In The Matter Of:
LOCAL UNION 79
Hearing
September 7, 2004
FINK & CARNEY REPORTING AND VIDEO SERVICES
39 WEST 37TH STREET
NEW YORK, NY USA 10018
(212) 869-1500 or (800) 692-3465
Original File JW0907.txt 115
Pages
Min-U-Scriptฎ File ID: 4015761936
Word Index included with this Min-U-Scriptฎ
Page 1
Docket Number 04-19T
In the Matter of Local Union 79
New York, New York
St. Vartan's Cathedral
630 Second Avenue
New York, New York
September 7, 2004
10:05 a.m.
Before:
PETER F. VAIRA, ESQ.
Messrs. Vaira & Riley
1600 Market Street, Suite 2650
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103
Independent Hearing Officer.
Page 2
APPEARANCES:
Messrs. VAIRA & RILEY
1600 Market Street, Suite 2650
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103
BY: KATHLEEN M. NAGLE, Esq.
Messrs. PATTON BOGGS LLP
GEB Attorneys
2550 M Street NW
Washington, DC 20037-1350
BY: PATRICK J. SLEVIN, Esq.
RAYMOND POCINO
Vice President and Regional Manager
Eastern District
Laborers' International Union of North
America
104 Interchange Plaza, Suite 301
Monroe Township, NJ 08831
THOMAS R. LIMBERG, Inspector
Laborers' International Union of North
America
Office of the Inspector General
905 16th Street
Washington, DC 2006-1765
JOHN R. BILLI, International Auditor
Laborers' International Union of North
America
30904 Lytham Circle
Westlake, Ohio 44145
Page 3
APPEARANCES (Continued):
WITNESS:
KEITH LOSCALZO
PRESENT:
CARMEN S. BARROS, Interpreter
39 East 20th Street, 9th Floor
New York, New York 10003
JEAN WILM, RPR, CMRS
Hearing Reporter.
Page 4
PROCEEDINGS
HEARING OFFICER: Ladies and
gentlemen, we will call the hearing to
order. I am calling the hearing to
order.
Good morning, ladies and
gentlemen. My name is Peter Vaira. I
am the independent hearing officer of
the Laborers' International Union.
This is a hearing to determine the
voluntariness of a supervision of
Local 79. Seated to my right is an
attorney from my staff, Kathleen
Nagle. The docket number is 04-19T in
the matter of Local 79 of New York.
For you Spanish speakers,
there is a translation simultaneously
available. If you need to hear it,
please pick up a headset.
Mr. Slevin, what about that?
The headset is available and passed
out?
MR. SLEVIN: I believe they
did pass out headsets in the back to
Page 5
anybody who needed it.
HEARING OFFICER: If any
Spanish speaker needs a headset, there
is more in the back.
In this particular proceeding,
the International Union is the moving
party and the International Union will
be represented by Mr. Slevin.
MR. SLEVIN: Patrick Slevin
from the
General Executive Board
Attorney's Office. I am accompanied
here today. To my left is John Billi
from the Inspector General's Office
and to my right Inspector Thomas
Limberg also from the Inspector
General's Office.
HEARING OFFICER: Ladies and
gentlemen in the back, can you hear
Mr. Slevin?
(Chorus of "Yes.")
HEARING OFFICER: Mr. Slevin
will make his presentation. I will
call upon the present officers to
verify some facts and then as is the
Page 6
custom in this union, members may make
comment as to whether it is a good
idea or bad idea. Keep in mind that I
cannot solve the problems. I'm just
the judge. The trustee is here and
will be glad to hear from you. If you
have any particular problems, rather
than going into detail, the trustee is
here and you can, in fact, talk to
him.
Let's proceed. Mr. Slevin, go
right ahead.
MR. SLEVIN: The way I would
propose to proceed today is, rather
than present witnesses, to proffer
exhibits and make a general
presentation of the investigation
which was conducted with respect to
79.
HEARING OFFICER: Let me give
a comment. The International Union
can place a local union or a district
council under trusteeship or
supervision if it wants, but it must
Page 7
go through a hearing if it is
contested and it has to be heard by
the judicial officer and I am the
judicial officer of the union. A
union can agree voluntarily to render
supervision for many reasons, for
management, for assistance, for
whatever. The federal law recognizes
that.
LIUNA, this particular union,
always will not do that secretly, will
I do it with an open hearing. If it is
a smaller union and it is minor, they
will do it by telephone. If it is a
large union such as this, it is done
in an open forum so persons can see
and there is a record and there are
reasons for the supervision. That's
what we are doing here this morning.
I'm sorry, Mr. Slevin. I wanted to
give that explanation.
MR. SLEVIN: If I can just
add, I think the presentation here
today, sir, is at least a two fold
Page 8
purpose from our perspective. First
of all, to establish the basis for the
supervision, that it is well grounded.
The second thing also is so that the
membership is aware of the results of
this investigation.
Over the course of the last
few months, there has been
resignations and it's not entirely
clear that the membership is aware of
what has been investigated and what
has turned up in the investigation and
the reasons why we believe that
supervision is valid.
HEARING OFFICER: So the basis
of Mr. Slevin's purpose here this
morning is to inform the membership of
the reason for the supervision and
what underlies it and what reasons for
management or whatever and then I will
determine if the supervision is indeed
voluntary, if it is done with the
consent of the executive board.
Mr. Slevin, proceed.
Page 9
MR. SLEVIN: Mr. Vaira, the
story of Local 79 for our purposes
really begins in January of 2003.At
that time the accountants that were
hired by the local conducted their
year-end review of the local's
finances.
Now, to put it in historical
perspective, that prior year, 2002,
the local had just moved its offices
and as part of that move, there was a
large outlay of union funds for
construction, for locating space, for
the purchase of furniture and all
types of purchases that were
surrounding the move to the new
offices.
Given that, the accountants
took a fairly specific view of trying
to determine whether everything was
adequately documented with the move in
addition to the normal customary
expenditures of the local.
To make a long story short,
Page 10
after the accountants looked at the
financial records of the local, they
determined that the
secretary-treasurer, Mr. Daniel
Kearney had engaged in, for lack of a
better word, embezzlement of union
funds. Funds were spent on his
personal items. Funds were spent on
gifts for other people and there was
also a surprising lack of
documentation of expenditures.
That was reported immediately
to members of the executive board who
I believe at that time were in Florida
at a convention. When everybody
reconvened back in New York,
Mr. Kearney was confronted with the
evidence of his embezzlement and
Mr. Kearney resigned on March 11,
2003.
At that point shortly
thereafter, the matter was referred to
the Inspector General's Office. At
that point Mr. Billi and Mr. Limberg
Page 11
followed up on a very detailed
investigation of Local 79.
HEARING OFFICER: Mr. Billi is
an accountant, former FBI agent and
Mr. Limberg is a former New York
policeman, am I correct, and they are
investigators for the Inspector
General, correct?
MR. SLEVIN: That's correct,
sir.
HEARING OFFICER: Those are
the two men sitting beside you.
MR. SLEVIN: That's correct.
The focus of the Inspector General's
investigation was threefold: First of
all, to determine the extent of
Mr. Kearney's embezzlement.
Second of all, to determine
whether anyone else was involved in
his particular embezzlement of local's
funds.
And third of all, the attempt
to determine whether the Kearney
embezzlement was an isolated
Page 12
circumstance or whether it was really
symptomatic of larger problems of the
local. With those three things in
mind, they immediately launched an
investigation in approximately March
of 2003.They interviewed union
officers, union employees, union
vendors and scrutinized the union's
relationships with vendors that it
used for various services.
At the end of the day, they
conducted roughly 75 interviews of,
again, officers, employees and
vendors. They went through hundreds
of
Pages of financial records and that
resulted in ultimately us being able
to put a case together.
In the immediate future, after
about a month or two of investigating
just that first aspect, the Kearney
embezzlement, the matter was referred
to law enforcement. As you know,
Mr. Vaira, it is the policy of the
Inspector General when they develop
Page 13
evidence of a crime they refer that
matter immediately to law enforcement.
HEARING OFFICER: What
happened to Kearney? Am I getting
ahead of you?
MR. SLEVIN: Just a bit. We
will get to that.
At that point you have two
investigations proceeding on parallel
tracks. You have the United States
Attorney's Office who is pursuing
Mr. Kearney based, if not entirely,
primarily on the evidence that was
discovered by the accountants and by
the Inspector General's Office and
they pursued him.
On the parallel track, the
Inspector General's Office then went
into the second and third areas to see
if anyone else was involved in this
embezzlement.
On top of that, is this an
isolated problem or are there other
things the matter with this local and
Page 14
the Mason Tenders District Council.
The rough chronology that
follows is that in the summertime the
Inspector General's Office develops
information on Franklin Square Ford,
which is a dealership which leased
vehicles to the local union.
Shortly thereafter, they
started to develop information on an
entity by the name of Shemore
Construction, which was a small
carpentry outfit that performed
services for the local union and for
the Mason Tenders District Council
and, I believe, is also a contractor
of laborers.
Then in the fall of that year,
they continued to pursue leads that
they received from a number of
different sources.
In about November of 2003, we
sent the deposition notice to
Mr. Kearney. He had granted an
interview to the Inspector General's
Page 15
Office in approximately April of that
year. We wanted to follow up with a
deposition to see what information he
had apart from the known specific
embezzlement. That would have covered
part of the deposition but we wanted
to know what exactly he knew.
In December shortly after
receiving the deposition notice,
Mr. Kearney through his counsel
advised our office that he refused to
sit for a deposition.
HEARING OFFICER: Explain to
the members just the difference
between an interview and a deposition.
