http://www.yufa.org/stewards/10biggestmistakes.html
A Union Steward's Ten Biggest Mistakes
A Union Steward's Ten Biggest Mistakes
by Tom Juravich and Kate Bronfenbrenner(Reprinted here with the authors' permission)
28 Jan 04 – A good steward is many things – an organizer, a negotiator, a counsellor, a peacemaker and a troublemaker. But there are certain things that a steward must avoid at all costs.
Mistake one – Fail to represent fairly
Not only does this leave the union open to being sued for breaching its duty to provide fair representation, it's just not the right thing to do. It undermines the whole purpose of the union and the very idea of solidarity.
Mistake two – Make backroom deals
Management is notorious for trying to get stewards to trade grievances. "I'll let you have this case if you drop the one we talked about yesterday." Every member deserves a fair shake and every grievance needs to be evaluated on its own merit. Never agree to anything you would be uncomfortable telling your entire membership about.
Mistake three – Promise remedies too quickly
You're hurting both the member and your credibility if you pass judgement on a grievance prior to a thorough investigation. Only after you have spoken to the grievor and witnesses and consulted the contract, the employer's rules and past practices are you in a position to make that determination. Given the frequency of poor and mixed arbitration decisions, no steward should ever promise victory.
Mistake four – Fail to speak with new workers
The most important way a union gains the support of a new member or a potential new member is by one-on-one contact with the steward. You not only want to provide new workers with information, but need to build a personal relationship and begin to get them involved in union activities from their first day on the job.
Mistake five – Fail to adhere to time lines
Even the strongest, iron-clad case can be lost if the time line specified in your contract isn't followed. Even if management agrees to an extension, it is not in the union's interest to let problems fester and grow. If you do get a formal extension of time limits, be sure to get it in writing.
Mistake six – Let grievance go unfiled
Every grievance that goes unfiled undermines the contract you struggled so hard to win. While most members see changes and problems only in terms of the impact on them, the steward needs to be able to understand a grievance's impact on the contract and the union as a whole.
Mistake seven – Meet with management alone
When you meet with management alone, suspicions may arise as to what kinds of deals you're making. It also allows management to lie or change its story. More importantly, when the steward meets with management alone, it takes away an opportunity for members to participate in the union and to understand that it's really their organization.
Mistake eight – Fail to get settlements in writing
Just as you should protect yourself by not meeting alone with management, be sure to get grievance settlements in writing. Putting the settlement in writing helps clarify the issues and keeps management from backing down on their deal.
Mistake nine – Fail to publicize victories
Publicizing each and every victory is an important way to build your local union. This publicity not only has a chilling effect on the employer, but helps educate your own members on their contractual rights. It also gives you something to celebrate and builds the courage needed to carry on.
Mistake ten – Fail to organize
Stewards are much more than grievance handlers. They are the key people in the local who mobilize the membership, and they must be talkin' union and fightin' union all the time. Each and every grievance and incident must be looked at in terms of how it can increase participation, build the union, and create new leaders.
Comments? Opinions?
The Unions’ Own “1%”: Extravagant
Pay, Nepotism, Government Indifference
by LUKE ROSIAK on AUGUST 20, 2013 · LEAVE A COMMENT
Summary: Union leaders are increasingly distant from the
everyday workers they claim to represent, with faster-growing pay and an
entrenched ruling class, data show. Nepotism is in full force, union members
complain, and the closest some second- or third-generation officials have been
to a day on a job site is a class on labor relations at Harvard. With a small
handful of persons controlling a multitude of related trusts, sometimes for
decades, it should be no surprise the Department of Labor has found at least 89
cases where union members had funds embezzled by their own officials in the
first half of 2013.
The Laborers’ International Union of North America says it
fights for equality, for lowering the gap between the highest- and lowest-paid,
and against the corrupt practices of corporate fat-cats who have politicians in
their pockets and avoid paying their fair share in taxes. That’s the image the
union wants to project.
The reality is different. The LIUNA presents a case study in
the hypocrisy, self-dealing, and good-old-boy networking that now characterizes
many if not most unions. Entrenchment is common, with the same people holding
office for year after year. Nepotism is rampant; privilege afforded by birth is
the norm in much of the labor movement.
At marble palaces throughout Washington, union leaders who
are often the sons and grandsons of organizers and who have just as often had
virtually no experience toiling on job sites, have come to view themselves as
untouchable. Indeed, that sense of invulnerability is rooted in reality, given
the record of Obama administration officials in charge of enforcing labor laws.
