GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (AFSCME)
Local 983 Boss Gets 18 to 54 Months in Prison
Another boss from Am. Fed'n of State, County & Mun. Employees Dist.
Council 37 in N.Y. was sent to prison Aug. 22. Robert
Taylor is at least the fifth ex-DC37 boss to become a prison inmate
in the recent corruption scandal, which has had more than thirty
criminal indictments and more than twenty guilty pleas.
Taylor, ex-president of AFSCME Local 983, was to sentenced to 18 to 54 months for rigging a contract ratification vote and embezzling more than $50,000 of union funds. He agreed to the sentence in June as part of plea bargain with the Manhattan Dist. Atty.'s Office.
Local 983 is now run by reformer Mark Rosenthal, who has been a key source for prosecutors on how DC37 bosses rigged the 1996-97 City contract vote. [Newsday 8/23/00]
ELECTIONS & POLITICS / AFL-CIO / AFSCME / TEAMSTERS
Gore and Corrupt Bosses at Democratic Convention
Despite the fact that a potential Gore Justice Dep't may decide
whether or not to prosecute AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Richard
L. Trumka and AFSCME president Gerald
W. McEntee, the two continue to play key roles in Gore's campaign.
Both spoke at the Democratic Nat'l Convention in L.A. Trumka has twice
used the Fifth Amendment to avoid federal investigators' questions about
$150,000 he allegedly routed into Ron
Carey's 1996 Teamsters campaign. McEntee was also involved in the Teamsters
scandal allegedly routing $20,000 into the Carey campaign.
Charles LaBella, former lead prosecutor for the Dep't of Justice campaign-finance task force, said, "If I were advising a candidate, I would advise him or her very strongly that [Trumka] is not someone you want to embrace."
When Ross confronted Trumka at the Convention and asked him for an update on the grand jury's investigation, Trumka said: "Oh, come on, man. ...There's isn't any, as far as I'm concerned." Then Ross asked if that meant there was no investigation, and Trumka walked away.
Despite Gore's shameless embrace of corrupt union bosses, the Gore campaign did do one thing right during the Convention. After Ross reported that Gore was using a telemarketing firm linked to Michael Ansara, who pled guilty in 1997 to a felony connected to the Teamsters scandal and awaits sentencing, the campaign terminated its business with the Mass.-based Share Group, Inc. According to Newsweek, Ansara's firm received over $1 million in fees from Gore and the three Democratic Party committees.
Peter Flaherty, Nat'l Legal & Pol'y Ctr. president, said, "Al Gore has done the right thing by ending his campaign's relationship with...Ansara's company, but it is not enough. He should get away from Trumka as far and as fast as possible. It is Al Gore who may appoint the next Attorney General. Gore should not accept Trumka's political support when Trumka's legal fate may soon be in his hands."
POLICE UNIONS
New Jersey Boss Admits $345,000 Theft
William Saksinsky, ex-vice-president
of the N.J. State Policemen's Benevolent Ass'n pled guilty Aug. 10 to defrauding
his union of at least $345,000. He agreed to pay NJSPBA $400,000 in restitution
and damages. Saksinsky also admitted filing a false 1994 income tax return.
In the plea, Saksinsky implicated the current deputy director of the Newark Police Dep't, Rocco Malanga. Saksinsky told U.S. Dist. Judge Katharine S. Hayden that Malanga, who is an ex-boss of the NJSPBA's Newark Chapter, conspired with him and others to divert money from a pool of artificially inflated convention fees. He said they inflated the fees for miniconventions by $10 a person. Then NJSPBA's ex-president, Frank Ginesi, Malanga and he reportedly split $58,000 in 1992 and $25,000 in 1993.
In another scheme, Saksinsky created secret accounts that only he controlled and into which he would deposit cash and checks ostensibly paid for NJSPBA purposes like insurance. Saksinsky said that from 1991-96 he diverted $326,370 from such accounts and received about $19,300 in illicit checks from those Ginesi controlled.
Malanga had not previously been named in connection with the scandal. "One must be very suspicious of defendants who plead guilty to reduced charges and are seeking leniency," said Malanga's attorney Anthony Pope. Malanga had challenged Saksinsky in a NJSPBA election.
Last Nov., Saksinsky was named in a 32-count indictment along with Ginesi, with whom he ran the union from 1978-97. They were charged with siphoning as much as $1 million from the union from 1991-96. Saksinsky was alleged to have a fortune over $3 million. Ginesi is awaiting trial. His attorney, public defender Chester M. Keller, has not had any plea negotiations with prosecutors.