MR. SLEVIN: An interview
every union member is obligated under
the ethics and disciplinary procedure
to sit for an interview with the
Inspector General. You typically sit
there with the Inspector General. He
asks questions and that is pretty much
the extent of it.
The deposition would be more
Page 16
formal. You get a deposition notice
from the office of the GEB attorney.
You would sit down in a room. You can
be represented by an attorney. It's a
smaller version of what happens here
where you have a court reporter, me
and you, and I would ask you questions
and you would give responses to those.
HEARING OFFICER: Under the
union reform procedure, one member
cannot refuse to go through a
deposition.
MR. SLEVIN: They cannot
refuse. That is obstruction of our
office. If you refuse to sit for an
interview with the Inspector General,
that is obstruction of his office.
So we had to continue the
investigation without the benefit of
Mr. Kearney's input. In January of
this year, we then sent out deposition
notices to approximately 10 officers,
employees or just regular members of
Local 79 and the Mason Tenders
Page 17
District Council. We conducted the
depositions in February of 2003.
Again, each person had the right to be
represented by counsel at those
depositions.
HEARING OFFICER: 2003?
MR. SLEVIN: I'm sorry. 2004.
Of this year.
Each person had the right to
be represented by counsel. Most
people exercised that right and we
conducted depositions.
Based on what we learned at
those depositions from various
officers and members, we conducted
three more follow-up depositions in
May of this year and shortly after, in
that same month, we started to make
phone calls to various individuals who
we thought, we believed we had enough
information to charge with
disciplinary violations.
Typically, although not all of
the time, we will call an individual
Page 18
who we are prepared to charge with
disciplinary violations and give them
the option to settle the case or to
give them the right to pursue a
disciplinary hearing and, Mr. Vaira, a
number of individuals in this matter
accepted settlement agreements and did
not choose to go with a disciplinary
hearing.
HEARING OFFICER: Give the
members an idea of what can happen
with a settlement agreement.
MR. SLEVIN: It's the whole
range from complete expulsion, you
have no membership, you cannot hold
employment, you cannot be an officer
all the way down to simply paying
money back or accepting a temporary
suspension. Later I will go over the
terms of some of those settlement
agreements that were reached with us.
So that is the general
background of how the investigation
was conducted and how we developed
Page 19
information with respect to Local 79
and the Mason Tenders District
Council.
Now, what I would propose to
do is go into the conclusions that we
drew from the evidence that was
available to us.
The first area and the most
obvious one was with respect to
Mr. Kearney. Generally what we found
is that he embezzled close to $150,000
from Local 79. If I didn't make it
clear earlier, Mr. Kearney served as
the secretary-treasurer for Local 79
and the Mason Tenders District
Council. As I said previously, the
record shows that he purchased gifts
for himself, he purchased gifts for
other people, some of those people
were local officers, there would be
DVD players, TVs, a number of things.
That caused us some concern if people
are receiving gifts from him, did they
have any suspicion as to the source of
Page 20
those funds, particularly when you
have a gentleman who is the
secretary-treasurer over a fair amount
of money for the local.
The story that we got from
most of the officers was that
Mr. Kearney always posed as an
independently wealthy man. We had no
reason to question that. One even
describes him as a Santa Claus like
figure. I will suspend any judgment
on that, but that is the explanation
for why he was able to, over the
course of a number of years, to give
presents to people without apparently
anybody suspecting that there was a
problem.
Over the course of the
investigation, Mr. Kearney was forced
to reimburse that money. To the
extent there was an item that he
didn't personally reimburse, the
recipients of those gifts came forward
and reimbursed the local for the gifts
Page 21
that they were given.
HEARING OFFICER: Is there a
bond there too?
MR. SLEVIN: I believe there
is, but I'm not entirely clear.
Apart from his expenditure of
money, one other thing that was
surprising to the auditors was the
lack of documentation. As the
membership might know when union funds
are spent, it is incumbent or the duty
of the person spending the money to
provide a receipt or some
documentation for how you spent that,
why you were spending it, where you
were spending it, a number of
different things. There was a lack of
documentation for numerous expenses in
Mr. Kearney's situation.
Not only does this
embezzlement encompass $150,000, but
it spans the course of several years,
which is also disturbing in and of
itself. It wasn't a one-shot deal
Page 22
where someone grabbed a ton of money,
it really holds the course of at least
three years.
What I would propose to do now
is simply go through some of the
exhibits which evidence Mr. Kearney's
embezzlement of union funds.
HEARING OFFICER: You have a
fair sized office staff, right?
MR. SLEVIN: You do.
HEARING OFFICER: There are
procedures and receipts moving through
the whole time.
MR. SLEVIN: There were
procedures in place. That was the
question we had, who in the office
knows about this stuff. We can get to
that, but the short answer is that one
member of the staff said she had
she knew that the expenses were not
being documented but she feared that
she would be fired or no one would
give her story credibility so she did
not come forward. Then she claimed
Page 23
that later in the later on in late
2002, she suspected that he actually
might be embezzling. Again,
presumably, she was fearful.
HEARING OFFICER: Outside CPAs
did not pick it up at all?
MR. SLEVIN: Not at all. That
was one of the complaints of one of
the officers, why didn't the
accountants pick this up? In fact, I
believe some of the officers believed
that the accountants were primarily
responsible for picking this up, so
that is one of the concerns that the
officers had.
Exhibit 1 is a document that
was created by the accountants in
looking at Mr. Kearney's embezzlement
and what it is is a readout of the
expenses that Mr. Kearney charged to
the union in 2000 on his credit cards.
The credit cards that he was
given as the union officer, he
expended approximately $23,000 on
Page 24
personal charges.
If you look at the chart and I
won't go through it in detail but you
see an example of the types of
purchases he is making: Blockbuster,
Burlington Coat Factory, Dress Barn,
Perfume Island, Ticketmaster, Today's
Man, Sea Breeze Jewelers. There are
also charges for CVS. Because there
weren't adequate documentation for the
CVS charges, they used 2002 where
there was documentation and used as a
rule of thumb based on the 2002
documents of 70 percent personal and
30 percent union purchases. For
Pergament, the rule of thumb was
50 percent of those personal and
50 percent was for union.
HEARING OFFICER: What is
Coconuts?
MR. SLEVIN: I'm not sure.
AUDIENCE: Video store.
MR. SLEVIN: Exhibit 2 is,
again, a chart that was made by the
Page 25
accountant of Mr. Kearney's credit
cards. There are approximately
$40,000 of union funds that were used
for personal purchases. Again,
Blockbuster, Burlington Coat Factory,
Gap, Jewelers, Steakhouse,
Ticketmaster, all those things which
were completely personal in nature and
had no union purpose.
HEARING OFFICER: Ladies and
gentlemen, we are looking at the
exhibit book and at the conclusion,
the exhibit book will be out for
anybody who wants to see it. Right
now Mr. Slevin and I have it. It's a
public document.
MR. SLEVIN: Our office will
make the best possible arrangements to
have people review this exhibit. We
can get to that later.
Exhibit 3 is, again, a similar
type of a chart that was made by the
accountant in 2002.You have
approximately $84,000 of union funds
Page 26
used to purchase personal items for
Mr. Kearney either for himself or
gifts for others. Again, Bally's
Hotel and Casino, Bed Bath & Beyond,
Broward Limousines, CD Travel
Planners, Cohen's Fashion Optical,
Lady Jane Craft Center, San Diego Zoo,
on and on and on.
So that is basically a chart
of how Mr. Kearney used his credit
card to make purchases for himself.
Another thing that we wanted
to make clear is that Mr. Kearney did
make restitution in the amount of
approximately $150,000.The exact
figure is $149,320.21.That is in
Exhibit 4. Exhibit 4 are checks that
were cut from Mr. Kearney to the local
paying the local back for the moneys
that he embezzled from the entity.
To answer your previous
question what happened to Mr. Kearney
is that in April of this year, a
criminal information was filed
Page 27
charging him with embezzlement from
LIUNA. The embezzlement figure they
used was the restitution figure that
the Inspector General and the
accountants came up with. He waived
indictment. So as a technical matter,
he was not indicted because he entered
a plea of guilty.
The actual figure that was
used in the plea agreement was, I
believe, between 70 to $120,000. He
pled guilty on June 22nd of this
year. My understanding is that on
September 22nd he is set to be
sentenced. I don't know whether that
will get pushed over. He is set to be
sentenced on September 22nd in the
United States District Court for the
Southern District of New York. That
is generally the evidence of
Mr. Kearney's embezzlement.
What was interesting, though,
to the accountants is that when they
were going through the records, there
Page 28
were a number of documents that they
were confused, if not disturbed by.
At one point they came across a
$21,000 check of union funds that was
used to purchase what was labeled on
the check "construction costs." The
backup documentation for the check was
a paper from PC Richard which was a
vendor of appliances and TVs and
things of that nature to the union.
There was some confusion as to why you
would have $21,000 in construction
costs and the backup documentation
being from PC Richard.
To add to the confusion, on
the back of the PC Richard document
was the lower half of a receipt and
below the receipt was instructions for
the installation of appliances. In
other words, hooking up a dishwasher
and things of that nature. That was
obviously confusing and that was
pursued.
HEARING OFFICER: The union
Page 29
doesn't have that many dishwashers in
their headquarters?
MR. SLEVIN: They absolutely
don't. Not that I know of.
One thing led to another and
they determined that the $21,000,
rather than being spent for those
items that were listed from PC Richard
was actually $21,000 that was used to
spend on appliances for the business
manager of Mason Tenders District
Council's home. He came forward and
said, no, that money or that receipt
are my appliances.
What I would propose to do is,
first of all, to show the documents in
the record.
Exhibit 5 is the actual
receipt of items. As you can see,
it's the standard appliances that you
would find in a kitchen.
The next exhibit is the
$21,000 check that was used to pay for
those appliances.
