As a result, Mr. Mooney said, contractors did not report the extortion to the police but instead gave coalition members construction jobs and frequently paid so-called no-show fees to Mr. Jennings to keep coalition members off their sites.
What is new is that California Unions for Reliable Energy, a coalition of construction unions, appears to be applying this approach to new-age renewable energy projects, especially solar power plants, which are being fast-tracked to help meet the state's green power target.
The biggest opponent of earthquake code changes was the Residential Builders Assn., a coalition of construction firms and related businesses, that were allies of Mayor Willie Brown.
Concurrently, the New York Landmarks Conservancy and other New York-based groups have sent out alerts warning that, "The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) has put together a coalition of construction, union and landlord groups to challenge the City's 1965 Landmarks Law.
"This isn't to say that unions are bad, but where they're strong you have bigger demands for social services and coalitions with construction companies, road builders and others that push up debt".
He is under pressure from the right wing of his coalition to allow construction to resume.
He is under pressure from the rightwing members of his coalition to allow construction to resume.
Labor might be able to call the royal commission a witch-hunt, but it will also have to explain why it is continuing to oppose the coalition's proposed construction industry watch-dog even as the inquiry investigates the claims of building industry kick-backs and connections with organised crime.
"You can find someone to object to almost any of these things," said Richard T. Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, a coalition of the design, construction and real estate industries.
"We must give the mayor credit for responding," said Richard T. Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, a coalition of the design, construction and real estate industries, who had been among many executives who welcomed the mayor's promise not to simply push another department head aside.
