Razzle Dazzle
Tough to Reform 'Busfellas'

By RICHARD STEIER
 
Nearly five months after Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union was placed in trusteeship because its president had been indicted on racketeering and extortion charges and accused of being an organized-crime associate, not much has changed in its operation, according to union reformers.

Local 1181 President Sal Battaglia has left the building, forced to take a leave of absence by Federal prosecutors as he awaits trial. His second in command, longtime Secretary-Treasurer Julius "Spike" Bernstein, gave up his union position and entered a sealed guilty plea to similar criminal charges, spurring speculation that he is cooperating with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan. Ann Chiarovano, who had managed the union pension and welfare funds and was Mr. Bernstein's girlfriend, is serving a brief prison term for obstruction of justice.

Still a Family Operation

But the two men appointed by the Washington, D.C.-based International ATU to be trustees of the union, which represents school bus drivers and escorts, have allowed Local 1181's 11 delegates - including Mr. Battaglia's son Anthony - to continue running its operations, according to the reformers.

WINDOW FOR REFORM GATHERING DUST: School bus driver Simon Jean-Baptiste (left) and veteran union organizer Eddie Kay are among those who can't understand why the trustees of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 are allowing delegates with close ties to a mob-linked union president to preside over its day-to-day operations.

"They were hand-picked by [Sal] Battaglia," said Warren Zaugg, a veteran bus driver who is among the leaders of the group known as Members for Change. "They still seem to be following his orders. We thought with Sal gone, maybe there would be some change. The problem is, we don't see any change."

Eddie Kay, a veteran labor organizer who has been assisting the dissidents, questioned the trustees' judgment in allowing the delegates to "run a union they helped fleece."

The indictment against Sal Battaglia accuses him of taking payoffs from bus company owners in return for not unionizing their drivers and from vendors who were awarded service contracts, and of shaking down a Queens medical center providing health care to Local 1181 members. He is also charged with lying to a Federal grand jury about the involvement of the Genovese Crime Family in the union's affairs.

Seven months ago, Matty "The Horse" Ianniello, whom prosecutors identify as one of the bosses of the Genovese Family, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges connected to the union. Mr. Bernstein has been accused of being Mr. Ianniello's man at Local 1181 for the past three decades.

The dissidents have questioned whether mobsters have siphoned money from the union's benefit funds. A spokesman for Mr. Battaglia last spring emphatically denied the charge, citing figures that he said indicated the pension and welfare funds, as well as a strike fund set up by the union more than a quarter century ago, were at the levels that they should be.

One reason for the dissidents' suspicions is that pension allowances fall far short of those granted to their counterparts at New York City Transit who are represented by two other ATU locals.

City transit workers with 25 years on the job who retire at age 55 qualify for a pension equal to 50 percent of their average annual earnings during their final three years of service. Local 1181 members with the same service level who work until at least 55 receive a pension equal to 32 percent of their base salary; unlike those at ATU Locals 726 and 1056, their overtime earnings are not included in the calculations.

Bus Companies Audit Funds

Following Mr. Battaglia's indictment last November, the employer trustees of the Local 1181 pension and welfare funds - representing the coalition of school bus companies - tapped former Federal prosecutor Bart Schwartz to oversee an audit of both funds. His report has not yet been completed, a spokeswoman for the coalition said last week.

In contrast with the trustees appointed to clean up District Council 37 in late 1998 after it was wracked by a major corruption scandal, those tapped by International ATU President Warren George have not looked to take control of the union's operations, according to the dissidents. In fact, they say, Robert Baker, a confidant of Mr. George's who comes from the ATU's Cincinnati local, has refused to meet with Members for Change.

Two years ago, before the first wave of racketeering indictments was handed up in July 2005, Gloria Flaherty, a bus escort who is active in Members for Change, approached Mr. Baker at a union conference to complain about how Local 1181 was being run. His response was to flatly deny that there was any impropriety.

That might seem to make him an odd choice to serve as trustee, but then, Mr. George waited more than two months after Mr. Ianniello admitted in open court to influencing Local 1181's operation to order a trusteeship. It is not clear whether fear of violence by Genovese family associates or of the loss of political support from the ATU's largest local has prompted his timidity in bringing the local under the International's control.

In January, Members for Change met with the second trustee, Tommy Mullins from West Virginia; Mr. Baker refused to participate, according to the dissidents. (Mr. Baker and Mr. Mullins did not return calls seeking comment.)

'Change for the Worse'

The reformers said Mr. Mullins was sympathetic to their concerns, and had met with them on other occasions at their request, but that he had not acted on any of the issues they raised. If anything, there's been a change for the worse, said Ms. Flaherty: "Since the beginning of the year, the trustees are giving more power to the delegates."