Page 30
Exhibit 7 is the, what we
regard as falsified document from PC
Richard and we know it was falsified
because the gentleman, the salesman at
PC Richard by the name of Azeez Kahn
informed our Inspector General's
Office that he falsified that document
as a favor to Mr. Kearney to cover the
obvious sale of the appliances.
On the back of that document,
you can see the half receipt and the
instructions for the installation of
appliances.
With those documents, the
underlying exhibits, exactly what
happened was kind of pieced together
by looking at the receipt and by
conducting the depositions. If you
look at the receipt on Exhibit 5, you
will see that delivery of those
appliances occurred, started to occur
on December 23rd.The appliances or
the sale was actually made on the
15th.The check was cut at
Page 31
approximately that time on the 23rd
when the appliances are getting
delivered.
At this point there is a
difference of description on the
events. The Inspector General's
Office talked to Mr. Kearney and asked
what Mr. Silveri knew about the
purchase of these appliances using
union funds. Mr. Kearney said that he
informed Mr. Silveri about four or
five days afterward that he went ahead
and used union funds to pay for the
appliances.
Mr. Silveri says that he
wasn't aware that the union funds were
used to purchase those appliances. He
said he thought that he was going to
get a bill for those appliances.
Mr. Kahn, the salesman at PC
Richard, says that is not the way they
do business even for a valued customer
like Local 79. Everything gets paid
before it goes out. That is whether
Page 32
you take it from PC Richard or
delivered to the house. Payment has
to be made. So in Mr. Kahn's view, it
would not be reasonable to assume that
you would start getting appliances and
yet not be billed for it.
If you see on the receipt, the
appliances start to get delivered on
December 23rd, but delivery is also
on January 3rd, January 14th,
January 17th, January 19th and
still presumably you would have to
believe that you are getting all these
appliances with a bill not coming
until later.
HEARING OFFICER: It wouldn't
make any difference, would it? They
are going for an improper purpose. It
doesn't really matter if they knew
about it or not.
MR. SLEVIN: Well, as far as
the entity. That's why we are here
today, to establish a case against Mr.
Silveri or someone else, the knowledge
Page 33
that this money is being used to your
benefit.
I agree, a separate question,
the institutional problem that we deal
with today which is using union money
to pay for personal appliances.
HEARING OFFICER: There is a
rule in this union and I have ruled
several times in the last year that
there are certain things that the
executive board should be aware of and
can't be switched. Obviously some of
them are not there every day, officers
are in the office working and so
forth, but there are some things that
are so important that the other
members of the executive board should
I know about it.
MR. SLEVIN: Absolutely.
HEARING OFFICER: That is what
you are looking for, right?
MR. SLEVIN: Absolutely.
At any rate, after the
accountants and Inspector General's
Page 34
Office find this, Mr. Silveri does
reimburse I think technically what
he did was he paid PC Richard back
22,208.83 on March 12th, 2003.
HEARING OFFICER: Who did this?
MR. SLEVIN: Mr. Silveri, the
business manager of the Mason Tenders
District Council whose appliances
these are. But that was after that it
was brought to his attention that the
union had paid for these appliances.
Interestingly, Exhibit 8 shows
that in approximately this same time,
union funds were used to purchase the
television sets also for Mr. Silveri.
I believe the dates on the receipt are
both December 15th.
Again, Mr. Silveri claims
that he didn't know that union money
was being spent to purchase these TVs.
He thought these were to be placed on
that general bill that he was buying
with the appliances. In fact, what is
happening is that Mr. Kearney used his
Page 35
credit card to purchase these
television sets for Mr. Silveri. That
also I believe that money was
reimbursed to the local.
That obviously was of concern
to the Inspector General's Office and
to the accountants. That is kind of
the nature of what they started to
find in the course of this
investigation.
Given that relationship with
PC Richard in which you had the vendor
itself providing false documents to
maintain this friendly relationship
with the local, the Inspector
General's Office wanted to look into
the relationship with other vendors as
well to see whether there was anything
else going on.
One of the places they looked
was the vendor of automobiles for the
local. The vendor was a car
dealership called Franklin Square
Ford. What Franklin Square Ford did
Page 36
was, as I said, lease automobiles to
the union for specific terms, usually
two-year leases.
What was found during the
course of the investigation is that in
a number of instances, officers of the
union would purchase vehicles that had
been previously leased by the local
and they would purchase those vehicles
at what can only be described
charitably at an extreme discount, but
we would say more than a discount.
They were essentially gifts to the
officers.
If I can just go into the
specifics, it will give you a sense of
what those deals were.
First of all, one of the
concerns here, and we will see it
running throughout the relationship
with the vendors is the failure to get
three bids, the failure to have an
established process where if the
membership came to the officers at
Page 37
some point and said, are you getting a
good deal on this? They can show them
three bids and say, look, this is the
information that we had.
As far as Franklin Square Ford
specifically, the evidence was that
they received four bids, union bids in
1998.They chose Franklin Square Ford
and from there on in, they just
continued to use the dealership.
The other point I would make
is just for the members to know, under
the ethical practices code there is a
very explicit provision that generally
speaking, or if I can paraphrase it,
says that union officers and
representatives cannot take a gift or
a payment of any kind from a business
with which the union does business.
In other words, a vendor. That is for
obvious reasons.
It is the purpose of the
officers to determine what is the best
use of the union's money, who should
Page 38
we deal with. If the union officers
are receiving gifts, that obviously
compromises the integrity of that
process. How impartial are the
officers going to be with the business
of the local if they are receiving
gifts from these entities? That is
why our officer and the Inspector
General's Office takes this very
seriously.
Again, if I can make one
further point. What we have been very
careful about in this investigation is
to make a distinction between an
officer or an employee receiving a
gift and a general policy of a vendor
in which a vendor might say, well, we
support unions, we will give the
membership a discount if you are a
member of Local 79.That is not what
we are talking about. That is a
benefit that goes to everybody.
When an officer takes a free
gift for a substantially discounted
Page 39
item, what they are doing is they are
taking a benefit that should go to the
whole membership and taking it for
themselves.
That is why it is a very
serious allegation and it is a serious
event when it occurs.
In the record, we have a
number of instances where executive
board members received or purchased
previously leased automobiles from
Franklin Square Ford. Exhibit 9 is an
invoice from Franklin Square Ford and
if you look the at the invoice value
of the automobile, it is approximately
$17,000.This was an automobile that
had been previously leased by the
local. It eventually was purchased by
Andy Cefalo who was an executive board
member.
Although the invoice says
$17,000, a review of the Blue Book
value of the automobile said that it
was actually worth approximately
Page 40
$18,725. Mr. Cefalo paid $1,200 for
the automobile.
HEARING OFFICER: Two years
old?
MR. SLEVIN: Two-year lease.
When Mr. Cefalo talked to the
Franklin Square Ford salesman, the
salesman described it as a payback for
all the business that they were
getting.
What officers should know, and
what I believe Mr. Cefalo did know, is
that you cannot accept paybacks like
that. If the vendor wants to pay back
the union some kind of benefit, it has
to be a benefit shared by everybody.
Particularly you can't give a benefit
to someone whose responsibility is in
part to decide who is going to give
the best deal to the local.
After the investigation or
during the investigation when
Mr. Cefalo was confronted with this,
he paid the remainder of the invoice
Page 41
and settled up with the Franklin
Square Ford.
HEARING OFFICER: Which would
have been worth about 1500 or 1600,
something like that? Thousand.
MR. SLEVIN: The remainder of
whatever, that's right.
That was Mr. Cefalo. There is
another instance, Exhibit 10. If you
look at Exhibit 10, that is an invoice
for an automobile that was sold to the
business manager's wife. The business
manager is Mr. Loscalzo. 2002 Ford
Explorer previously leased by the
local. Invoice sales price is
$17,000.The Blue Book retail value
of the automobile was actually
$21,975. In November of 2002, $8,000
was paid for that automobile. After
the investigation, Mr. Loscalzo paid
the remainder of the value of the
invoice to Franklin Square Ford.
Exhibit 11, also another
automobile. a 1998 Ford Explorer also
previously leased by the local.
Again, sold to Mr. Loscalzo's I
believe it was his wife. You are
talking about a 1998 Ford Explorer in
March of 2000, again $8,000 was paid
for that automobile.
Again, Exhibit 12 is an
automobile that was provided to Mr.
Silveri. AND the reason why I used
the term "provided," is because in
February of 2003, we are talking about
weeks before the Kearney embezzlement
was detected, Mr. Silveri went into
Franklin Square Ford. He had an eye
on this particular truck which had
been leased by the training fund. As
you could see, the invoice value was
$19,000 for this automobile.
On February 4, 2003, Mr.
Silveri was permitted to leave the
dealership without putting any money
down and without signing any kind of
document which would evidence some.
kind of payment or an agreement, any
Page 43
promissory note. That is early in
February.
A few weeks later, the
embezzlement of Mr. Kearney comes out
and Mr. Silveri realized that there
might be a problem with the
automobile. After discovering the
problems, he went back to the
dealership and said, tried to make
arrangements to pay it.
The dealer, a specific
individual who had been selling cars
or leasing cars to the union, said
don't worry, it's paid for.
Mr. Silveri didn't follow up
to determine or Mr. Silveri told us
he didn't follow up to determine what
he meant by that.
But at any rate, it was clear
from the dealer's end when he left
with that car in early February, he
wasn't personally going to pay for
that car.
As much as that concerns us,
Page 42
Page 44
which it does, what is even more
troubling is that two weeks after,
approximately, Mr. Silveri left the
dealership with that car, the union
received three invoices from Franklin
Square Ford supposedly for repair work
done to Frank Noviello's car, Ken
Brancaccio's car and a car whose VIN
number the local couldn't determine.