The charges against the two bosses grew out of a FBI probe triggered by a series of telephone tips in 1997 from some of the NJSPBA's newly elected leadership. They suspected fraud when they examined the union's financial records. Asst. U.S. Atty Ralph Marra, said the investigation continues.
Also, Edward Rappleyea, NJSPBA insurance co-administrator, pled guilty to one count of mail fraud. He admitted to withdrawing $170,000 from union accounts. The funds were used by him and others for real estate, cars and jewelry. [USAO D.N.J, Media Release 8/10/00, N.Y. Times 8/11/00]
Los Angeles Boss Sent to Jail for Theft
L.A. Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry ordered Gail
M. Brown-Rall, ex-secretary of the L.A. Airport Peace Officers Ass'n,
Aug. 18 to serve six months in jail for embezzling union funds. Perry also
punished her with five years probation and more than $30,000 in restitution.
A jury convicted her in June of one count of grand theft.
Ex-treasurer Dax C. Heramis pled no contest to one count of grand theft and testified against Brown-Rall. Perry ordered Heramis to pay $4,000 in restitution and was placed on one year probation.
The two were charged in Oct. 1998 with embezzling more than $100,000 from the union. The case resulted from Nov. 1996 union request to the Dist. Atty. to investigate missing funds and equipment. Expenditures of $68,000 in 1993 and $62,000 in 1994 were questioned. Prosecutors reportedly found a number of checks made out to Brown-Rall, and others made out to "cash" and cashed by Heramis. [City News Serv. 8/18/00, 10/2/98]
PROFESSIONAL SPORTS (IBF)
Jury Convicts Boxing Boss in New Jersey
On Aug. 17, a federal jury in N.J. found Robert
"Bob" Lee, Sr., ex-boss and founder of the Int'l Boxing Fed'n, guilty
on six counts of union corruption. He faces 37 to 46 months in jail for
convictions on three counts of racketeering, two counts of tax evasion
and one count of money laundering.
U.S. Atty. for N.J., Robert J. Cleary, charged Lee with taking $338,000 in bribes from promoters and managers to fix rankings and sanction fights. The jury, found Lee guilty in his dealings with Francisco Fernandez of Colombia, the IBF's S. Am. representative. Lee was acquitted on charges of improper payments to him by promoters Bob Arum, Cedric Kushner and Dino Duva.
Federal prosecutors continue their civil case against Lee and his son Robert, Jr., in which they are seeking a permanent injunction to keep the Lees from any involvement in the IBF and attempting to recover the $338,000. Figuring treble damages and attorneys' fees, the suit could cost the Lees over $1 million.
Reportedly, Lee, Sr., has been told that prosecutors would go easier on him if he turned over any evidence he had of wrongdoing on the part of promoter Don King, an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.
The Lee verdict came a day after the Nevada State Athletic Comm'n fined Arum $100,000 and put restrictions on his promoter's license for six months after Arum admitted in testimony in the Lee case that he had agreed in 1994 to pay Lee $200,000 to get IBF's sanction of a heavyweight title fight between George Foreman and Axel Schulz. [L.A. Times 8/18/00]
TEAMSTERS (IBT)
Judge Edelstein Dies
U.S. Dist. Judge David N. Edelstein,
who oversaw the implementation of a racketeering consent decree between
the Dep't of Justice and Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters for the last 11 years,
died Aug. 19 at the age of 90. Appointed in 1951 by President Truman,
Edelstein served as the S. Dist. of N.Y.'s chief judge from 1971-80.
The court's assignment committee will decide which judge will be assigned
the IBT case.
The election officer appointed by Edelstein to supervise the 1998 IBT rerun election, Michael Cherkasky, said Edelstein played "a vital, critical role in helping to move the union back to where it should be, that is, representing members and not mob bosses." [BNA 8/22/00]
COMMUNICATIONS WORKERS (CWA)
Felony Charge for Burned Unionists
An attempt by two striking unionists to
reportedly sabotage Verizon Communications backfired when one mistakenly
cut into a power line he thought was a phone line in Baldwin, N.Y. As 13,200
volts of electricity surged through Joseph Hertzel's body Aug. 17 and threw
him to the ground, his shirt caught fire and one of the blades on his tree-pruning
sheers melted. His girlfriend, Joanne Pender, was also injured by the explosion.
"They picked the wrong cable," said Nassau Detective Robert Winter. "They cut the main feeder for ... electricity for that area."
The two members of Communications Workers of Am. Local 1108 were charged with felony tampering and criminal mischief and were arraigned on Aug.18 in the hospital. Hertzel was ordered held on $1,500 bail and Pender on $750.
