Former Local 420 Leader Butler Dies

Fiery and Controversial

James Butler, who served for 30 years as the fiery and often-controversial president of Hospital Workers Local 420 of District Council 37 before his high salary and questionable spending led members to vote him out of office three years ago, died last week at age 72.

A MAN OF CONTRADICTIONS: During 30 years as president of Local 420 of District Council 37, Jim Butler became renowned for his fierce advocacy on behalf of hospital workers, but questionable spending and a huge salary led to his downfall after members became disillusioned with his leadership. No cause of death was immediately available, but Mr. Butler was known to have been in poor health for some time. Funeral services were scheduled to be held at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Flushing at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 22.

Summer Job Started It

A native of Savannah, Ga., Mr. Butler came to New York in 1955 for a summer job at Fordham Hospital to help pay his tuition as a pre-med student at West Virginia State College. In an interview with this newspaper 25 years ago, he said the unfair treatment of employees that he witnessed led him to become active in Local 420, and he never returned to school.

After being elected the local's president in 1972, he displayed a leadership style that combined labor militancy with the cadences of black Southern preachers. The frequent rallies he held to protest hospital closings, employee layoffs and cutbacks in services and staff featured a "Freedom Bus" that transported union members to the site of the rally and a coffin and a cross that symbolized the suffering and harm he said would result from the cutbacks.

Mr. Butler played a key role in heading off then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani's effort to privatize Coney Island Hospital nearly a decade ago, leading protests, marshaling opposition in the City Council, and serving as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the leasing of the hospital to a private operator with a checkered past. The privatization effort was thwarted by a court ruling that the Mayor's agreement with the service provider was illegal because it was reached without consulting the Council.

At virtually the same time, Mr. Butler vociferously opposed a contract agreement reached by the Mayor with then-DC 37 Executive Director Stanley Hill. One reason was that it featured a two-year pay freeze at the beginning of its five-year term. An even stronger motivating factor was that while the rest of DC 37's membership was guaranteed it would not be subject to layoffs during the period of the pay freeze, that assurance was not extended to Mr. Butler's members, largely because of the Mayor's hospital privatization plans.

When the contract was passed in early 1996 as a result of an unusually high "yes" vote by ClericalAdministrative Employees' Local 1549, Mr. Butler declared, "They stole the vote." He proved prophetic: in late 1998 it was revealed that several DC 37 officials had discarded Local 1549 members' ballots and substituted thousands of forged ballots to ensure ratification.

No Love for Rudy

His members nonetheless were subjected to layoffs in the spring of 1998 by the Giuliani administration. Mr. Hill sought to reach a last-minute compromise to save the jobs, but Mr. Butler remained defiant, making no pretense of his deep dislike of Mr. Giuliani. But his persona as a devoted labor leader had a flip side: a series of questionable spending decisions over the years. Longtime DC 37 Executive Director Victor Gotbaum feuded with him during the 1970s over some unaccounted-for expenses, with lawsuits being filed on both sides and later withdrawn. When one political opponent raised the issue at a Local 420 meeting during the early 1980s, a scuffle ensued in which the in-house critic was stabbed by one of Mr. Butler's supporters.

During the mid-1990s, Mr. Butler secured a special dues increase that was supposed to pay for the renovation of an old meat-packing plant that Local 420 had purchased on West 124th St. to serve as its new offices. Years later, however, the building remained a gutted hulk.

Unwelcome Questions

One member of Mr. Butler's board, Carmen Charles, raised questions about what had happened to the building fund, as well as other spending decisions he made. He responded by looking to isolate her from the rest of the union's board, prompting her to launch a campaign to unseat him.

Ms. Charles made an issue of the spending and Mr. Butler's salary of $258,000 during the election. She defeated him once, only to have the result nullified on curious grounds by his hand-picked election committee. She prevailed again in a second election in the spring of 2002.

Ms. Charles later brought a suit on behalf of the local against Mr. Butler, and a court ruling - issued without him being present - found him liable for $1.6 million in improper spending. He claimed he had no money other than his union pension allowance.

Not long after she took office, Ms. Charles moved Local 420's offices from 125th St. in Harlem back to DC 37's lower Manhattan headquarters, which the local had left during Mr. Butler's feud with Mr. Gotbaum three decades earlier. The building he bought but never had renovated was sold earlier this year by the local.