Dissidents: Busfellas' Legacy Lives in Stall

Nearly two years have passed since the Amalgamated Transit Union belatedly and reluctantly imposed a trusteeship at its largest affiliate, Local 1181, which represents school bus drivers and matrons as well as para-transit employees, after a Federal indictment made clear the local's "other" parent was the Genovese Crime Family.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow TAKING ON THEIR UNION: Dissident members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 demonstrate outside their union Oct. 22 to voice their displeasure with the trusteeship imposed by the International ATU, saying it has continued to support union officials who served when the local was dominated by the Genovese Crime Family.

By that time, Matty "The Horse" Ianniello, one of the crime family's bosses, had admitted during his guilty plea in Federal court in Manhattan that he controlled Local 1181, indictments had been produced against its then-president, Sal Battaglia and longtime secretary-treasurer (and Ianniello confidant) Julius "Spike" Bernstein, and Mr. Bernstein's girlfriend, Local 1181 benefits administrator Ann Chiarovano, had pleaded guilty to obstructing a Federal investigation and begun a brief jail term.

Regime's Remnants Soldier On

Cleaning up the local would have seemed a task equal to sprucing up the Augean stables. But the two trustees appointed by International ATU President Warren George — Tommy Mullins and Robert Baker — over the past 23 months have been content to hand the shovels to six veteran union officials who served loyally under Mr. Battaglia and Mr. Bernstein, among them the since-jailed president's son. (Mr. Bernstein has left us, presumably for the Great Underground Bus Garage.)

After postponing officer elections that were originally supposed to be held six months ago, Mr. Mullins announced at last month's Local 1181 membership meeting that a vote would not be scheduled before next June. The dissident group within the local known as Members for Change, which had vigorously protested the original postponement, has concluded that the International ATU is running a kind of Rope-a-Dope strategy, hoping that the group and the 15,000 rank-and-file members of the local will lose interest in reform as the months pass.

But a rally Oct. 22 outside Local 1181's Woodhaven Blvd. headquarters in Queens attracted close to 100 members, a jump from previous demonstrations there. They marched in front of the building chanting, "What do we want? Election now!" And when they were finished, the veteran union organizer Eddie Kay informed them that the group's attorneys had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn that morning seeking a court order to lift the trusteeship and hold an officer election within 75 days.

The complaint asserts that rather than the trusteeship being designed to root out the corrupt elements within the local, it "is being continued as a means of frustrating the exercise of democracy in Local 1181."

"This union has been controlled by organized crime for decades," one Members for Change lawyer, Carl Levine, told the crowd. "Even though the ATU knew or should have known, they didn't lift a finger ... Now that they're here, rather than doing the job an honest trusteeship should, rather than fighting for members, they've let things get worse."

The court papers note that while the trustees had the power to remove the entire executive board of the local, they retained six of its members as delegates. Two of them, Michael Lucivero and Michael Cordiello, have held their posts through decades of corrupt operations by local presidents who met the approval of Matty The Horse. In addition to Anthony Battaglia, the other three delegates — Thomas Salerno, Thomas Gemott and Edward Gigliotti — were all placed on the board by Sal Battaglia.

Noncooperators In, Reformers Out

None of those delegates cooperated with the outside attorney appointed by the international to examine Local 1181's operations, the complaint noted, yet they were not penalized by the trustees. Just as significantly, the complaint stated, "No union members affiliated with Members for Change have been moved into delegate positions as successors to the former members of the corrupt Battaglia/Bernstein slate, despite the power of the Trustees to do so, and evidence of widespread membership support for Members for Change. Rather, the Trustees continue to align themselves with members who support the corrupt Battaglia/Bernstein administration."

A spokeswoman for Local 1181 called the lawsuit "a little premature and we're a little surprised by it" because of the efforts under way to schedule an election. She said union attorneys were still examining the court papers and would not comment yet on the specific charges.

