Roberts's Win Will Test Her

Lillian Roberts turned an expected re-election as executive director of District Council 37 into a rout last week, but her 46-point margin of victory was less shocking than her success in pulling all 20 running mates to victory in the contest for executive board positions.

Her vanquished challenger, Charles Ensley, whose faction of the union had control of the executive board for the past three years, had no illusion about his chances of defeating Ms. Roberts, but believed the board would still contain a majority of his allies.

But just as he was stung by a handful of defections by DC 37 delegates that derailed his bid to unseat Ms. Roberts in 2004, similar crossovers this time by those he regarded as loyalists virtually swept his forces from power. The only remaining seat on the 29-member board that belongs to one of his supporters is the one that his own organization, Local 371, receives automatically because it represents more than 5 percent of DC 37's 121,000 members.

Mr. Ensley asserted following the Jan. 23 vote that Ms. Roberts had swayed delegates with promises of perks including committee assignments that carry stipends of up to $9,000. He made the same claim after the previous election.

There is probably some truth to his belief; that is the power of incumbency. It is also the weakness of the process by which DC 37 elects its officers - when a handful of the 300-some delegates who cast votes can swing control of the union, it is simple for an executive director to resort to what amounts to political bribery to prevail. None of Ms. Roberts's three predecessors - who among them ran the union for more than 50 years - lost a re-election bid. Any chance that she would lose evaporated when delegates in 2005 rejected a resolution that would have taken the elections out of their hands and let rank-and-file members vote for their leaders.

As we've noted before, while Ms. Roberts is revered by many older DC 37 members for her contributions during the 1960s to the building of the union, her performance over the past five years as executive director has left much to be desired. The solid wage contract she agreed to last summer with the Bloomberg administration and a city housing program that has assisted more than 1,000 union members in purchasing their own homes are offset by several bargaining mistakes she made in the past and ethical lapses that have drawn rebukes from the union's then-ethics officer, a Federal judge, and even her international union, which normally sides with her even when there is little question that she has overstepped.

In the wake of her victory, a couple of her running-mates said that regaining control of the board would make the union stronger because Ms. Roberts could operate without fear of being diverted by internal charges. That is true, but it glosses over the fact that past charges were brought against her to rein in her excesses.

Immediately following the 2004 election, some of Mr. Ensley's supporters spoke of working cooperatively with Ms. Roberts for the good of the union. They abandoned that position after she began retaliating against some of those she perceived as political enemies. The board stopped her from a threatened purge of staff members, and in the process cut her salary by $75,000; there are those who believe she gave short shrift to other union business, and agreed to a bad wage contract a couple of months later, because she became consumed by recouping the lost salary.

The big question is whether what happened to her three years ago has prompted any reflection on the conduct that prompted the revolt, or has increased her hunger for political vengeance.

During a post-election interview with reporters, Ms. Roberts said she was not looking to punish anyone, but when asked about committee assignments, she sounded a different note.

"The people who criticize don't help with union business," she said, "so I have to work with the people who will work with me. And so when there are assignments to give, they get them."

Anyone who has paid attention to DC 37's troubled history over the last dozen years, however, knows that most of its problems stem not from in-fighting but because some of those loyal to the executive directors were dishonest, incompetent, or both. There are areas where the union remains weak, and they are evident in DC 37's lack of standing, despite being the largest municipal union, both at the City Council - where a bill broadening members' residency rights is in limbo - and in the news media. Those positions are staffed by those whose prime asset is their unstinting loyalty to Ms. Roberts.

It would be a mistake for her to decide that everyone who supported Mr. Ensley should be barred from union committees. Nor should she make staff changes motivated primarily by loyalty rather than competence.

Any question on that score might be settled by looking at the fate of President Bush, who like Ms. Roberts is a lot better at political in-fighting than he is at governing. He took an admittedly narrower re-election win as a mandate to keep on doing what he had been and then some. Since then, the abysmal response by his administration to Hurricane Katrina and its continued blundering in Iraq have rendered Mr. Bush so out of favor that even his staunch supporters in Congress are starting to turn away from him.

Time will tell whether Ms. Roberts uses her big victory to revitalize DC 37 or misuses it as an opportunity for political spoils.