The Department of Labor’s enforcement office since the 2008 election has been
stacked with former union officials who have ceased audits of international
unions, even those that had long lists of unresolved problems in previous
audits.
Privilege at “the Laborers”
At LIUNA, pay for a tight network of top union officials has
risen faster than for the rank and file, even as membership has declined,
according to a computer analysis of federal disclosure documents. Eight of the
Laborers executive board’s 13 members have been in their posts more than a
decade.
At the Laborers, a combination of political influence and
brazenness is on full display. On top of the $1 million the international union
spends yearly on K Street lobbyists and $1 million in campaign contributions
and political ads in the last election, its legislative affairs office includes
a well-connected lobbyist, Leo J. Gannon.
Gannon is a former Rhode Island state legislator who made
$217,000 in 2012 as head of legislative affairs for the union-affiliated
Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust. In 2003, he pled guilty to
making false statements to federal investigators in connection with a $750,000
Labor Department grant involving partnerships for matching unemployed workers
with jobs; prosecutors alleged no such partnerships were executed. After
politicians urged leniency, Gannon got off with probation and a fine. Yet he
continues to hold a position with the union despite the fact that the law bans
people convicted of certain crimes, including lying to or stealing from the
federal government, from holding positions of power within unions and related
organizations. It is a criminal offense for the prohibited individual to take
such a job or for a union to hire him. Neither Gannon nor the Laborers
responded to requests for comment.
Gannon is not the first Laborers hire to have had a run-in
with the government. Gordon Green, director of the Laborers’ Service Contract
Education and Training Trust Fund, was sentenced to prison after being charged
in 2007 with bribery relating to an employee benefit fund and with the theft of
employee benefit plan property.
Green sold union information to a contractor managing
government buildings’ maintenance for a suitcase containing $150,000 in cash;
the government contractor alerted authorities.
“Gordon Green’s criminal actions demonstrate both an
astonishing breach of the trust placed in him by the Laborers’ International
Union of North America and an intolerable example of corruption and greed,”
prosecutors said.
Green received six months in prison after getting credit for
“substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of other persons
who have committed criminal offenses.”
Little scrutiny
Critics say that the Laborers and other unions are less
likely to face scrutiny because President Obama has stacked the Office of
Labor-Management Standards with former union officials. (OLMS is the federal
office charged with rooting out misconduct among unions.) Notably, OLMS has
stopped auditing the international unions that control the majority of union
money and slashed the number of local union audits in half.
In 2008, the OLMS audited 791 unions, but in 2011, under new
director John Lund, it looked at only 461. The change is largely because
officials no longer conduct the most complex audits, those of international
headquarters.
“They control something like 90 percent of the funds.
They’ve got their hands in everything, so they’re the ones you should be
looking at the most,” said Don Loos, Lund’s predecessor, who served in the
George W. Bush administration. Loos, who is now an advisor at the National
Right to Work Committee, has complained that the OLMS is toothless, with no
ability under the law to levy fines or other sanctions. “They say ‘look, you’re
doing this wrong, but we can’t fine you.’ Which is unlike any business
reporting. The problem is there’s no penalty for being dishonest,” he said.
Critics say the organization has been lenient in requiring
unions to report on their financials, including overlooking teachers’ unions
that represent private charter-school teachers. Unions solely representing
local government employees are exempt from most disclosure.
“It is time that the U.S. Department of Labor requires all
state teacher unions and government employee unions that have failed for decades
to comply with the [Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act] be forced to
comply with the Act or be criminally prosecuted for willful failure to file
these reports,” Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism wrote to the Labor
Department this year.
All in the family
If connections and privilege afforded by birth are
responsible for the positions of some of the “one percent” of Wall Street that
unions have decried, they are at least as common in their own leadership posts.
For the Laborers Local 1015 in Canton, Ohio, 14 staffers and
officers oversee $1.7 million in assets for 685 members, but five of them,
including the treasurer, auditor, and business manager, belong to the Mayle
clan.
At Kentucky’s Laborers 1445, five of 17 officials are named
Oney. They are business manager Johnny W., who makes $80,000; Johnny N., who
makes $61,000; auditor Roger, treasurer Mitchell, and secretary Rhonda.
“Johnny N. is the field rep, he’s my son. When it comes to
hiring him, I make my recommendations and the executive board does what they
want to do,” the business manager said. His brother Roger is auditor, and
Mitchell, until two years ago, sat on the executive board as treasurer. Rhonda,
who “sleeps with my brother,” Johnny W. joked, answers phones.