The secretary, Lorraine
Perry, called Franklin Square Ford and
said there is no description really on
the invoice as to why you want us to
pay this money.
Franklin Square Ford said they
would get back to her. At any rate,
they never got back to her.
What we have determined is
that on the date that apparently work
was done on Mr. Noviello's automobile,
Mr. Noviello was in Florida at a
convention or some union related
event. Mr. Brancaccio was also in
Florida. Mr. Brancaccio had no work
Page 45
done on his automobile. The union
never paid that money and Franklin
Square Ford never went back to ask
them why they hadn't paid those bills.
At the very least, that
powerfully invites the inference that
they could possibly have been paying
for automobiles through these false
invoices.
Again, what we are here today
to talk about is the institution, the
entity, problems with the entity and
we are deeply concerned that Franklin
Square Ford perceived the local as an
entity where they could just kind of
send false invoices and get money that
way.
HEARING OFFICER: Just sort
off to the side, is there a
Taft-Hartley on the part of Franklin
Ford?
MR. SLEVIN: Obviously we
haven't briefed that. I know it would
be Taft-Hartley. I believe it would
Page 46
be a Taft-Hartley if the union is
intentionally not getting the best
value.
HEARING OFFICER: It sounded
that way to me and you may think about
that.
MR. SLEVIN: If vendors were
just simply giving gifts, it might be
difficult to call that a Taft-Hartley
violation. If somehow the union is
compromising their ability to get the
best deal or intentionally paying more
on leases so that that vendor is
getting their end of this deal, the
vendor gives a free car or a
discounted car but then also gets more
money than they should on a lease, to
me that is a Taft-Hartley violation.
Then what I threw into the
record, Exhibit 14, is another
instance where a vendor is being asked
to provide a false document.
One of the concerns that we
had with these cars are, they are
Page 47
being turned in early on the lease. A
number of cars were being turned in
early. There was an instance in which
Mr. Kearney turned in a leased vehicle
very early on the lease and was
concerned how that would look, that
the union possibly lost money because
he wanted to get a different
automobile. He persuaded someone at
Franklin Square Ford to write a
document that essentially said, well,
the car was turned in early, we gave a
credit to the local, so we will going
forward credit the local a certain
amount of money.
When the inspectors talked to
Franklin Square Ford, they said, well,
we did that as a favor to Mr. Kearney
to keep good relations with the union.
Again, an instance where the
relationship with the vendor is one in
which falsified documents are provided
in order to keep the relationship with
the entity.
Page 48
So we talked about two vendors
now, Franklin Square Ford, the dealer,
and PC Richard.
A third vendor, and also we
believe a union contractor, Shemore
Construction.
HEARING OFFICER: I was
waiting for it, and I didn't see it
here, I was waiting for the Town Car.
I was waiting for the Lincoln Town Car
to come up.
MR. SLEVIN: No Town Cars.
Shemore Construction, people
generally know in the union through
its principal whose name is Sean
Redekin, people know him as Sean, it's
a small carpentry outfit that in the
past has performed work for the local
and for the Mason Tenders District
Council.
In approximately the early
part of 2003, Shemore Construction had
billed the Mason Tenders District
Council and Local 79 for carpentry
Page 49
work or construction work that it had
done in those offices as allegedly to
kind of touch up things that hadn't
been constructed in the previous move.
There are two general concerns
here when we looked at these receipts.
First of all, it's again, no bids were
taken or no evidence of any bids were
taken. Second of all, these bills
look inflated.
Again, I emphasize, if the
executive board ultimately wants to
turn around to the membership and
explain to and answer complaints
about why money is being spent, one of
the basic things they can do is turn
around and look and say here we spent
this but here are all the bids we got.
This is in line and this is a
legitimate use of union funds.
If you look at Exhibit 15,
Exhibit 15 is an invoice for a
$12,560, January 20, 2003 to supply
and install bookcases.
Page 50
What is interesting about this
is that it's just installation of
bookcases and shelving and what we
have done is we attached to Exhibit 16
photographs of the work that was done
at Local 79 and in our estimation,
$12,000 is a grossly inflated price
for that.
HEARING OFFICER: The pictures
that I am holding here, that cost
$12,000?
MR. SLEVIN: They were charged
$12,000 to install those bookcases and
shelves.
Again, this was for Local 79
offices, the bill was sent attention
Anthony Silveri.
Exhibit 17 is another invoice
from Shemore Construction, March 4,
2003, $11,030, again install shelves,
plaques and this is the Mason Tenders
District Council. Again, our
investigators took photographs of the
work that was performed at the Mason
Page 51
Tenders District Council. Again, no
bids were taken for this work. In our
estimation, that doesn't amount to
$11,000 worth of work.
Now, one basis of comparison
was work by Shemore that was
performed, and we do have a
February 11, 2003 invoice. Again,
it's contemporaneous. It's work
performed at roughly the same time.
That is Exhibit 19.You have work,
same contractor, Shemore for $4,488
and we have attached a photograph of
comparable work.
So the question is: Why is
the Mason Tenders District Council and
why is the Local 79 paying what looks
to be two times or possibly three
times the amount of money for
comparable work.
HEARING OFFICER: This is a
union contractor?
MR. SLEVIN: We understand
that he has employed laborers from
Page 52
Local 79. 1 believe he has a
collective bargaining agreement with
79.
HEARING OFFICER: That's
carpentry work, isn't it?
MR. SLEVIN: That's what the
explanation was, carpentry work making
those shelves.
HEARING OFFICER: Looking at
those shelves, I think your nephew can
put those shelves in.
MR. SLEVIN: Well. So we have
that. In and of itself that is deeply
concerning to us, you've gotten no
bids for this work, you seem to have
paid too much for the work.
Then as kind of a side note,
we came to learn that the business
manager of the Mason Tenders District
Council, Mr. Silveri, was adding on an
addition to his house and while he was
constructing his house, he had
employed some employees for he
described them as tapers and painters.
Page 53
Tapers and painters had worked for
Sean Redekin at Shemore. It concerned
us obviously that you have inflated
bills and you have employees from the
same outfit working at the home of
this manager of the Mason Tenders
District Council. We asked Mr.
Silveri how much he paid them. He
wasn't sure how much he paid them. He
thought that they were paid in cash
but he recalls that they were probably
paid through a friend of Mr. Silveri's
and there was no evidence or proof of
payment. In other words, no receipts
were kept evidencing that these people
were paid, whether the union scale or
whatever.
So that's out there as deeply
concerning to us.
HEARING OFFICER: Mr. Slevin,
you went on for an hour and if you
feel you need a break, let me know.
MR. SLEVIN: I'm actually
fine.
Page 54
HEARING OFFICER: How about
you, Ms. Interpreter?
THE INTERPRETER: I'm okay.
MR. SLEVIN: Again, we have
troubling relationships with vendors
and troubling expenditures of union
funds.
Throughout the course of the
investigation, a number of other
instances of use of union funds came
to the attention of the Inspector
General's Office and I would simply
spend the next few minutes to itemize
those.
What was discovered in looking
at Franklin Square Ford was that there
were a number of instances where Local
79 paid for the maintenance of
personal automobiles.
Exhibit 21, the Mason Tenders
District Council's office manager, Ms.
Muscolino had her car taken care of by
Franklin Square Ford ultimately to the
amount of 2,574. Ms. Muscolino told
Page 55
our investigators that Mr. Kearney
said it was all right, that the union
would take care of that. This could
be an another instance in which
Mr. Kearney in the office set a tone
which other people followed and didn't
think there was anything wrong with
union money being spent to take care
of their automobiles. Ms. Muscolino
immediately reimbursed this money when
it was brought to her attention.
That is Exhibit 21.
Exhibit 22 are, again,
invoices for repair work, maintenance
work by Franklin Square Ford on the
automobile of Frank Noviello, the
former president of Local 79.
HEARING OFFICER: These are
personal automobiles?
MR. SLEVIN: Personal
automobiles. That came to about $487.
The next automobile, Exhibit
23, was the automobile of Billy
Schmidt, a member of Local 79.1
Page 56
believe he also worked in the hiring
hall as a dispatcher.
At any rate, this was just
more than maintenance of an
automobile. Exhibit 23 shows that
Mr. Schmidt received a car alarm and
hands-free phone which is
approximately $1300 and he told other
our investigators that Mr. Kearney
arranged for this and it wasn't clear
to Mr. Schmidt whether Mr. Kearney had
paid for it with union funds or
whether again it was kind of a payback
deal where the dealership just did it
because they appreciated the business
that the union gave it.
Again, it is that theme that
runs throughout a lot of this
investigation, that people thought it
was okay for the vendors to be
distributing gifts to people
individually just because the vendor
was thankful to have the union
business.
Page 57
Then apart from personal
vehicle maintenance, the Inspector
General's Office found a number of
instances in which there were
questionable uses of union funds.
For instance, Mr. Cefalo
traveled to Las Vegas in approximately
June of 2002 for Mr. Kearney's wedding
spending $2,200 of union funds. When
that was brought to his attention, he
reimbursed that money.
HEARING OFFICER: What was his
position with the union?
MR. SLEVIN: Mr. Cefalo was an
executive board member with Local 79
and also held the position, was
employed as special assistant to the
executive board.
HEARING OFFICER: Like a field
rep.
MR. SLEVIN: What he described
in his deposition, I do the things
that no one else on the executive
board wants to do, so I think he
Page 58
assisted the business manager and
whoever.
He was also an auditor for the
Mason Tenders District Council so he
held a role for the district council
as well.
HEARING OFFICER: That is a
part-time nonpaid, but he was a paid
employee of the union?
MR. SLEVIN: He was.