Another union activist, Simon Jean-Baptiste, said of the delegates, "These were the people who were working for Battaglia and Bernstein, not for the membership. You always wind up looking for your own lawyer, spending your own money, because these guys never do anything to protect your rights."

One example occurred in late January when the Department of Education implemented a reduction in school bus routes that resulted in the layoff of 119 drivers and escorts. Two weeks later, at a Local 1181 meeting, activist John Bizbano criticized the delegates for doing nothing more than trying to persuade DOE officials not to cut the jobs. He said he asked them, "Why weren't you out there lining up support from the public for months before that? Instead you stood here and went back to the people who made the $17-million blunder."

Although by then there was a huge outcry spurred by parents against the changes and reductions in bus routes, Mr. Kay said the delegates decided against a public-relations campaign to have the layoffs rescinded. His conclusion was that the delegates "don't want to mobilize the members" because that might lead them to get more involved in the internal affairs of Local 1181.

Members Still Fearful

The dissidents believe that even with the convictions of Mr. Ianniello and Mr. Bernstein and the removal of Mr. Battaglia from his position as a condition of his being granted bail prior to his trial, many members remain fearful of retaliation, either through adverse job actions or actual violence.

That's one of the reasons the reformers are urging the trustees to require that secret ballots be used for any important union issue. Mr. Bizbano noted that last July, the wage contract with the school bus coalition was not released to the rank and file prior to the meeting at John Adams High School where a ratification vote was held. Even then, Mr. Battaglia did not pass out written copies of the terms, and his verbal presentation withheld a crucial piece of information: that there would be either an increase in member health payments or a decrease in benefits if usage was too high.

"You can't have 800 people voting on a contract that affects 8,700 people - especially when they're getting their first information about it from a stage," Mr. Bizbano said. The fact that Mr. Battaglia had packed the auditorium with loyalists that night made it unlikely that members with doubts about the contract or the manner in which it was presented would either protest or vote against it.

Secret Ballots in Doubt

Mr. Bizbano said, however, that it was unclear when the trustees would make a decision regarding secret ballots. Several of the reformers expressed concern that the manner in which the union has been run since the trusteeship suggested that at best cosmetic changes would be made.

One reason for their skepticism is the International's decision not to extend the tenure of an outside attorney it retained to investigate the local's operations prior to imposing the trusteeship. That attorney, Richard Mark, was hired under a 90-day retainer in October, and the dissidents said that based on the questions he had asked them, they believed he was doing a thorough, conscientious probe.

Mr. Mark produced an interim report in January, and according to the dissidents stated during a Local 1181 meeting that his investigation had not been completed. He was not retained beyond that time, however, and his findings were not publicly released.

'They're Hiding Report'

"Where is that report?" Mr. Kay asked. "Why are they hiding it?" Mr. Mark declined comment, referring all questions to the union. It might seem, given Mr. Ianniello's guilty plea and jail term, Mr. Bernstein's guilty plea, and Mr. Battaglia's being forced from office pending the outcome of the charges against him, that the corruption has been banished from Local 1181.

Things are never that simple, however, when a union has been infiltrated by organized crime.

In 1955, the year that a movie about corruption in a dock-workers union, "On the Waterfront," won an Academy Award, Michael Clemente was removed from his position as head of the International Longshoreman's Association's Manhattan local because of his organized crime ties. Twenty-five years later, the same U.S. Attorney's Office presenting the Local 1181 cases put Mr. Clemente on trial for having continued to control the ILA's Manhattan operation despite having lost his official position.

Bad Guys Stay the Course

The problem was put in perspective by John Alfarone, a veteran union official who in the early 1990s became the trustee for the Painters union after its president, Jim Bishop, was shot to death before he could testify against the organized-crime members who had supported him. Mr. Alfarone maintained that those looking to clean up gangster-ridden locals were less persistent than those who had profited from the corruption. It wasn't enough, he said, to remove a corrupt president if business agents and other union officials who had been loyal to him or his sponsors continued to hold key positions.

That is wisdom that the trustees seem inclined to ignore, despite the likelihood that the corrupt practices will continue - as will the failure to properly represent members - as long as delegates who got their jobs for reasons other than their commitment to trade-unionism remain in place.

The International ATU's tepid response even after indictments began producing guilty pleas - besides the failure to impose a trusteeship immediately after Mr. Ianniello admitted he exercised authority over the union, it allowed Ms. Chiarovano to continue administering the benefits funds for several months after her conviction - suggests it is not inclined to do any more than it has to.

Mr. Jean-Baptiste said the reformers have told the trustees that if they are unwilling to remove the Local 1181 delegates, they should at least appoint some new board members to create a climate in which meaningful change is a possibility. "Right now," he said, "this union has an opportunity that we never had before."

Unfortunately, the International ATU seems determined to let the chance to clean up Local 1181 slip away.