In a February interview, Mr. Mullins derided the methods used by the ATU's own outside investigator, Richard Mark, questioning why he had insisted that members of the Local 1181 board appear before him under oath but did not make that a condition for testimony from those active in Members for Change. He also contended that the organization was less interested in reforming the local than in gaining control of it politically.

Union members who attended the rally made clear, however, that they view Members for Change as the best vehicle for gaining real representation.

Jules Seraphin, a bus driver with 16 years' experience, said that the bus companies which employ them on behalf of the Department of Education "do anything they want to do because we don't have a union. They don't fight for us. We come to see [Mr. Mullins] and they tell us he's in Virginia," where he heads another ATU local. "He's never in the office."

Complaints About Benefits

While many school bus drivers question why their pensions are inferior to members of the ATU's two New York City Transit locals with similar salaries and experience, Clifford Magloire, a para-transit driver for Access-A-Ride, said their benefits are vastly superior to what he and his colleagues there receive.

"We get no pension, no medical benefits," he said. "Relative to the amount of money they take from 1,500 members, it's an embarrassment that they provide no representation other than at disciplinary hearings. When we ask [Local 1181 officials] about it, they tell us, 'We can't afford it,' or 'There's high turnover in your job.' But we're paying them $30 a month — we're just a cash cow for them."

Brijida Pilgrim and Rony Michel both complained about inadequate health coverage, with Mr. Michel displaying a benefits statement indicating that he was responsible for all but $135 out of $1,100 in recent medical treatment.

Rose Barthelemy, a matron for four years at Rainbow Transit, said she was laid off in September when she told the company she could not accept a transfer from its Queens division to the one in Staten Island because she had no way of getting there from her home in Elmont, L.I.

"The union didn't want to do anything," she said. "The union said, 'You have to start all over without anything you had'

" based on her accumulated seniority.

Let Driver Take 'Bozo' Hit

The lack of representation can be seen not only in Local 1181's failure to help its members with management, but in its response when they take a beating in the media. A month prior to the rally, a Daily News headline blared, "Bozo bus driver abandons kid alone in middle of nowhere" after a first-grader was placed on the wrong bus and then dropped off miles from his home.

It turned out that the driver made an erroneous assumption when she saw a group of parents waiting for their children at the last stop on her route and concluded that one of them was there for the 5-year-old boy. But the precipitating blunder had been made by someone at his school, P.S. 111, who placed the little boy on the wrong bus.

Local 1181, which seems just as reluctant to deal with the media as in the days when Sal Battaglia would mutter about "them rag papers," said nothing on behalf of the humiliated bus driver.

This constitutes old news by now, said Members for Change activist John Bisbano, who accused the trustees of also "giving away rights that let them take away people's jobs. We've got a union that never draws a line in the sand. The international is like, 'See no evil, hear no evil, just send us the local's [dues] money.'''

'Denying Members Control'

"The reason they're staying," Mr. Levine said of the trustees, "is to keep the members from controlling their own union."

Further complicating matters is that the current Local 1181 contract expires at the end of June, which is the earliest Mr. Mullins said an election could be held. Simon Jean-Baptiste, a leader in Members for Change who might be its candidate for president of the local, told the crowd, "We need a democratic, clean and fair election no later than January, so we can get ready for our contract."

As part of the court petition, Members for Change attorneys have asked that a neutral monitor be appointed to oversee the election process to guard against the kind of chicanery they claim was deployed to help re-elect Mr. Battaglia three years ago. They say the handling of that vote by Election Services Corporation has rendered suspect the firm's impartiality, and have requested that the larger and more well-regarded American Arbitration Association be given jurisdiction and that a mail ballot be used.

Noting that union trusteeships are not supposed to last more than 18 months unless a case can be made that discontinuing them would harm the interests of the rank and file, Mr. Levine said that ATU officials "have to prove that there's a clear and legitimate purpose for maintaining the trusteeship. We believe that not only can't they prove that, but in fact that their reasons for maintaining the trusteeship are improper: to squelch democracy, to prevent a legitimate election, and to keep the union in the hands of people who are clearly associated with the old regime."