These cozy relationships are even worse among elites in the
union’s monumental national headquarters—and they have actively separated
unions from their most basic historical missions, one of the Laborers’ own
officials said. “It’s becoming impossible to find anyone at the Laborers’
International Union who has ever actually worked the trade beyond a summer or
two while they attended the Harvard Labor College,” said a longtime national
official of the Laborers’ International Union of North America who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation.
“How can you represent working men and women when you’ve
never had to really work a day in your life as a construction laborer? These
sons and grandsons of laborers have never suffered through a long layoff, or
seared in the heat of the day, or frozen in the cold of a winter outside on a
job site.”
At the Laborers’ international headquarters, the
double-speak and misplaced financial priorities are perhaps nowhere more
evident than in the fact that even as the Laborers’ payroll has swelled, it has
failed to pay taxes on its flagship office space for the last eight years,
according to a half-million-dollar lien filed by the District of Columbia this
year—the third such lien filed against it since the 1990s. “Prevent seizure
action by sending full payment today!” the letter says.
The union’s headquarters previously had federal tax liens
issued against it in 1991 and 1992 for $70,000 and in 1993 for $25,000, records
show. They were settled in 1995 and 1996.
Of course, even as it neglected its own obligations, the
union was quick to criticize others for not paying taxes, telling members last
year that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney “opposes legislation that
would ensure corporations pay their fair share of taxes.”
Tangled web
Armand E. Sabitoni is treasurer of the Laborers national
union, making $436,000 a year, with at least two relatives on staff. Five
members of the Sabitoni family are officers at Laborers locals. A tangled web
of pension and other funds weaves the family’s tentacles through every branch
of the union and provides ample opportunity to boost salaries far beyond what
is evident in the payrolls of the union’s main offices.
Michael A. Sabitoni Jr., for example, is president of the
Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council and is also chairman of
the Rhode Island Laborers’ Pension Fund, the Rhode Island Laborers’ Health and
Welfare Fund, and the Rhode Island Laborers’ Annuity Fund.
He is also trustee of the New England Laborers’ Training
Trust Fund, the New England Laborers’ Labor-Management Cooperation Trust and
the New England Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund.
“There’s a whole host of trusts,” said Nathan Mehrens, a top
Department of Labor attorney under President George W. Bush. “Interconnected
entities that are technically distinct from the union itself, but provide ample
compensation.” So even if no one salary may be egregiously high, all those
posts add up.
At the 57,000-member International Brotherhood of Boilermakers
national headquarters, four members of the Creeden family received a combined
$836,000 a year, with Secretary-Treasurer William making $300,000 and directors
Kyle and Ryan making more than $143,000 each.
At the 250-member United Industrial & Service Employees
Union, four of the seven officials in 2011, including the president, vice
president, and trustee, were named Romero. At the International Union of
Painters and Allied Trades Local 1970, the president, treasurer and secretary
were all named Lipscomb.
About 1 in 5 unions had multiple officials with the same
last name in 2011, according to an analysis of federal union disclosures.
Unions had a median roster of eight officials, making it easy for one family to
have significant control.
While the Laborers represent a high-profile case study,
self-dealing is commonplace at the full spectrum of unions. Teamsters 710 of
Mokena, Ill., pays its treasurer, Patrick W. Flynn, $435,000 a year, but
apparently that wasn’t enough; both his son and daughter took jobs at the
union. President Michael Sweeney brought on his sister Maureen at a $60,000
salary, while trustee James Dawes, who received a $215,000 bonus, brought on
his daughter for $45,000, tax records show.
The average union member has no idea how much the leaders
make, said Stanley Oubre, a retired Boilermaker in Louisiana. Few union members
can relate to people making such huge salaries.
“It sounds like we’re getting robbed,” Oubre said of the
money earned by International Brotherhood of Boilermakers President Newton B.
Jones. “I was a boilermaker for 35 years, and oh my goodness, what we made was
pennies” compared with that.
Job security
When officers aren’t already related, they often become a
sort of family, re-elected time after time, or shuffling top positions among
themselves each election. Three-quarters of unions that had elections in 2010
re-elected most of their officers, an analysis of DOL data shows. Ten percent
of unions re-elected 9 of 10 officers.
“When an outgoing boss leaves, they make an interim
appointment of their own successors. After that, they have a re-election rate
that would make an incumbent congressman blush. Nobody is ever stupid enough to
run against them,” the Laborers official said. A recent American Postal Workers
Union national president, for example, was elected seven times to three-year
terms.
