Ex-Leader Takes Plea
Want Board Ousted In 'Mob' Bus Local

By RICHARD STEIER

Dissident members of the union representing school bus drivers last week urged that its board members be removed in the wake of the union's ex-president pleading guilty to extorting bribes from three different bus companies.

The Chief-Leader/Michael O'Kane 'MAFIA THROUGH AND THROUGH': Union organizer Eddie Kay, with school bus drivers and escorts looking on, decries the corruption within Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 that led to guilty pleas to racketeering charges by its former president and secretary-treasurer and an admission in Federal court by one of the bosses of the Genovese Crime Family that he controlled the union through its leadership.

Salvatore Battaglia, who served as president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 from 2002 until late 2006, when he was forced to step down as a condition for bail being granted in the racketeering case against him, admitted before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck Jan. 18 that he had shaken down two bus company owners who employed his members and one owner who sought to avoid having his employees unionized.

5-Year Sentence Likely

The plea, under which Mr. Battaglia is expected to be given between 57 and 71 months in prison when he is sentenced May 16, was entered four days before his trial was scheduled to begin in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

He had figured to face formidable obstacles in gaining an acquittal, since Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello, whom Federal prosecutors have identified as one of the bosses of the Genovese Crime Family, had pleaded guilty in September 2006 to having controlled Local 1181 and influenced the payment of bribes to officials of the union. The man who served as secretary-treasurer of Local 1181 throughout Mr. Battaglia's tenure, the late Julius "Spike" Bernstein, had also pleaded guilty to participating in shakedowns of bus company owners, and the local's former benefits fund director, Anne Chiarovano, had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for hindering the FBI probe of the link between the union and the Genovese Family.

Following Mr. Battaglia's guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia noted in a statement that all 20 persons charged in the case were considered to be either members or associates of that organized-crime family.

Battaglia Loyalists

About 30 Local 1181 dissidents belonging to a group known as Members for Change assembled outside the union's Ozone Park, Queens headquarters Jan. 23. They noted that all nine union delegates remaining on the board after it was placed in trusteeship by the International ATU following Mr. Battaglia's second Federal indictment in November 2006 had run on his slate when he was re-elected the previous year.

Among them is one of Mr. Battaglia's sons, Anthony.

'Battaglia's People'

An attorney for the group, Carl Levine, stated, "This union has been dominated for decades by the Mafia and it's not a secret, and it wasn't a secret before the indictments. The people who proudly ran on the Sal Battaglia slate are the people the trustees have kept to run the union."

The dissidents called on the International ATU to remove the delegates, and to bring in a Federal monitor to oversee the union's next election, which is slated for June.

It is not clear whether the International will permit that election to go forward and discontinue the trusteeship once the vote is completed. It apparently does not plan to ask for Federal oversight; a statement issued by its primary trustee at the local said that officer elections "will be conducted by an experienced outside and independent election service."

That trustee, Tommy Mullins, further stated that "there is no room in the union movement for people who put personal greed ahead of the good of the membership and who use their position as elected union officials to line their own pockets with money from employers."

'Betrayed Trade-Unionism'

He added, "By the same token, those who work for the members should not be tarred by the misconduct of those who have betrayed the principles of trade-unionism for personal gain."

Mr. Mullins contended in the statement that "the Trustees and all the employees of the local and its benefit funds have cooperated fully with the government investigation, and exhaustive personal background checks and financial audits have taken place." Those audits, he stated, indicated "there are no assets missing from Local Union 1181 or its benefit funds."

But a report issued a year ago by Richard Mark, an outside lawyer who was retained by the International ATU, noted that all the delegates had told him that they wanted to check with the International whether they were obligated to submit to his questions, then never called back to tell him whether they planned to cooperate.

Asked about what the dissidents characterized as stonewalling of the International's outside counsel, Local 1181 spokeswoman Jane Rubinstein said, "After the Mark report, what the trustees did was embarked upon an investigation" of their own that included interviewing the delegates. "They did background checks and additional independent investigation."

Two other delegates stepped down in the past year, but Ms. Rubinstein said she could not comment on whether their departures were due to a lack of cooperation with the trustees' probe.

Awareness Not the Issue

Asked whether the trustees, in permitting Anthony Battaglia to remain a delegate, had concluded that he was not aware of his father's illegal activities, Ms. Rubinstein said that the intent of the internal probe was to determine whether any union officials "were engaged in corrupt or inappropriate activities. At this time, there's no reason to believe [Anthony Battaglia] was engaged in any activities."

The Members for Change rally outside Local 1181's headquarters on Woodhaven Blvd. was monitored by another Battaglia son, also named Sal, who several dissidents said stands at the building's front entrance and determines who is allowed into the union's offices.

He was seen using his cell phone after one dissident, Raymond LaRoche, declared, "We want the International to stop being in bed with these people. Find them guilty and remove them from the union. Sal Battaglia's son is making $65,000 as a security guard - more than the bus drivers - to keep us out of our building."

Cops Summoned

A few minutes later, several police cars pulled up outside the building, and the younger Battaglia told the officers that several of the dissidents had left their cars and buses illegally parked outside the union. The matter was resolved without incident, however, when the vehicles were moved.

Asked whether he wanted to talk about his action or respond to the assertions made by the dissidents, the younger Battaglia said, "I got no comment."

Simon Jean-Baptiste, one of the leaders of Members for Change, said he was not surprised that Mr. Battaglia had summoned the police, calling it emblematic of how his father had run the union and how it continued to be run even under the trusteeship.

Not Big on Dissent

"They see it as their private inheritance," he said of the union's leaders. "They see us at the building and they call the cops on us. At meetings when the members try to ask questions, they shut up the meetings right away."

Eddie Kay, a veteran union organizer who has been assisting members for change for the past two years, ended the meeting by calling to those assembled, "We're gonna throw the bums out - am I right?"

"Right," the crowd responded. "Are we gonna win?" he asked them. "Yes!" "All right," he concluded, "let's go back to work."