Razzle Dazzle: Let's Not Strike for Spike

Razzle Dazzle

Let's Not Strike for Spike

By RICHARD STEIER

The threat of a school bus strike when summer school began July 5 was not taken seriously enough by private bus company owners to ask those doing the bargaining for them to forsake long holiday weekends.

Steve Mangione, a spokesman for Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said June 29 that at a bargaining session two days earlier, union officials renewed a request that marathon talks begin to work out a deal as the old pact headed for its June 30 expiration, "and again they were refused. Inexplicably, a couple of the chief negotiators said they couldn't do it because they were taking off for the Fourth of July weekend."

This lack of urgency may not be so hard to explain, however, in the context of the latest Spike Bernstein indictment.

May 'The Horse' Be With Him

Mr. Bernstein, birth name Julius, until two weeks ago held the title of secretary-treasurer of Local 1181, but his real power within the union stemmed from his less-official status as Matty "The Horse" Ianniello's man at the union. Mr. Ianniello, whom Federal investigators have linked to Mr. Bernstein for at least three decades, during that time matriculated to the position of boss of the Genovese Crime Family.

The Chief-Leader/Adrienne Haywood-James MEMBERS' INTERESTS COMPROMISED: A new indictment for extortion against a top official of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, coming while he and the local's president were already under indictment on racketeering charges, further undercut the interests of union members as they seek a new contract, dissident Simon Jean-Baptiste says. 'You can imagine what kind of effect that has on the entire work force,' he said of the charge that Secretary Treasurer Julius 'Spike' Bernstein for nearly 25 years got payoffs from a bus company owner in return for not trying to organize his employees. The two men were indicted last year, along with Local 1181 President Sal Battaglia and Ann Chiarovano, another union officer who is also Mr. Bernstein's girlfriend, on charges that Mr. Ianniello, Genovese capo Ciro Perrone and others had infiltrated the local and controlled its activities and those of its pension and welfare funds.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Bernstein was indicted a second time on a charge that, if true, would demolish any credibility that Local 1181 has had on the issue of standing up for its members. According to a deposition submitted by FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, a bus company operator who was given immunity from prosecution stated that for nearly 25 years he had been paying Mr. Bernstein to ensure that Local 1181 did not seek to organize the nonunion drivers working his firm's routes under its contract with the city school system.

Mr. Gaeta stated that the bus company executive estimated that he had paid Mr. Bernstein between $200,000 and $300,000 under a system in which he was not charged for the first five routes under his contract but had to pay $1,000 for every additional route. He began making the payoffs, according to Agent Gaeta, after incidents in 1981 when members of the local - including some of its officials - "caused damage to his buses, made threats to him, and beat up one of his drivers." Initially, the company owner got police protection, but he eventually concluded there was greater security in paying off Mr. Bernstein, according to the deposition.

Agent Gaeta said the owner claimed to have made the payments to Mr. Bernstein early each school year. The indictment stems from the fact that his previous arrest last July apparently did not instill much caution in the 83-year-old union official: according to the owner, two months later he made his regularly scheduled payment to Mr. Bernstein, this time for $23,000.

Jobs for the Mob

The FBI Agent's deposition cited two other cooperating witnesses who said that more than one bus company had similar arrangements with Local 1181 officials dating back to the 1970s, and that, "As part of the Genovese Crime Family's control of Local 1181, they have, among other things, enlisted favors from Local 1181, including obtaining jobs for friends and relatives," some of them mob associates.

At the time of last September's alleged shakedown, Mr. Bernstein was free under a judge's order following his arrest July 27, 2005. This time, it wasn't enough to post bail of $100,000 and agree to limit his traveling to the boundaries of New York State; Mr. Bernstein was forced to take a leave of absence from his position at Local 1181 as a condition of his release.

This meant that he was not at the bargaining table for the final negotiation before the contract expired, playing his longtime role as a belligerent kibitzer who made up in volume what his remarks lacked in substance. "Spike will speak up occasionally," was how Jeffrey Pollack, the chief negotiator for the coalition of school bus companies, put it.

It wasn't Mr. Bernstein's absence from the proceedings that gave management a lesser sense of urgency than Mr. Mangione said the local possessed about going 'round the clock. "I have no reason to doubt the union threats" about a walkout, Mr. Pollack said in a June 29 phone interview, a few minutes after the Local 1181 spokesman had acknowledged that "the likelihood of [a strike] happening before the 5th is very low because they want to see what happens in the next negotiating session." (Because they are employed by private bus companies, the Department of Education drivers and escorts are not subject to the Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public employees.)

Mr. Pollack said the eight-day gap in formal talks had as much to do with needing to present data supporting management's health-benefit demands as it did the holiday weekend.

'Need Health Deal First'

While wage and pension matters are also undecided, he explained, "We can't really talk about other issues until we have an agreement on health costs." The day after the last bargaining session, he said, management presented data to the union and was awaiting a response, and the lines of communication remained open despite the lack of further sitdowns.