Across the U.S., 27 percent of officers in 2003 were still
in office in 2011. In 1 in 5 unions, at least half of elected officers remained
the same over the course of those eight years. But imperial tenure is more
common, and has a greater impact, at the national headquarters that control the
bulk of union finances.
Two-thirds of national headquarters retained at least half
of their officers in the most recent election, a Washington Times analysis
shows. For example, the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied
Workers returned 11 of 12 officers in 2008, and the American Federation of
Teachers re-elected 35 of its 45 officers in 2010.
At the Laborers’ International Union of North America
national headquarters, 11 of 16 current officers have been running the union
since at least 2003. At the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, it’s six of
eight, with only two district vice presidents departing. At the Bakery,
Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union, only six board members
and one vice president among the union’s 24 officials left over the eight
years.
Union posts increasingly have become long-term gigs over the
years, with the average union re-electing 56 percent of its officers in
elections held in 2010, up from 49 percent in elections in 2001. And the longer
they stay on the job, the more they make.
High pay
Over the past decade, top union officials’ compensation has
risen even though membership has fallen, and the unions have added
significantly more employees to their offices. Joseph V. Senese was paid a
salary of $698,406 last year for his role in running the National Production
Workers Union, based in the golf course-lined Chicago suburbs, which reported
600 members in 2006 and none in 2007, according to union disclosures.
Tax records confirm a pattern of high salaries, with base
compensation of $583,000 in 2008, and show that Senese, in turn, issued
hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash loans back to the union. For decades,
the union spent “large sums of money” to provide Senese with around-the-clock
security after his brother and father, also union honchos, survived
assassination attempts and federal authorities barred his father from union
activity for life, alleging mob ties, according to a 1993 Chicago Tribune
article. “We don’t talk to newspaper reporters. Don’t call back here,” a
staffer at the union’s full-time office said this year before hanging up the phone.
John M. Lazzaretto, business manager of LIUNA Local 152 in
Highland Park, Ill., was paid $419,543 in 2011. The 1,000-member union local
counted Lazzaretto’s son, Michael, as an organizer, and his cousin, Vallie, as
secretary, and a Brennan Lazzaretto as janitor.
“A big portion of that final salary was a retirement
package. My salary probably averaged about $250,000, which for a business
manager, I was probably top three or four. There’s probably three or four
people in the Chicago area making more than $300,000. Of course, times have
changed; people get rid of the heavy earners,” Lazzaretto said.
“I was the only trustee left after the feds came in, when
the government put a consent decree over the whole international union alleging
there was ties to organized crime,” he said. “I came out with a clean bill of
health.”
Despite unions’ focus on income equality, the inequality
between the highest-paid and lowest-paid union employees has grown over time,
and the rank-and-file workers toiling in factories and construction sites that
the union officers represent especially pale in comparison with the top
officials who represent them. In 2000, the bottom quarter of full-time
employees at union offices, such as administrative assistants at headquarters,
had salaries of less than $33,900, while the top quarter had salaries of more
than $65,400. In 2012, the bottom quarter salary was $43,000 compared with
$94,800 for the top quarter.
Unions argue that even huge salaries for officers, such as
the $1 million that Gerald McEntee made last year as president of the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), are far below the
pay of business CEOs. But critics point out that as representatives of the
working man—and increasingly, the working man whose paycheck comes from the
taxpayer—labor leaders should be held to a different standard.
Loos, the former Department of Labor official, said labor
leaders with compensation that is worlds apart from those they represent make
it difficult for them to empathize with life in the trenches. “Look at SEIU
[the Service Employees International Union]. That’s a union of janitors, and
you’ve got people at the top making $500,000 a year, plus a lot of them have
their hands in more than one till—they’re making additional money from the
pension funds.
“A lot of these groups were a part of the Occupy Wall Street
movement, and they really pushed the notion of ‘fat cats.’ But,” he said,
“union bosses have always been fat cats.”
Luke Rosiak is a journalist specializing in data analysis
who has written for the Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics.
Some reporting in this article originally appeared in the Washington Times.
This article originally appeared in Labor Watch and is republished here with
permission.
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Accused of nepotism, head of food
workers union voted out
Ernie Duran Jr. plans to challenge the results
By Andy Vuong
The Denver Post
POSTED: 09/23/2009
01:00:00 AM MDT38 COMMENTS| UPDATED: 6
YEARS AGO
Ernie Duran Jr.