Apart from Mr. Cefalo, there
were a number of expenditures from the
president, Mr. Noviello. He also had
airfare for personal use to Dallas in
the amount of $285, certain items for
a party for $120 and $220 for a hotel
room, personal stay. When he was
presented with those, he reimbursed
the union.
If I didn't say it, I think I
did, Mr. Cefalo reimbursed the union
for those expenditures.
Mr. Loscalzo also, when he was
in Las Vegas, had a number of personal
Page 59
meals that he believed they were
business related. We believed they
were not. He reimbursed that money
immediately when he was presented with
a bill for that. It came to roughly
$ 900.
HEARING OFFICER: Who is the
gatekeeper? In all unions there is
somebody who sees the expenses come
through, be it a secretary or
somebody, and they check it out and
they go over to the
secretary-treasurer.
MR. SLEVIN: This is the
question that we had. This is one of
the main reasons for the supervision.
There were a number of reasons for the
supervision. One important one is
this notion of how the office is
supposed to run. What we got time and
again from officers was that, well,
that was Danny's department. In other
words, the secretary-treasurer did
that. It was his responsibility to
Page 60
look at the finances. It was his
responsibility to determine whether
valid documentation was submitted.
That was his call. We will go into
the purchase of furniture. That is
what Danny did.
I found it interesting that
more than one person used the term
"department" rather than conceiving
the executive board as one office
where you have secretary-treasurer,
business manager. It was a notion
that it was kind of a department that
had its own staff and was unto itself
was, I think, one of the problems here
that it was left to him to oversee the
finances. So there was no one looking
over his shoulder.
Then the last vendor and one
of the more troubling aspects of this
case is an entity called Tribeca
Office Supply. As I mentioned
earlier, in 2002 a number of entities
moved to new office space. Apparently
Page 61
the old office space was cramped and
they needed new offices to accommodate
the. Mason Tenders District Council,
Local 79 and a number of other
affiliated entities.
In the course of that move, it
was determined that they needed new
furniture for the space. Apparently
this was another thing that
Mr. Kearney was responsible for.
I should add as an aside, our
office is somewhat skeptical that
Mr. Kearney is hung out for
everything. I think there is a
recognition that here's a guy that is
getting hit by law enforcement, he has
pled guilty, he is out of the office,
he is not a political force anymore in
the union and I think it is very
convenient that it was Danny, Danny
controlled that.
We believed that he controlled
a lot of stuff; he was responsible for
a lot of it. It would not be our
Page 62
position that that excuse should be
accepted so readily. In this instance
that is the story we got, Mr. Kearney
is responsible for the getting of the
furniture and Mr. Cefalo was appointed
as the point person to go and look at
the furniture and go see what they
should use for the new place.
Again, I need to make this
point because it's a point that I know
Mr. Luskin feels very strongly about
it. It's not the position of this
office, generally speaking, to
second-guess how the membership
decides they want to spend their
money.
If the membership decides that
they love their officers and they are
entitled to a specific style of living
in the office, then by and large we
don't question that. Obviously the
membership can't approve illegal
activity, but generally speaking, the
evidence that I am about to put
Page 63
forward is not us second-guessing a
membership's decision to spend this.
It is our position that the membership
didn't know about this.
If you do want to spend money
and if the membership decides this is
the standard of living that we want
for our officers, at least follow the
prescribed format, get three bids,
give notice to the membership, report
contracts of $150,000 or more to the
Inspector General's Office. That is
not an option. That is a policy.
If the local engages in a
contract that is worth more than
$150,000, the Inspector General's
Office has to know about it. And by
all means, don't accept gifts from
vendors.
There are ways of going about
doing it that are essentially fine
with our office. But as we will see
now, we don't believe that was
followed in the purchase of furniture
Page 64
for the new office space.
The first thing, Tribeca
Office Supply was selected to provide
the furniture. The question is: Why
was Tribeca Office Supply selected for
a contract that ultimately provided
them half a million dollars of union
funds? The general amount was
$488,000 was provided to Tribeca.
Our investigators went to
Tribeca and took a picture.
HEARING OFFICER: I was
waiting for you to point out the
relevance of this picture.
MR. SLEVIN: That is Tribeca
Office Supply. In front of a small
store, Tribeca Office Supply, greeting
cards, copy center. Our investigators
went in there and said if you were to
walk in, you would think it was a card
shop.
HEARING OFFICER: It looks
like it was a standard card. shop.
MR. SLEVIN: It doesn't mean
Page 65
on its face that that's wrong. We are
certainly concerned if that is an
outfit that is getting half a million
dollars, why were they selected?
HEARING OFFICER: Maybe they
were out of a catalogue?
MR. SLEVIN: That
ultimately that's the relationship.
Apparently you order out of a
catalogue or they have access to a
distributor of furniture. Again, why
go through them to get to why go
through the middleman to get to the
distributor?
Anyway, what we provided in
the record, Exhibit 25, these were
created by the accountants and this is
the outlay of money to Tribeca, not
just for furniture, this is for office
supplies, furniture, everything.
You can see in 2001 the union
paid them $88,000 for a number of
items. They would sometimes provide
furniture to the old space, the odd
Page 66
chair or desk.
In 2002, you see that it goes
from $88,000 to $527,000.Again, to a
mom-and-pop supply store. $382,000 of
that is for office furniture, $42,000
for storage which we will talk about
in a second.
In 2003, $109,000 provided to
Tribeca, 62 of that for office
furniture.
Again, all told for Tribeca,
$488,000 for office furniture. The
overall cost of furniture was $617,000
and that is as reflected in Exhibit
26, which encompasses Tribeca and
other people that provided I
believe there is a glass company that
provided some furniture as well.
Just to give a sense of the
type of purchases that were made, we
included Exhibit 27.This is an
1 example of expenditures for Tribeca, 7
brass desk accessories, in other
words, desk sets in the amount of
Page 67
$9,309.
HEARING OFFICER: If I read
correctly, I see brass waste baskets.
MR. SLEVIN: That's right.
7 brass desk sets, 10 brass
waste baskets, 10 brass business card
holders. Again, this is for $9,000.
Exhibit 28, again this is a
contract, one of the initial contracts
with Tribeca that gives an idea of how
much each of the offices was going to
cost.
What is notable here is that
office number 630, $42,000.
Mr. Cefalo told us that since he was
responsible for the move that that was
Dan Kearney's office. So $42,000 to
furnish Mr. Kearney's office.
Exhibit 29 is an invoice for
chairs that were purchased for the
local and different entities. The
officers' chairs were approximately
$1,700 a piece. There were 40 leather
chairs for approximately $1600.
Page 68
Again, to emphasize the point,
we are not second-guessing the
purchases. We are wondering with such
a large outlay of cash, were proper
procedures followed and here again are
our concerns: Why is it that Tribeca
is selected in the first place? We
talked to the officers and no one
seemed to know. The best we could get
is, well, they had provided all the
supplies to us and they provided
furniture to us in the past. We just
supposed that Danny got three bids.
There is no evidence that Dan Kearney
did get three bids.
Again, not to go over this
again, but if the membership sees this
outlay of cash, you at least have to
go to them with three bids and say
this is comparable pricing for the
same products.
HEARING OFFICER: Mr. Clemens,
a very fine investigator that I used
when I was prosecutor, his remark
Page 69
would be when he looked at something
like this, he would say now whose
brother-in-law is over there at
Tribeca, who are the officers of
Tribeca?
MR. SLEVIN: The principals
are a woman by the name of Sheila
Green and her husband and Leo Green
and we tried to, in the depositions
and the interviews, tried to establish
what connection there is. The best
connection we could establish was that
Ms. Green and Lorraine Perry, who is
the office secretary, are friends.
Other than that, it was a vendor that
people were on friendly terms with,
but that's an open question.
Again, here are the concerns
with Tribeca, why Tribeca was
selected, they seem to be an office
supply store. There is no evidence of
three bids.
When we talked to the officers
of the executive board as did you know
Page 70
this much money was being spent,
everyone said, no, we didn't really
know what the cost of this furniture
was going to be until the bills came
in. We assumed that Dan Kearney was
looking at cost. Again, that was
Dan's responsibility. And even
Mr. Cefalo who was the point person
selected for the furniture said, I
wasn't aware of the costs until the
bills started to come in.
We are not aware, we don't
believe the membership was aware that
this money this much money was
being spent on the furniture.
When I asked that would be
a regular question, did the membership
know about the cost of this furniture,
the typical response was, well, they
generally knew the cost of the
construction and generally knew the
cost of the move but this wasn't
specifically itemized for them to look
at.
Page 71
Perhaps one of the more
serious things is that this was a
contract of well over $150,000 and it
was not submitted to the Inspector
General's Office.
When we asked why, the
response was, well, either we weren't
aware of that policy or I was aware of
the policy but I thought Dan Kearney
was handling that.
Then again, another concern of
the Inspector General's Office is that
there is something unique about
Tribeca. Unlike a dealership, this is
a vendor of disposable goods and why
is that different? Because if an
auditor comes around and asks the
local how they spent money on the
automobile, the automobile is right
there. They can look at it.
If it is a vendor of
disposable goods and the local turns
around and says we are spending money
on pens, or paper or cartridges, it is
Page 72
legitimate or seemingly legitimate for
them to say we used it, it's gone.
The Inspector General took a
specific eye to this vendor because of
disposable goods. It is easy to hide
an embezzlement or misuse of money
with a vendor like this.
Let me give one example of a
concern specifically with this vendor
is that when we started to go through
the receipts of money that was paid to
Tribeca, there was a receipt for
$42,000 for storage, a very large sum
of money. The question was, well, why
did the furniture need to be stored?
Part of the explanation was, well, the
move was delayed, so I guess that is
why it needed to be stored.
