Glossary entry
No-show job
noh-SHOH job
Definition
noh-SHOH job
A position on a payroll that carries wages, benefits and union credit but no work. The employer pays it to keep a site running without disruption.
“Three men on the bridge contract were no-show jobs, and the general contractor knew exactly which three.”
The no-show job is what control of a construction local is actually worth. A union official who decides who works can arrange for people to be paid for not working, and the contractor pays because the alternative — a stoppage, a grievance, a supply of labour that fails to arrive — costs more.
It is also the cleanest form of criminal income ever devised. The money arrives as wages, taxed and reported, with a pay stub. Prosecuting it requires proving a negative about work that was not done, on a site that has since been built.
This was the DeCavalcante family's principal business under John Riggi, who was business agent of a Laborers local in Elizabeth for twenty-five years before he became boss. His 1990 conviction was for extortion and labour law violations rather than for anything more cinematic.