Ernie Duran Jr. (Denver Post file photo)
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Ernie Duran Jr., the longest-standing president of the
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union, lost his re-election bid this
week as union members approved sweeping leadership changes amid allegations of
nepotism and misspent funds.
Members elected rank-and-file challenger Kim Cordova, a
former union representative currently working at Safeway, to take over as
president Jan. 1.
They also approved a new secretary treasurer and recording
secretary and 19 of 25 board members who ran as part of Cordova's team. The six
other board positions were unchallenged.
"I'm excited to be the first woman UFCW president here
in Colorado," said Cordova, 42. "Members spoke loud and clear — they
wanted change. It was obvious because our whole team won."
The UFCW Local 7 is one of the state's largest unions, with
23,000 members, including grocery- store, meatpacking and private-health-care
workers.
Duran declined to comment through his secretary.
But his daughter and the union's staff attorney, Crisanta
Duran, said a challenge of the election will be lodged with the U.S. Department
of Labor within 15 days.
"There were several election violations under the rules
of the Department of Labor that took place in the past several months,"
Crisanta Duran said.
She wouldn't disclose specifics but said the current
leadership would seek another election. She also noted that less than 13
percent of the membership voted and that the results were "very
close."
Ernie Duran, 53, has been president of the UFCW Local 7
since 1998. He also served a three-year term in the early 1990s. This year was
the last time he planned to run for re-election, Crisanta Duran said.
During the contentious battle over the "right to
work" ballot measure last year, reports surfaced about nepotism within the
union under Duran's leadership.
In 2007, Crisanta Duran was paid $133,410 and Ernie Duran's
son, Ernie Duran III, was paid $134,378 as an executive staff member, according
to Labor Department filings. The elder Duran earned $162,368 that year.
"The nepotism was a big issue with the workers — Ernie
hiring his family and putting them into high-paid positions," Cordova
said.
Allegations surfaced this year about misspent union funds.
There are concerns about "his son's spending and
whether or not it was business expenses," said Irene Goodell, who worked
as Ernie Duran's secretary for about a year until April.
Receipts posted on the website VoteErnieOut.com allege that
union dues were spent on top-shelf margaritas, king-crab legs and Denver
Broncos tickets.
KMGH-Channel 7 reported last week that the Labor Department
is investigating the union. Cordova said the probe covers the union's spending
of membership dues.
A Labor Department spokesman declined to comment Tuesday.
Crisanta Duran called the charges "lies."
"They ran a campaign of nothing but lies and smear, and
we ran a positive campaign," she said.
The UFCW Local 7 is negotiating new contracts on behalf of
King Soopers, Safeway and Albertsons workers.
"It's still our goal to resolve these contract
negotiations without a strike or lockout and get a fair deal for workers,"
she said.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
Chronology: Ernie Duran Jr.'s career highlights
1980s: As a new lawyer, works for the National Labor
Relations Board in Denver, prosecuting unfair labor practices.
1984: Recruited to start UFCW Local 7's first in-house legal
department.
1991: Becomes secretary treasurer of the union in May,
elected president in October.
1992: UFCW members at Longmont Foods strike for one day.
1993: City Market workers strike for four weeks.
1994: Workers at an Albertsons store in Rock Springs, Wyo.,
strike for 550 days.
1995: Returns to his post as legal counsel.
1997: Re-elected president.
1998: Kaiser Mental Health Group workers strike for one day.
2000: Kaiser Professional Healthcare Group workers strike
for three weeks.
2005: Eight months of defiance and call to strike end after
the president of UFCW International sends Duran a letter that effectively
cancels any strike vote. Grocery workers, defying Duran's call to reject a
contract offer, hand him the first loss of his career.
2008: Plays key role in costly state ballot-measure battle
between unions and business that led to removal of four labor-backed measures
and defeat of business-backed "right to work" initiative.
Denver Post research library; Denver Post file photo
Under the search “unions nepotism”:
Sarnia Observer
NEPOTISM, FAVORITISM CITED MEMBER'S
COMPLAINTS UPHELD
Board Slams Laborers' Union
By MARY JANE EGAN
July 13,1983
Discrimination, nepotism and blatant favoritism were rampant
in the operation of Sarnia Local 1089 International Laborers Union under
business manager Rocco D'Andrea, the Ontario Labor Relations Board has found.
In a 35-page report released Tuesday, the board upheld the
complaints of 32-year-old laborer Joe Portiss who alleged throughout a 12-day
hearing which ended in April that Mr. D'Andrea's hiring habits unjustly
deprivedhim of some 47 union jobs between 1980 and 1982.