First of all, most of the
executive board that we interviewed
had no knowledge that $42,000 was
allegedly spent for storage.
Even those who knew there
might have been a storage fee, had
Page 73
absolutely no idea where the furniture
was stored. That is obviously
something that concerns us. That
$42,000, shouldn't you know where it
was stored, why it was stored, when it
was stored and be able to explain to
the members why $42,000 in money was
spent on that.
The last two concerns that we
have with respect to Tribeca, first of
all, during the course after the move,
a number of officers received gifts
from Tribeca.
Mr. Cefalo, who was the point
person for the executive board,
received a Coach bag with an
approximate value of about $450.
I Mr. Loscalzo received a Waterford desk
I clock with an approximate value of
I $150. And Ms. Perry, the office
secretary, received five $100 American
Express gift checks as a Christmas
gift.
Now, Mr. Loscalzo and
Page 74
Mr. Cefalo received their gifts in
Christmas of 2002 after this huge
purchase of office furniture.
Ms. Perry, I couldn't get her to
figure out what Christmas it was,
whether it was before or after the
move. At any rate, that is bothersome
to us, that in light of everything
that is going on that officers and
employees are receiving, again,
valuable gifts from vendors.
Then, finally, Tribeca won't
talk to our investigators.
Mr. Limberg has attempted to contact
them three times by phone, has visited
Tribeca twice. None of the calls are
returned and they won't talk to us.
Frankly, that explains some of
the problems that we were having in
this particular investigation, unlike
a union officer or a union member who
has to come in for an interview,
Tribeca we have no jurisdiction over.
Tribeca stands out because the
Page 75
Franklin Square Ford dealers would
talk to our investigators. The guy at
PC Richard would talk to our
investigators. Tribeca, no, they
wouldn't. We have real concerns about
that.
So apart from what, I guess
for lack of a better word, I will
describe as the financial problems
with the entity, there are certain
institutional problems that I think I
hit upon in presenting this case.
First of all, this notion of
departments, everything is kind of
structured so there are no checks and
balances with people checking on each
other. We are concerned about that.
Second of all, the unawareness
of policies. A number of executive
board members didn't realize for a
contract of $150,000 or more, they
have to clear that with the Inspector
General.
The policy on gifts and
Page 76
donations of $10,000 or more that had
to be cleared with the Inspector
General, there wasn't an awareness of
that policy either.
Mr. Kearney was allowed to get
away with some of this embezzlement
because what he would do is double
sign the check which, again,
apparently was a practice at the local
which some people were aware of. They
said they weren't aware that he was
doing it as much as he was.
The other thing I just
threw in an Exhibit 31 which was an
audit from Mr. Connelly who identified
problems with the documentation of
expenses. So the institution was
aware that there was an obligation to
document expenses. They also were
aware that Mr. Kearney had an American
Express card and Mr. Connelly
specifically refers to the American
Express card in there as requiring
documentation. So that should have
Page 77
been a sign to the board that there
might have been a problem.
Overall, we have the concern
as to the level of awareness that the
membership has of these expenses. We
don't feel confident at this point
that the membership is involved or has
been provided sufficient information
so that at the end of the day, we are
satisfied that they have approved how
their money is being spent.
That is kind of the general
that is the gist of what we have
found. So what has resulted from this
investigation are two things which are
significant: Resignations and some
improvements in how the office
apparently is running.
Resignations, as I said
earlier, we approached individuals,
most times, not all the time, and
offered them the ability to leave
under certain terms or proceed with
the disciplinary hearing.
Page 78
These settlement agreements,
it should be added under these, the
individuals that sign them in some
cases neither admit nor deny the
allegations and that is important to
keep in mind because there are three
so far settlement agreements here,
Frank Noviello, who is the president
of the local; Andrew Cefalo, who was
an executive board member, and Mr.
Silveri. In each one of these
settlement agreements, they neither
admitted nor denied any of the
allegations.
However, Exhibits 32, 33, 34
are the settlement agreements of
Mr. Noviello, Mr. Cefalo and Mr.
Silveri and in each instance, they are
permanently barred from employment
with LIUNA or any LIUNA-related
entity.
HEARING OFFICER: Were they
paid officers?
MR. SLEVIN: Pardon?
Page 79
HEARING OFFICER: Were they
paid officers or were they field reps?
MR. SLEVIN: Mr. Noviello was
president of the local. He also is a
full-time laborer in construction but
he did hold a salary, I believe, in
the range of $40,000 but I'm not sure
of that; that figure. Definitely a
sizeable salary.
HEARING OFFICER: He is not
full time and making $40,000?
MR. SLEVIN: $40,000 and then
on top of that, he is a full-time
laborer for construction.
HEARING OFFICER: I
understand. Usually if you are a
full-time officer, business manager,
secretary-treasurer and maybe some
others, sometimes you will also hold
the position of field rep which gives
you full-time pay. I have a hard time
understanding how he is being paid
$40,000 and still works full-time as a
laborer.
Page 80
MR. SLEVIN: The way he
described it us to us is that he would
work at the site. A lot of what he
has done in the past few years has
been at Ground Zero but at the end of
the day he would stop by the local
hall and either sign checks or do
whatever he needed to do as president
of the local. But essentially he had
two jobs.
HEARING OFFICER: Who else?
MR. SLEVIN: Mr. Cefalo who
was an executive board member and, as
I said earlier, was special assistant
to the executive board, that was a
full-time paid position.
Mr. Silveri was, is right now
until October 1st, the business
manager of the Mason Tenders District
Council. Technically he is just a
member of Local 79. It is our
position that he is more than just a
member, that because he is the head of
the Mason Tenders District Council
Page 81
HEARING OFFICER: Well, he
must have, at one time, had to be a
delegate.
MR. SLEVIN: I think at one
point he was recording secretary in
2002 for a few months and then took
the position with the Mason Tenders
District Council.
HEARING OFFICER: Okay.
MR. SLEVIN: And then so
those three gentlemen are permanently
barred from employment by LIUNA or
LIUNA-related entity.
Mr. Kearney, Mr. Kearney's
counsel has a proposed settlement
agreement from us. Mr. Kearney would
be permanent expulsion. As you know,
when someone is charged in the
criminal process, that complicates our
ability to get settlement agreements
because counsel is worried about their
client signing off on a particular
statement that might compromise their
criminal case.
Page 82
Our expectation is that now he
has pled and is shortly to be
sentenced, we should be able to move
forward on his settlement agreement
but there has been nothing signed by
him yet.
I will say that the union
officers have taken certain steps to
try to remedy the problems that we
have identified today which they had
learned in the course of the
investigation. They are now,
according to officers, getting three
bids for contracts. They will not
have any dealings with Franklin Square
Ford and with Tribeca. They have
gotten new vendors.
The executive board is
apparently more diligent about looking
at backup documentation. They now
have an additional person, the vice
president, that can now act as a
second signature.
Because that was the problem,
Page 83
they suspected that's how Mr. Kearney
was able to write two signatures.
Mr. Noviello, the president, and the
second signature wasn't around all the
time.
HEARING OFFICER: How about
the CPA firm? Some questions keep
popping out at me that some of these
can be missed but not as much as this.
MR. SLEVIN: Well, there was
I talk amongst some of the executive
I board about that, but I'm not aware
that they have new accountants or what
I their relationship with the same
accounting firm is.
But they did say whoever is
doing it, is doing it more regularly
now and they have changed the credit
I cards.
That's basically the sum of
I the case.
Just one or two further points
to emphasize. We have been getting
some phone calls in our office. One
Page 84
of them about cost. It is important
that the membership know that our
investigation is paid by the
International, not specifically out of
Local 79 funds.
The other dangling item was
apparently a report that was released
at some point to the membership. It
was an interview conducted by Mr.
Billi of Mr. Kearney and had made its
way out into the general circulation.
It is important for our office to
assure the members that we did not
release that report.
The only thing that we know is
that, as I said earlier, when we
develop evidence of criminality, the
evidence is referred to law
enforcement. That report along with
other information was provided to law
enforcement. That's the last we saw
or we know it was supplied to law
enforcement.
The United States Attorney
Page 85
told us as a matter of discovery in
Mr. Kearney's process he was entitled
to that report. The US attorney
provided that report to Mr. Kearney.
That is as much as we know of that
report. Our office would never
provide that as a matter of policy.
HEARING OFFICER: I know you
are somewhat sensitive about that.
That issue that passed before me about
the official who ended up with it.
MR. SLEVIN: Yes. So in
conclusion, the reasons for the
supervision. Based on all of the
evidence that we put forth, what are
the reasons for the supervision?
First of all, officer
resignations. You have the
resignation of the
secretary-treasurer, Mr. Kearney; the
president, Mr. Noviello; the executive
board, Mr. Cefalo. That creates
instability in the leadership of this
entity.
Page 86
In addition, we believe a
supervisor is necessary to be in place
because, frankly, we do not want the
people that are resigning to control
their replacements. This is something
that a supervisor needs to look at and
determine and have an ongoing look at
the people that remain and people that
are actually the replacements.
Apart from the resignations,
the failure of the executive board to
catch a $150,000 embezzlement, that
again wasn't just a one-shot deal. It
was over the course of three years.
It is our belief that someone needed
to catch that. This entity needs to
be supervised to be sure that this
doesn't happen again and that certain
policies are adhered to.
The inappropriate conduct with
the vendors, at best what this shows
is a lack of understanding of how the
local union is supposed to interact
with the vendor.
Page 87
By putting them under
supervision, it is the hope of our
office that that can be communicated
or supervised to make sure that the
people know how the local union is
supposed to interact with vendors.
HEARING OFFICER: Are the
office employees, persons employed to
work in the office, are they a member
of this union or the service employees
union?