A week earlier, Mr. Pollack was considerably less diplomatic in a statement that alluded to one of the areas that both the Federal Government and union dissidents have asserted is a prime source of enrichment for Local 1181's leadership and Mr. Bernstein's alleged masters in the Genovese family.

"The union continues to insist on maintaining the status quo of running its outdated, inefficient and ineffective self-insured welfare fund," Mr. Pollack said then. "The bottom line is health-care costs are skyrocketing, the union is overspending for benefits, and our employees are not receiving state-of-the-art medical coverage or a larger network of doctors."

Shook Down Doctors?

One of the charges against Mr. Bernstein in last year's Federal indictment was that he extorted a $100,000 payoff (which he shared with Mr. Ianniello) from the union's medical provider to extend its lease at Local 1181's Ozone Park headquarters.

The new charge of taking payoffs to forego increasing the union's membership, against a man Mr. Mangione previously described as "a valuable asset" on the Local 1181 board, could serve as a rallying cry for dissidents who previously questioned the logic of threatening to walk off the job at a time when most of them are already off for the summer. Something along the lines of, "Let's not strike for Spike."

Hard to Feel Solidarity

Because seriously, why would any other labor leader honor a picket line or otherwise support an organization whose leaders ran it like a vehicle for extortion rather than a trade union?

That was why Simon Jean-Baptiste, one of the veteran Local 1181 members who has challenged the incumbent leadership, said of Mr. Bernstein's latest indictment, "This is a situation that is going from bad to worse for the entire membership. You can imagine what kind of effect [the charge] has on the entire work force."

At a time when "the contractors are in a more-powerful position than ourselves," Mr. Jean-Baptiste said, the charge that Mr. Bernstein extorted money not to organize nonunion bus companies would further undermine Local 1181 from a public-relations standpoint if it called a strike. That was one of the reasons he and other dissidents had demanded that Mr. Bernstein, Mr. Battaglia and Ms. Chiarovano step down following last summer's indictments, and when they refused to do so, urged the International ATU to take control of the local.

"I believe when you have personal problems, how are you going to deal with the problems of 15,000 other people?" Mr. Jean-Baptiste said, referring to Local 1181's total membership rather than the 8,400 drivers and escorts employed by the Department of Education. "Are you going to take the time and energy needed to negotiate a contract, or are Sal and Spike going to be more concerned with defending themselves in court?"

International Silent

The International ATU has continued to remain mute on the subject. Benetta Mansfield, the chief of staff to ATU President Warren George, did not return calls last week about whether Mr. Bernstein's latest indictment made the international more inclined to put Local 1181 in trusteeship. (Mr. Mangione said Local 1181 would have no comment on Mr. Bernstein's new legal troubles.)

Eddie Kay, a veteran union organizer with long tenures at Local 1199 of the Service Employees' International Union and Transport Workers' Union Local 100, said the only plausible explanation for the ATU's hesitance to act is its leaders' fears of the mob guys who have had their hooks in the local, according to Federal prosecutors, since the 1970s.

'Destroying the Local'

"It's just another example of the international sitting back from a know-nothing policy that is just destroying this local," said Mr. Kay, who has been assisting the Local 1181 dissidents for the past year. "They should have done exactly what the Feds did to Spike: throw him out immediately after [last year's] indictment. The international has given in to its own fears, their inability to understand the full problem, and the fact that the union, which is its largest local, has bestowed many favors upon the international."

He continued, "It's a wonderful thing to have a union run by the Mafia - it can destroy a union quicker than anything. It's a shame, and it's embarrassing to the entire labor movement."

Just as distressing, Mr. Kay said, is the way in which the legal problems of Mr. Battaglia and Mr. Bernstein, and the negative publicity they have attracted, have weakened Local 1181 at the bargaining table. "The bosses are taking advantage of this," referring to a bargaining position that Mr. Mangione described as "a series of demands that is basically nothing but givebacks."

The Local 1181 spokesman differed with Mr. Kay, however, on the intent of the bus owners' coalition. He contended that rather than looking to decimate the union contract, "it's almost as if they're welcoming a strike. It's as if the companies are hoping the city will come in and bail them out."

'City to the Rescue'

Citing the Bloomberg administration's decision following a strike early last year to assume responsibility for paying bus escorts, Mr. Mangione speculated that the owners were "hoping the city will come to the rescue by maybe taking over responsibility for some of the health benefits."

Mr. Jean-Baptiste contended that management might be counting on the reluctance of union members to walk off the job now, claiming the timing would be counterproductive. "I have not talked to anybody who's willing to go on strike in the summer, when most of our members are on unemployment," he said. "Most of the children are on vacation, so if you call a strike in the summer, you're putting pressure on what? It doesn't make any sense."

Unless, of course, the union leadership is figuring that a walkout would shift the members' anger toward their employers, and away from the signs of rampant internal corruption.