Call ATU Slow To Act Against '1181' Busfellas; Prober of Mob Link Alleges Delegates Stonewalled

By RICHARD STEIER

The Amalgamated Transit Union failed to take appropriate action to deal with allegations of organized crime influence and corruption in its local representing city school bus drivers, according to an independent counsel retained by the union.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow CONTROL THROUGH INTIMIDATION: Eddie Kay, a veteran union organizer assisting dissidents at Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, said intimidation tactics by the union's leadership have ranged from the physical menacing of activists like Clifford Magloire (right) to ensuring that outspoken members get less-desirable work assignments. 'If you open your trap, you'll get the worst bus,' he said. 'Maybe you won't get your overtime.'

That counsel, Richard Mark, issued his damning conclusions - which included his assertion that Local 1181 delegates defied his request that they testify under oath - in a Jan. 11 report, but the ATU did not release the findings until this summer, when they were sought by a dissident group within ATU Local 1181 known as Members for Change.

Ask Sweeney to Step In

During a Sept. 6 press conference at the offices of their attorneys, the group demanded that AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney pressure the ATU executive board to take action against corrupt officials within Local 1181, as is required under the AFL-CIO's Code of Conduct.

It also said it would ask Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly to provide protection to a union activist who was shoved and threatened in May while trying to organize bus drivers in Queens, one of several dissidents who claim they have faced intimidation from officials with ties to Local 1181's leadership.

The dissidents also called on the ATU, which is meeting in Las Vegas this week, to carry out the key recommendations in Mr. Mark's report.

Among them is to compel the 11 delegates who continue to be employed by Local 1181 to testify under oath about what they know regarding the corruption that permeated the union.

Deferred to ATU Head

Late last November, Mr. Mark sent a letter to all members of the Local 1181 executive board ordering them to meet with him and testify about the corruption allegations against the union's longtime secretary-treasurer, Julius "Spike" Bernstein, and its president, Salvatore Battaglia. Three days later, Mr. Mark stated in his report, he was informed by two of the delegates, Michael Lucivero and Michael Cordiello, that the entire board was willing to cooperate but had asked ATU International President Warren George "whether they were required to attend the interview and, if so, whether the interview had to be under oath." Subsequent phone calls from the rest of the board members, Mr. Mark stated, showed that they too were seeking Mr. George's advice.

"None of these executive board members made further attempts to contact the Independent Counsel, none appeared for interview," Mr. Mark wrote.

George An Enabler?

The dissidents charged that Mr. George aided the delegates in stonewalling the probe by not ordering that they testify under oath, and that, although Local 1181 was already under trusteeship by the time Mr. Mark sought that testimony, the delegates have actually been rewarded by the trustees, who have retained them and essentially allowed them to run the local.

"Some of these shop stewards who have come out into the street to harass us, these are the people the international hired," asserted Simon Jean-Baptiste, a school bus driver who is among the leaders of Members for Change.

"And you ask yourself: how is this going on? They've just gathered together to do more and more corruption."

A call to ATU President George was referred to his chief of staff, Benetta Mansfield, who did not respond.

AFL-CIO spokesman Steve Smith also did not return calls seeking comment.

Indictments were first brought against Mr. Battaglia and Mr. Bernstein in July 2005 accusing them of assisting in the control of the union and its benefit funds by ranking members of the Genovese Crime Family, and of taking kickbacks from bus company owners not to seek to organize their employees.

'Horse' Admits Payoffs

Last September, Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello, whom Federal law-enforcement officials have identified as one of the leaders of the Genovese family, pleaded guilty to having "assisted persons connected to Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union to receive illegal payments from the owners of certain school bus companies whose employees Local 1181 either represented, sought to represent or would admit to membership ..."

Mr. Battaglia by that time had also been accused by Federal prosecutors of taking payoffs from vendors in return for their receiving service contracts, shaking down a Queens medical center that provided health care to Local 1181 members, and lying to a Federal grand jury about the Genovese family's involvement in the union's affairs. Prosecutors, under the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, were seeking to recover nearly $2.8 million from Mr. Battaglia that he allegedly obtained through his involvement with the Genovese family.

Not Enough for ATU

But those allegations, even coupled with Mr. Ianniello's guilty plea, Mr. Mark noted, did not initially prompt the International ATU to act against Mr. Battaglia or take control of Local 1181. (There was also during this period a sealed guilty plea by Mr. Bernstein, a longtime friend of Mr. Ianniello's who had business dealings with him dating back more than three decades.)

Mr. Mark noted in his report that the AFL-CIO Code requires trade unions to investigate any of their officials "against whom serious and apparently well-founded charges of corruption are placed." It further states, he noted, that if a union official when confronted about such allegations invokes his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination "to avoid discovery of corruption on his part, he has no right to continue to hold trade union office."

VP Didn't Want to Know

Mr. Battaglia, he noted, had previously invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, Mr. Ianniello had pleaded guilty to corruptly influencing the conduct of the union, and a witness in a related trial had provided "direct evidence of extortion, and of obstruction of justice by Battaglia and Bernstein." That testimony alone, Mr. Mark wrote in his report, was sufficient to bring charges against Mr. Battaglia under the ATU constitution, but no such charges were brought. While he recommended in January that they be lodged, no action has been taken, even as Mr. Battaglia prepares for his Federal racketeering trial Oct. 1.

The independent counsel seemed particularly dismayed by the attitude of ATU International Vice President Joseph Welch, who has had a relationship with Local 1181 since the 1970s and was monitoring its activities prior to the trusteeship being imposed last Nov. 21.

Mr. Mark, following a Nov. 1 interview with him, stated, "Essentially IVP Welch discounted all of those [organized crime-related] reports and saw no need for any action because he believed that Local Union 1181 obtained strong contracts, serviced its members properly, and that associations or friendships between officers and organized crime figures that arose because they happened to live in the same neighborhoods were not any reason for concern ... IVP Welch stated that Battaglia grew up in a neighborhood where organized crime was a part of life, and therefore may know some organized crime figures. He does not know who Battaglia may have been associated with in the past in that regard, and made clear that he does not care to know."

Make Mob Ties Forbidden

The independent counsel recommended that the International ATU amend its constitution so that associating with organized crime figures was an offense that subjected members or elected officials of the union to disciplinary charges, and those found guilty of such associations or other corrupt practices would be barred for life from holding union office.

He also recommended that the ATU compel Local 1181 board members to cooperate with probes of the local, including providing testimony under oath.

Carl Levine, an attorney for Members for Change, said that eight months after Mr. Mark's report was given to the International ATU, "there's no evidence that they carried out the recommendations of the independent counsel and carried out an investigation of the local. It's clear why they kept it confidential for so long - it's so critical of their failure to investigate."

He noted that several months after the initial indictments were handed up against Mr. Battaglia, Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Ianniello, the International ATU's newsletter featured an article in which "Sal Battaglia was explicitly praised" for his skills as an organizer.

'Lousy Trade-Unionists'

What made that particularly ironic, said Eddie Kay, a veteran union organizer who has been assisting members for change, is that Mr. Battaglia is accused by prosecutors of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks for agreeing not to try to organize employees at some bus companies.

"These are lousy trade-unionists, besides being thieves and all," Mr. Kay said of Mr. Battaglia and Mr. Bernstein. "They fought much harder for Ianniello than they did for workers."