[I]t’s normally illegal to use threats and force for financial gain . . . .” 

However, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Enmons decision, a 5-4 court majority concluded it would be “inappropriate to classify such tactics—when they’re aimed at advancing union interests—as extortion.” 

On May 2, after getting the opportunity to speak with several of the jurors in the Dougherty-Fiocca case, Mr. Roebuck and Ms. Goodin-Smith were able to report that, as deliberations got underway, seven jurors were leaning in favor of voting for conviction. 

But all but one of the seven were persuaded to switch to “not guilty,” and Enmons was the chief persuader.

National Right to Work Committee Vice President Greg Mourad commented: 

“As a consequence of Enmons, even a taped record of his use of violence and threats to keep getting a paycheck for doing little or no work was insufficient to convict Greg Fiocca of extortion. And even basically uncontested evidence that Johnny Doc threatened to shut down a casino project if his thuggish nephew was fired was insufficient to get the ex-Local 98 boss convicted of extortion. 

“Enmons is a threat to the civil order. Fortunately, Congress doesn’t have to take it lying down. Legislation currently sponsored by Congressman Scott Perry [R-Pa.], known as the Freedom from Union Violence Act, or H.R.5314, would put a stop to outrageous miscarriages of justice like the one witnessed in Reading this spring. 

“This common-sense reform simply states that, under federal law, extortion that ‘advances union interests’ is still extortion.”

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