In what is being heralded by Mr. Portiss' lawyer as a
landmark decision, the board has ordered the union and its officers to
implement 10 relief measures designed to eliminate the "obvious abuse of
power" the board has identified within the union's management.
In considering these orders, the board felt the
"widespread disregard of the most fundamental rights of members of Local
1089 so serious, it considered suspending or removing Mr. D'Andrea from office.
But the board concluded that since Mr. Portiss' Toronto lawyer Brian Iler did
not seek such strong remedial action in his case, it would not make such an
order. However, the board concluded it would consider such measures if its
relief orders are not implemented.
The board has ordered the union and its officers to cease
all arbitrary and discriminatory hiring practices. It calls for a written list
of hiring hall rules to be posted in the hall and a copy to be provided to the
union's 1,200 members.
At the next general union meeting in September, the board
has ordered a committee of no less than five members be formed to prepare,
within 90 days, a list of specialized job classifications and rules governing
them. These are also to be provided all members.
In what is considered a most unusual order in a case
involving a union, the board has ordered that within 30 days, an outside
auditor be retained at the union's expense to oversee union books,
administration of hiring hall rules and procedures for a period of two years.
The person or firm hired must be from outside Sarnia and is to have no
contractual relation with the union.
The board has also called for copies of the out-of-work list
to be posted in the hiring hall as well as a list of employer job requests. The
lists are to include names of dates of referrals so "all members know
their place and the place of others" on the out-of-work list.
Responding to Mr. Portiss' evidence that an arm injury
prevented him from accepting some union jobs, thus causing his name to return
to the bottom of the out-of-work list, the board has ordered establishment
within 90 days of a list of injured or partially disabled members "with a
view to devising a system for the referral of such members without penalty or
discrimination." When such rules are adopted, they are to be posted in the
union hall.
The board has ordered monetary compensation to Mr. Portiss
for all wages and benefits lost as a result of the union's violation of Section
69 of the Labor Relations Act discriminatory hiring practices. The figure is to
be decided upon between both parties in the dispute and Mr. Iler's initial
estimate is between $15,000 and $25,000.
The union is also ordered to post in English and Italian
copies of a board notice which states the union will adhere to the board's
orders. The notice is to be posted for 90 consecutive working days.
In response to evidence at the hearing that union members
found it difficult to secure acopies of the union constitution, the board has
ordered copies be made available, at no cost, to all members and that a
reasonable number be kept at the hall.
In making its findings on the case, the board frequently
refers to the fact Mr. D'Andrea and his Toronto lawyer Alan Minsky made a
motion for a non-suit and called no evidence at the hearing - -concluding they
had "no case to respond to."
The board said this absence of an explanation compels it to
draw adverse inferences against the union. And it states that there is
overwhelming evidence that the job classification "scheme" of the
union was "left deliberately vague by Mr. D'Andrea and the union executive
to facilitate the practice of favoritism and discriminatory job
referrals."
"The evidence confirms that hte hiring hall has been
used by the officers of Local 1089 and especially Mr. D'Andrea as an instrument
of patronage. Patronage and nepotism have no place in the hiring hall
contemplated under the Labor Relations Act," it states.
The board concluded Mr. D'Andrea, and union president Orfeo
Iacobelli regarded Mr. Portiss and fellow laborer Donato Marinaro as
"political enemies." Both had run unsuccessfully for election to the
union's executive.
Mr. Marinaro, who has also filed a complaint of
discriminatory hiring practices against the union, will have his case heard
July 26 by the board.
The board blasted the union officials for nepotism, stating
"the evidence establishes that the family ties of Mr. D'Andrea and Mr.
Iacobelli extend throughout the union's administration and its general
membership. Specifically, the board cites the case of Cecilio Iacobelli, saying
he jumped past 250 laborers to secure a job in 1981.
The board also notes the hiring hall books are kept
primarily by Anna Iacobelli - Mr. Iacobelli's daughter.
While much of the evidence at the hearing surrounded job
classifications and Mr. D'Andrea's contention that laborers' names were skipped
over if they had a particular skill, the board concludes at least one job
classifications was "inserted deliberately to conceal the blatant
favoritism shown Cecilio Iacobelli. And it adds it therefore would "see no
reason to strain to rely on any of the notations of classifications in the
hiring hall books to explain referrals out of turn."
**********Could a substitute teacher with Toronto Catholic
use this ruling to file a complaint against OECTA?
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