Nassau police said 20 similar acts of sabotage were been reported during the Verizon strike. For example, another striking unionist was arrested Aug. 17 for allegedly trying to run a Bell Atlantic van off the Long Island Expressway while driving his 2000 Lexus. [Newsday 8/18-19/00]
QUOTABLE QUOTE
"One thing I've concluded over the last 20 years is the labor problem
has an image problem. Most labor stories focus on greed, corruption, large
settlements and violence. If people read about unions in this context,
it's not surprising they have a negative image of labor."
-Paul F. Clark, pro-union Penn State professor, lamenting the lack of public support for the recent Communications Workers of Am. and Int'l Bhd. of Elec. Workers' strike, which has been accompanying by violence and vandalism, against Version Communications. [Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) 8/18/00]
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ADDITIONAL BRIEFS NOT INCLUDED ON THE FAX EDITION OF THIS UNION CORRUPTION UPDATE:
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TEACHERS (NEA)
Illinois Union Official Charged with Indecent Solicitation of a
Child
A union negotiator for several Illinois Education Ass'n units in Lake
County pled not guilty Aug. 22 to charges of felony indecent solicitation
of a child. Mark Reinstein was arraigned in Cook County Court on a seven-count
indictment arising from his alleged contacts with an undercover Cook County
Sheriff's officer posing as a fourteen-year-old girl. He is currently
free on $4,000 bond, and his next court date is scheduled for Sept. 26.
Reinstein was arrested in July after allegedly attempting to meet the officer outside a Lincolnwood restaurant. According to the Cook County State's Atty.'s office, Reinstein had been in contact several times with the undercover officer via the Internet and the telephone. According to police, Reinstein began a computer conversation with the officer on July 11 while in a sexually explicit Internet chat room.
Following several computer conversations, the undercover officer agreed to meet Reinstein outside the Lincolnwood restaurant. Police said Reinstein wanted to take the officer to a private location for sex.
Reinstein was suspended from his job with IEA, a Nat'l Education Ass'n chapter, following his arrest. In the past several years, he has represented IEA units in Ingleside, Vernon Hills, Fox Lake, Wauconda and Round Lake school districts. [Copley News Serv. 8/22/00]
CARPENTERS (UBC) / AFL-CIO
UBC Boss Threatens to Walkout of AFL-CIO
Douglas J. McCarron, general president of
the United Bhd. of Carpenters, said his union may choose to end its affiliation
with the AFL-CIO, asserting that its contributions to the federation are
doing little more than paying the salaries of Washington bureaucrats. The
statement came during UBC's convention in Chicago, where McCarron Aug.
24 won a second five-year term.
In his opening remarks Aug. 21, McCarron expressed disappointment with the Sweeney-Trumka AFL-CIO's organizing and spending strategies. At a time when the UBC is restructuring and looking for new ways to organize workers, McCarron accused the federation of boosting spending on failed organizing strategies.
"Other unions -- the AFL-CIO the worst offender -- have made commitments to organizing, but without reviewing their operations," McCarron said. "And all they have done is spent more and raised our per-capita tax to pay for it. I am telling you now, we are looking at how the AFL-CIO and the Building and Construction Trades Department spends our money -- more than $4 million a year at the national level -- and if they don't use it as well as we can, they will not use it at all."
He added, "No member of this brotherhood is going to see the money they work for, sweat for, risk their lives for, used to pay a Washington bureaucrat's salary."
Convention delegates overwhelmingly supported a constitutional amendment that opens the door for disaffiliation with the AFL-CIO and the Canadian Labor Congress. Section 58 of the UBC's constitution obligates locals to affiliate with their appropriate regional and state federations of labor. But in a major departure from previous language, the section was amended to suggest such local affiliations are only appropriate "if the international body is affiliated with the AFL-CIO and the Canadian Labor Congress."
Terry Nelson, secretary of the UBC's constitutional committee, justified the move: "We must give [McCarron] the tools to negotiate solutions that are in the best interest of the brotherhood."
Douglas Buckler, a convention delegate from Local 1102 in Detroit, added that now McCarron has "the power to play hard ball for us" and the move says to the Sweeney-Trumka AFL-CIO, "don't screw with this brotherhood."
Mike Orrfelt, a San Francisco carpenter and editor of the reformer Hard Hat Magazine, said McCarron might be using disaffiliation as a strategy for building membership from trades other than carpentry and developing "wall-to-wall" agreements with building contractors. While such a strategy might bring more money into the union's coffers, Orrfelt said it would likely generate turf wars with other construction unions. "It's the difference between a philosophy of organizing the unorganized or declaring war against the building trades for jurisdiction," Orrfelt commented.
