Embezzle-Case Ex-Union Chief Backs Hopeful

Former carpenters union chief Fred Devine isn't letting his embezzlement conviction stand in the way of endorsing a candidate in the union's election.

Devine was convicted last year of pilfering more than $50,000 from the District Council of Carpenters, spending the money on a high life of jet trips and girlfriends. He was sentenced to 15 months but is free pending appeal.

The union, under national trusteeship since 1996, is holding elections for top officers.

Devine — absent from union politics since the trusteeship was imposed — jumped back in with a letter backing a tough-talking Brooklyn carpenter named Sal Zarzana, one of six candidates seeking to lead the 25,000-member organization.

In a blue-and-white glossy mailing, Devine hails Zarzana, 35, as "the only candidate who can rebuild this union." The flyer offers a free round trip to the polls Friday, when carpenters are to vote at Manhattan Community College on Chambers St.

"Fred can arrange to pick you up at your home in a luxury van and drive you to the polling place and back home. Refreshments will be served," the flyer says.

Devine, reached at his seaside home in New Jersey, was asked how he was going to handle all those rides.

"I don't know anything about that. That was added later. I just wrote the letter," he said.

"I did a lot of good when I was with the union. My conviction was strictly political," he added.

Zarzana's attorney, Angelo Bisceglie, said his client appreciated the gesture.

"Sal feels that Fred is a stand-up guy," he said.

The national carpenters union disagrees. In a civil suit reported here last week, national President Douglas McCarron has accused Devine and others of putting the union in a potential $500 million hole by promising pension and other benefits beyond the union's ability to pay.

Zarzana's strongest opponent in the race to lead the union is Michael Forde, who heads the 7,000-member Local 608. Forde has his own problems, however. The local is at the center of an ongoing state and federal corruption investigation involving sweetheart deals for mob contractors.

In the wake of the death of the young immigrant laborer from Mexico last month in a Brooklyn building collapse, a citywide group is asking all Mexican workers to take a day off from work on Sunday.

The Tepeyac Association, a two-year-old human rights organization, is trying to get employers to recognize the date, which in Mexico marks the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the country's patron saint and a protector of the oppressed.

Tepeyac's Esperanza Chacon said in addition to day laborers working construction and other jobs, Mexicans make up more than half those working in delis and restaurants in New York.

As part of the celebration, the association will stage a run through the city's five boroughs, starting from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on W. 14th St.

"Last year we had 700 runners. Already this year we have 1,600 signed up," Chacon said.

The Teamsters official who outraged the city's hotel workers union by signing a contract with the Cipriani restaurant organization earlier this year has been charged with wrongdoing by the Teamsters' independent review board.

Louis Smith, head of Teamsters Local 810, is accused of signing a sham collective bargaining agreement with a computer firm that allegedly has just one employee.

The charges are to be heard by Smith's own executive board, said Chip Roth, spokesman for Teamsters union President James Hoffa.

In July, Smith shocked city labor leaders by signing a deal to represent Cipriani employees. The agreement came in the middle of a bitter months-long battle by Local 6 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees union, which charged Cipriani with firing 250 union workers when it bought the famed Rainbow Room restaurant. Smith later complied with a Hoffa order to vacate the contract. Smith could not be reached for comment.

E-mail Tom Robbins at
trobbins@edit.nydailnews.com