MR. SLEVIN: I can't give you
a definitive answer on that. I
believe the one we spoke to one
moment.
Mr. Limberg just told me that
he believes a number of them were
Local 279 office employees. I'm not
exactly sure.
HEARING OFFICER: That's just
one point of protection for it's
just integrity that they belong to
another union, the International to
our own union
Page 88
It seems to me there is some
difficulty, someone is afraid to speak
out and some of this stuff is slipping
by.
MR. SLEVIN: Then you have the
misuse of union money that was
identified, another reason for
supervision. Again, the unawareness
of certain fundamental policies like
the reporting to the Inspector
General's Office of $150,000 and above
contracts, $10,000 gift policy.
We also believe that if for
some reason there is an ongoing
criminal investigation, we would be
more comfortable with a supervisor as
a point of contact for law enforcement
rather than someone who arguably could
be implicated.
HEARING OFFICER: I see, I
take it from here the constitution
there's a number of reasons why the
supervision, trusteeship should be put
in place. Summarizing from what you
Page 89
have is to eradicate financial
malpractice and also to protect this
union as an institution.
MR. SLEVIN: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
What we have provided in the
record as Exhibit 35 are the executive
board, Local 79 executive board
minutes in which the executive board
has approved a supervision for the
I'm sorry Local 79 executive board
minutes in which supervision is being
discussed, exhibit 36 in which Local
79 membership puts the supervision
under consideration and Exhibit 37
which is the Local 79 voluntary
supervision agreement agreed to by the
executive board.
What we believe that does is
to help to establish the voluntariness
of the supervision and with preceding
discussion of evidence establishes
that there is a basis for the
supervision.
Page 90
HEARING OFFICER: Thank you
very much. Before we move to the
other part where I call for the
officers and some other verifications
and for the persons, it's now
everybody has been working for well
over an hour-and-a-half, let's take a
ten-minute break.
(Whereupon, a recess was taken
from 11:39 AM to 12:01 PM.)
HEARING OFFICER: Before I
move on, I will refer to this later, a
gentleman came out and passed me
something submitted by the laborers
for a democratic union. I will refer
to that in the minutes and I will talk
about that.
At this point I am going to
view the voluntary supervision
agreement. I have in my hand here, I
think, Mr. Slevin, that is Exhibit 37.
It should be.
MR. SLEVIN: Exhibit 37 is the
supervision agreement.
Page 91
HEARING OFFICER: It's the
supervision agreement signed on
what date is it here? The 20th day
of July, 2004. It is signed by the
general president, Terrence O'Sullivan
and Robert Luskin and on behalf of
this executive board, Keith Loscalzo
and others.
Is Mr. Loscalzo in the
audience today?
MR. LOSCALZO: Yes.
HEARING OFFICER: Mr. Loscalzo
would you please come up? I will need
to swear you in and ask you some
questions.
KEITH LOSCALZO, called as a witness,
having been first duly sworn by Jean Wilm,
a Notary Public within and for the State of
New York, was examined and testified as
follows:
HEARING OFFICER: Mr. Loscalzo
am I correct that you are the business
manager of Local 79?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
Page 92
HEARING OFFICER: Your
signature appears on the voluntary
supervision agreement along with a
number of other officers.
THE WITNESS: That is correct.
HEARING OFFICER: It was
executed July, as I said, 20th,
20th day of July, 2004.
I am going to ask you, did you
enter into this agreement voluntarily?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
HEARING OFFICER: The other
officers and members of the executive
board have also signed with you,
Mr. Brancaccio, John Norbury, Victor
Rizzo, Mike Prohaska, Carl Curry.
Could you tell us if they have signed
this voluntarily?
THE WITNESS: Yes, they did.
HEARING OFFICER: You signed
it voluntarily in June. Is it still
your voluntary consent to enter into
this agreement as of this date?
THE WITNESS: Yes. it is
Page 93
HEARING OFFICER: Now, any
other members of that executive board
whose names I have called out if you
are present in the audience and want
to say this is not voluntary and you
do not agree with your signature,
raise your hand.
I see no negatives. I take it
this is a voluntary agreement. Thank
you very much, sir.
(Witness excused.)
HEARING OFFICER: Let me
address this document. Mr. Slevin,
let's call this Independent Hearing
Officer's Exhibit 1, that comes from
the Laborers for a Democratic Union
and if I may just take a second to see
if I can summarize this.
MR. SLEVIN: I actually was
not provided a copy, but I did read it
during the break. If someone from
that organization could provide that
copy to me, I would appreciate it.
HEARING OFFICER: If the
Page 94
gentleman who passed this up to me, if
you have another one of these copies
of the rank and file statement to
LIUNA. You don't have to do it at
this moment, but if you do, we would
like to see it.
Let me take a look at this.
(Perusing document.) I better read a
portion of this.
"In the Notice Of Supervision
proceedings, dated August 20, 2004,
signed; by Robert D. Luskin, GEB
Attorney, it is stated, 'After the
hearing has been concluded, the
independent hearing officer will rule
on whether a supervision is warranted
and advise you of his ruling' and it
is scheduled for today's date.
Mr. Luskin "Makes known in the
last paragraph that he has appointed
Eastern Regional Manager Raymond
Pocino to serve as supervisor.
"In the Voluntary Supervision
agreement,
paragraph 5 states 'The
Page 95
supervision shall commence on
September 1st, 2004', six days before
the hearing scheduled for September
7th, 2004.This inconsistency seems
to restore the same violation of
'Democratic Procedures' that has led
up to this."
Let me clear that up. The
union can enter into a supervision
agreement voluntarily without me. If
it is voluntary, they often do.
Sometimes as much as two weeks before.
It takes me though to file the
approval. There is nothing wrong with
supervision starting without me. Some
of the unions don't go through this
procedure and have voluntary
supervision all the time. There is a
danger in that and everybody is
concerned that might be just the way
to stifle dissent and that's not this
union's job. There is nothing wrong
with the union going into supervision
before I hear it. There is nothing
Page 96
wrong with that.
"Our Union has failed; the
provision of LIUNA Ethical Practices
Code and applicable laws has also
failed us. The members' right of
'Democratic participation' has been
completely violated.
"To see a glaring illustration
of how Democracy was subverted, we
only have to look to the last election
and how Mike Stuto, candidate for
President of Local 79 for the Laborers
For A Democratic Union slate was
removed from the ballot, while
allowing Frank Noviello to run on the
incumbent slate." I presume that was
the decision of the election officers.
I don't know.
"Furthermore, the job
referral, and shop steward
appointments are rife with deeply
entrenched nepotism and cronyism which
is at odds with 'Democratic practices,
and procedures: All of these glaring
Page 97
illustrations have been supported by
Local 79 managers while under the
watch of International trustees.
Management has completely failed the
Rank & File of Local 79.
"When the Rank & File has a
full say in the way Local 79 operates;
including who leads and the
'procedures and practices' to be
followed, the corruption, and theft
will stop. We do not want another
trusteeship." I presume that you have
been under trusteeship before.
"It has been part of the
cancer that must be removed for the
Union to become whole. We want a true
Democratic election as soon as
possible. Can we now begin
implementing a true Democratic process
by involving the Rank & File of Local
79 members?
"An honestly conducted
election is the only true way out of
this corrupt and undemocratic
Page 98
dilemma."
I agree with you, election is
still the best way for a democracy to
operate. You've got to get there
first. You have to put the machinery
in place. The object of this union
and every trusteeship and supervision
is to get a free and fair election.
What we have to do now, as Mr. Slevin
has pointed out, is fix the machine.
I will make this Exhibit 1.
There are some references here
about hiring hall and some problems.
When you have problems in the hiring
hall, you have problems with the
union. That is the basis of as
long as I have had this job, if you
solve the problems in the hiring hall,
a lot of other things go away. That
is not for me to solve here.
Mr. Slevin and the Inspector
General's persons are the ones who go
to that. Hiring halls are sometimes
complex. There are sometimes local
Page 99
issues. If you have problems with
that, I want you to give your
Mr. Slevin, is there an
ongoing investigation of the hiring
hall?
MR. SLEVIN: I believe that
Ms. Ludwig has received some
complaints and she is looking into
those.
HEARING OFFICER: The fellow
standing out here, if he has a problem
with hiring hall, who does he tell?
MR. SLEVIN: He calls Ms.
Kendall Ludwig in our office. Her
number is (202)457-6198.
HEARING OFFICER: And you can
also deliver that message to the
trustee or supervisor's deputy, make
double sure of that.
AUDIENCE: Give that number
again.
MR. SLEVIN: (202)457-6198 and
her name is Kendall, K-e-n d-a-1-1,
last name is Ludwig, L-u-d-w-i-g, and
Page 100
one of her responsibilities is to
receive hiring hall complaints and
then refer them to the Inspector
General's Office.
HEARING OFFICER: You have to
give your name or number. They have
to be able to follow up. You can't
leave an anonymous call.
Mr. Slevin, isn't there an 800
number?
MR. SLEVIN: There might be.
I'm not aware of it.
HEARING OFFICER: I think
there is.
At this point, it is the right
of the members to speak up and give us
their opinion on this. I'm not the
doctor here. I can't collect a lot of
complaints and write them all down. I
can't solve them all today. I'm not
the problem solver. Anybody who would
like to speak up, give your name and
speak up briefly, I mean briefly, no
speeches here and just tell me what
Page 101
you think about the conditions and the
supervision. Anybody?
AUDIENCE: The supervision
when Local 79 was formed, there was a
guy by the name of Hammond came in
here - he was supposed to be a
federal agent last time.
HEARING OFFICER: Steve
Hammond was the trustee.
AUDIENCE: He was from the
federal government. Are we going to
have the same person again?