Similarly, Michael Monroe, president of the Int'l Union of Painters & Allied Trades, accused UBC of such predatory raiding aimed at his union at the AFL-CIO's Building & Construction Trades Dep't's convention in July.
Separately, the UBC delegates voted down a pro-democracy proposal that would, among other things, permit the direct election of officers by union members. Currently all top UBC bosses are elected by delegates to the convention. In the election, the "McCarron Team" beat an opposition slate connected to "Carpenters for a Democratic Union." McCarron beat Ken Little, recording secretary of Local 1144 in Seattle, 1,649 to 170. [BNA 8/25/00]
SERVICE EMPLOYEES (SEIU)
Beverly Allowed to Continue Defamation Suit Against Union
The Nat'l Labor Relations Bd. ruled Aug. 8 that Beverly Health &
Rehabilitation Servs., Inc., may proceed with a state court defamation
suit against the Service Employees Int'l Union for statements made in handbills
and a paid radio broadcast during a 1996 labor dispute in Pennsylvania.
NLRB members Wilma B. Liebman, Peter J. Hurtgen and J. Robert Brame upheld
administrative law judge's recommendation that SEIU's complaint alleging
that Beverly's suit is itself an unfair labor practice be put on hold until
the defamation suit is resolved. The members held that issuance of the
unfair-labor-practice complaint does not preempt state court jurisdiction.
To win the defamation suit, NLRB said that Beverly must show that SEIU Locals 668 and 585, District 1199P, and/or Dist. 1199P boss Thomas DeBruin, made a false statement of fact and did so with actual malice and that the company was harmed as a result.
The SEIU statements in question preceded a three-day strike in Apr. 1996. SEIU distributed a handbill outside of nursing homes in Mar. stating that Beverly was being prosecuted by the federal government for labor law violations, had engaged in hundreds of illegal actions in the previous 10 years, had been cited by OSHA for safety violations, and had been sued for wrongful death of a nursing home resident. The handbill was headlined "Must We Strike to Make Beverly Obey the Law" and stated: "Family members, residents and the public deserve to know the truth about the quality of care."
A radio ad was aired on Pa. and Md. radio stations during Mar. which stated Beverly's attempt to impose a gag order on workers had been "declared illegal by government officials" and that "250 more unfair labor practice violations were filed against Beverly." The radio spot claimed the company was ignoring employee complaints about staffing, patient care, and working conditions, was refusing to bargain in good faith, and was forcing the workers to strike.
SEIU distributed a second handbill titled "Family Alert." The notice stated that according to a union-conducted employee survey of health and safety problems, the nursing home lacked water hot enough to clean dishes, linen, and clothing and to give residents hot baths and showers. [BNA 8/17/00]
ELECTIONS & POLITICS / TEACHERS (NEA)
Florida Court to Unions: Raising Political Funds on School Property
is Illegal
Just as unionists are gearing up for the 2000 elections, Fla. Education
Ass'n has lost a court battle that bars soliciting campaign donations on
school property. Ending a four-year suit, Fla.'s First Dist. Court of Appeal
upheld Aug. 10 a Fla. Elections Comm'n ruling that could have far-reaching
impacts on the way many government employee unions collect political
contributions. The court held that unions break the law when they give
employees forms at work to make campaign donations.
The requests for money are supposed to be sent to employees at home or off the work site. But union bosses acknowledge it is more persuasive to seek money at work. The union fought vigorously for the right to solicit for political money on school campuses, even bringing in Nat'l Education Ass'n attorneys from Washington to help argue their case.
The case began with charges the Marion County Education Ass'n violated a state law designed to avoid corruption. The law, which is similar to laws in at least 15 other states, bans the solicitations of campaign funds in schools and other government offices. The complaint was brought to the commission in 1996 by Chuck Pardee, an real estate broker and Republican activist who says he had the idea after losing his own bid for local public office. Pardee discovered the local teachers union had been soliciting campaign money from teachers on forms that also ask the employees to pay union dues. According to a commission investigation, the forms are routinely placed in teachers' mailboxes at school, completed by teachers wishing to join the union and returned to union representatives at school.
"Government should not be in the business of acting as a bag man for any one political group," said Ron Nehring, director of national campaigns for Americans for Tax Reform. "You do not want to have government facilities becoming places where political shakedowns routinely happen.... It undermines the legitimacy of government."
Close to one third of the FEA's membership is Republican while the remainder are registered Democrats. [Sun-Sent. (Ft. Lauderdale) 8/19/00]
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