HEARING OFFICER: No. The
question was: Mr. Hammond was the
trustee and I think that was some
years ago when am I correct,
Mr. Slevin, when the federal
government was somewhat involved in
this Mason Tenders and he was the
trustee. Apparently the member seems
to think that didn't work too well and
asks are we going to have Mr. Hammond
again and no, you are not.
THE WITNESS: My conversation
Page 102
at that time was about the plan we are
talking about.
HEARING OFFICER: I missed
that. Let me have that again.
THE WITNESS: My conversation
at that particular time was devoted to
the plan that we're talking about.
HEARING OFFICER: Okay. Thank
you. I have some other hands here.
Give your name, sir.
MR. DiNUZZO: My name is Pete
DiNuzzo, book number 2824265.1 stand
here today in front of all of you and
I will give a speech, I'm sorry,
Mr. Vaira, I think I have a right to
do that since I have been fighting
these people for a long time.
HEARING OFFICER: That's all
right. If you get too long, we will
cut you off.
MR. DiNUZZO: I stand before
you today to speak freely without fear
of retribution from anyone involved in
these proceedings, although I know as
Page 103
well as any members know, that will
not be the case. I will speak my mind
anyway. Let me first start by saying
that, once again, we have seen all
this too often that the members do not
count. To have these proceedings on a
day after a holiday at 10 o'clock in
the morning when most of the members
are at work, this is the outcome right
here. The member involvement is
nowhere to be found except for these
people.
HEARING OFFICER: A fair
amount of people came, Pete, and we
hold these all the time during the
day. We tried to hold them at
nighttime and that doesn't work as
well as you think.
MR. DiNUZZO: We've been
warning all of you since under the
consent agreement this whole
international reform is a joke, a
farce, a scam and a failure. That is
why we are here today. We have been
Page 104
down this road before and by the look
of things to come, we will be down
this road again very soon. Once
again, that is job security for some
of those that are involved.
Our warnings fall on deaf ears
from the local level up to the
international level including the IG's
office.
HEARING OFFICER: Slow down,
Pete.
MR. DiNUZZO: I don't want you
to cut me off.
HEARING OFFICER: Both of
these ladies have to pick it up.
Otherwise nobody gets it.
MR. DiNUZZO: Our warnings
have fallen on deaf ears from the
local level up to the international
level including the IG's office, GEB
attorney's office and the independent
hearing officers' office. Tallying up
even today's warning will undoubtedly
fall on deaf ears and bring us back to
Page 105
the same situation in the near future.
All of us all of you including the
Department of Justice, the FBI, should
be embarrassed for allowing this to
I happen again under your nose. Again,
I just job security.
Fortunately for most of you
this is a union because if it was a
company and you were the CEO, most of
you would have already been fired.
I Now, I go back into when we
I went under the consent agreement and
we had a trustee, the gentleman opened
the door right here, by the name of
Steve Hammond. Steve Hammond made
some of these appointments. Steve
Hammond also was trying to go ahead
when he was put consolidation
together, Local 79, he recommended a
gentleman by the name of Mike Picano
to be the business manager of this
local. He had racketeering acts
against him. I don't understand why a
red flag didn't go up. What are we
Page 106
doing here? This brought us back into
the same situation that we are.
As far as the agreements that
the GEB attorney has come to with some
of these union officials who resigned,
some of these happened under the
consent decree and maybe even under
the trusteeship. This goes a long way
up the ladder. Slapping them on the
wrist will not do anything. Taking
their book away will.
Mr. Vaira, for you to allow
supervision to be named from anywhere
in the rank and file from the local
level up to the international is not
going to go ahead and do the job.
There is no trust there. There is no
trust at all. These people have
rubbed elbows with the executive
board, Local 79 and with the district
council for years. We cannot trust
them to go ahead and be appointed the
supervisor and go ahead and do the job
that should have been done years ago
Page 107
to make this a wholesome union. I am
making my suggestion to have two
people come in. One is a gentleman by
the name of Ed Stier. You are
familiar with Ed Stier. Project RISE.
HEARING OFFICER: I know Ed
Stier
MR. DiNUZZO: He is a quality
gentleman. He is unbelievable. My
next recommendation is Peter Sprung.
Peter Sprung was the Assistant US
Attorney at the time of the district
council takeovers. I believe that
anybody else that is involved with
this union, with this supposedly farce
makeup of a cleanout will not be
sufficient enough and we are going to
wind up right back here in a number of
years to come.
Remember, under the consent
decree and the trusteeship there
weren't supposed to be separate
departments as the attorney has
stated.
Page 108
HEARING OFFICER: Spell for me
the name of the former Assistant US
Attorney. Peter Sprung? S-p r-u n g.
MR. DiNUZZO: Yes. I will
give you the information.
HEARING OFFICER: I just need
the name. I know Mr. Stier
Mr. Stier testified for me on
trusteeships and a very nasty
trusteeship up in Buffalo.
MR. DiNUZZO: Local 210.
HEARING OFFICER: And a very
nasty situation. I will put into my
order to make sure that people see
that in addition to being in the
record here a very concerned member
spoke out and he recommended that one
or both of these persons be considered
as an active trustee and the
individual was somewhat uncomfortable
with the present supervision.
I will put that in the order.
I have no more power than that. I
will put it in the order to make sure
Page 109
it is read.
MR. DiNUZZO: I appreciate
that. We also sent documents to I
don't have the gentleman's name with
me. The congressman that's a head of
the work force and education
subcommittee up there. We think the
Justice Department has failed us. The
whole consolidation, the internal
reform of LIUNA has been farce, scam
and cash cow out of the member's
pockets. We are going down that road
again. We have been shooting shots
over the bows of every organization
that there is about these people here.
And these people, I'm not saying
people, not members because they have
embarrassed us over and over again and
this is intolerable for your working
members here. The embarrassment is
just unbelievable. It not only
affects this union but affects the
whole labor movement as a whole.
HEARING OFFICER: I will
Page 110
include in my order the summary of
your statement. Concerned member
stepped up and vehemently disagreed
with the supervision hierarchy and the
reform so far has not produced good
results in his opinion and this union
and its district council ought to be
given a hard look at.
MR. DiNUZZO: It has to be a
clean house and not the clean slate
that they profess there were. Clean
house.
(Applause.)
HEARING OFFICER: Thank you
very much and I hear somewhat of a
vigorous following that he is not
speaking by himself.
HEARING OFFICER: Anybody
else? Gentlemen in the red shirt.
MR. SCHULER: Joe Schuler and
I came to this local in '98.1 have
been a member of five different locals
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I
have never been treated better than I
Page 111
have in 79. I am proud to be in 79.
It's not a perfect union. It's only
10 years old or less. It suffered
through the pains of growing up, but I
don't think it's any more infected
with corruption or disease than the
government or any other organization.
Wherever there is big money, there is
going to be problems. We have the
best training school in the country.
We have a good annuity and we have
good people. The people that fail
Danny, Frank and Andy they made
mistakes but they were good members of
the local and if it wasn't for their
hard work, we probably wouldn't be
where we are.
(Applause.)
HEARING OFFICER: Ladies and
gentlemen, I already have your
document. Anything else you want to
add? We already heard from you.
Somebody else?
MR. PIESTA: My name is
Page 112
Mr. Piesta. First of all, I want to
say thank you because now we can
believe our union. We can think we
have the right people and we can do
better than we have. In the year
2001, we lost four guys, four people
who leave at home, they never come
back. Today we see the same thing.
Leaving our house, our family, our
rights, our money and our jobs in good
condition. Put them in the right
hands. We have to vote. We have to
respect the vote. We have good people
that we think they are going to do the
right thing. Please do it in the name
of our families, in the name of our
children, in the name of our wives.
Everybody has to do the same thing.
It's easy. It's easy for me to lose
my house. I already lose my house. I
have to borrow money from somebody
else to pay my house. I don't have to
do it. I have to keep working.
Because we have this meeting, thank
Page 113
you for you, thank you for everybody
and people who come and sit down on
the executive board in the future try
to do the same thing.
HEARING OFFICER: Thank you.
One more. Man standing up.
MR. DANIEL: My name is John
Daniel. I am a member of the Labor
Local 23, Local 79.1 am retired. 79
have been really good to retirement.
79 has done more for retirement than
any other 12 locals we have in New
York City. 79 have been the best
local for retirement. I said, if 79
have made a mistake, I hope you all
straighten it out for us working men
and retirement men.
HEARING OFFICER: Mr. Slevin,
I find that after your presentation
that there is substantial need for a
supervision and the supervision needs
to be in place immediately and is. I
also find that the supervision is
voluntary, was voluntary and it is in
Page 114
the best interests of this union and I
will issue a lengthy order, not so
lengthy, but a lengthy order detailing
and putting the facts in that where I
believe this union is moving. It's
Like a machine that's got some coughs,
it ain't exactly meshing, but it's
moving. The job of this union is to
clean up, if there's any problem with
the hiring hall, get people to work
and let's move forward and let's close
this door on this history that we have
had with this union.
My order is that the
supervision will stand. Thank you.
(Applause.)
HEARING OFFICER: Meeting
adjourned. Thank you.
(Whereupon, at 12:27 PM the
proceedings were concluded.)
Page 115
CERTIFICATE
STATE OF NEW YORK )
) ss.
COUNTY OF NEW YORK )
I, Jean Wilm, a Shorthand
(Stenotype) Reporter and Notary Public
of the State of New York, do hereby
certify that the foregoing
Proceedings, taken at the time and
place aforesaid, Is a true and correct
transcription of said Proceedings.
I further certify that I am
neither counsel for nor related to any
party to said action, nor in any wise
interested in the result or outcome
thereof.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have
hereunto set my hand this 15th day of
September, 2004.
JEAN WILM, RPR, CMRS