Collusion Hearing
Ends Amid Contradictions
By Dan Barry
Journal Staff Writer
Hartford--Shouts, contradicting
testimony and the playing of secretly made recordings marked a week-long National Labor
Relations Board hearing on charges that officials of the Laborers union in Hartford area
colluded with a construction firm to keep a union dissident from finding work.
The hearing, which ended Wednesday, also aired
allegations that officials of Laborers Local 230 refused to refer certain members to job
sites because of their opposition to the union's hierarchy.
NLRB hearing officer Wallace H.
Nations, who is expected to issue a decision after receiving briefs from the concerned
parties, occasionally had to mediate between loud arguments about the use of concealed
tape recordings made by Gary R. Wall, a complainant who lost overwhelmingly last June in a
bid to replace Dominick Lopreato as Local 230's business manager.
"It was a tremendous surprise to me."
Nations said of the tapes during a break in testimony last week. He added that several
times he left both sides alone to listen to the tapes, identify the
speakers and decide whether to use the recordings as evidence.
But he added he was available to
"referee" disputes-of which there were several.
John H. Sauter, deputy officer in charge of NLRB's
Hartford off, said Wednesday that if Nations rules against the union and Development
Consultants Inc., they could be ordered to reinstate the complainants and give them back
pay. Also, a notice of the occasion may have to be hung at the union hall and at the job
site.
Shyscraper contractor implicated
Lopreato and other union officials testified they
feared for their physical safety because of Wall.
But one of the complainants, William Cooksey Jr.
of Ellington, testified at one point that two union leaders once took him for a ride, then
left him stranded several miles from his car.
The NLRB hearing is just one aspect of a bitter
feud between Lopreato, a longtime union leader, and Wall, a laborer for
18 years who has charged the business manager's administration of Local 230 is corrupt.
The dispute has divided the union. When a supporter of one side testified, others sat in
the audience muttering they were lying.
Wall also has filed a slander suit against
Lopreato and John Pezzenti, the local's vice president, and has lodged an appeal to the
union's national leadership regarding last June's election.
The NLRB has charged that Lopreato and Development
Consultants Inc., the construction firm building the Northeast Plaza skyscraper project in
Hartford, colluded to keep Wall from working while Wall was campaigning
for the union's June election
Wall had worked as a steward at Northeast Plaza
since late 1983. In February 1986, after Wall made it known he was heading a slate
challenging Lopreato, he and about a dozen other laborers were laid off. A week later
everyone except Wall was rehired, according to the complaint.
DCI project manager Joseph Anderson testified the
layoff was because work-slow down for the winter, adding that his own son, a carpenter,
was among those laid off. He also said he thought Wall had been
"featherbedding," or not working while on the job.
But Wall and others testified that union stewards
are not supposed to do manual labor. And when asked why he hadn't sought to replace Wall
earlier, Anderson replied, "Chances are you'd get someone worse."
Anderson testified he feared for his physical
safety after the layoff because he received what he felt was a threatening letter from
Wall's lawyer, David E. Kamins. Pressed what he felt was threatening, Anderson said
Kamins' letter said he would take "whatever action is necessary."
Anderson and Lopreato denied the layoff had been
orchestrated in part to keep Wall off the job.
Tape recordings disclosed
But Wall revealed he had 10 tape recordings he had
made by concealing a recorder under his jacket at the job, in a bar and at union meetings.
Although much of the conversations were irrelevant
to the charges--and more pertinent to a civil suit and inner labor actions filed by
Wall--Nations did admit the recording of a discussion between Wall and two DCI officials in a bar on Pratt Street in Hartford the day of the layoff.
Wall testified he had heard the union might try to
get him blacklisted, so he had begun carrying a concealed recorder.
On the tape recording one DCI official is heard
saying Wall ran a clean job - apparently contradicting previous
testimony he was a bad worker. Wall also claimed the company officials' comments obliquely
acknowledged Lopreato's influence in the layoff.
Cooksey, whose father was Wall's running mate last
June, and James DiPietro, a former East Hartford policeman who worked as a laborer at
Northeast Plaza, testified it was common knowledge the the layoff was directed at Wall.
William Cooksey Sr., of Wethersfield, also
testified he had been blackballed because of his association with Wall. After a meeting in
which he told Lopreato of his election plans. Cooksey said a colleague warned him his
family would suffer as a consequence.
"You'll work in
Putnam," Cooksey claimed the colleague told him. He added that to a laborer, working
in that eastern Connecticut town is analogous to "Siberia."
Another complainant, Joseph DiLorato of Windsor,
testified Lopreato ordered him not to sit near Wall during union meetings before the
election.
But ill feelings between the union administration
and the Wall faction seem to have arisen years before the 1986 elections.
For example, William Cooksey Jr. testified he left
the union in 1983 to become an ironworker, then returned several months later. Although he
wasn't a union member in full standing, Cooksey said, Pezzenti told him he could pay his
fees with his first paycheck. Pezzenti then sent him to a Farmington job site.
Cooksey added that later that
morning Pezzenti and Local 230's president, Charles LeConche, appeared at the job site in
a Cadillac and ordered Cooksey, then 22 to get in the back of the car.
After telling him he didn't belong on the job,
they drove him in silence to the union's Hartford office, more than 8 miles away, and left
him there, he said, even though his was at the job site.
Cooksey later said he heard his treatment stemmed
from a dispute his father was having with other union
officials. "It scared the hell out of me," he said Wednesday.
Also, LeConche testified that Wall once beat him
up at a Franklin Avenue filling station in Hartford. Wall said Wednesday he punched
LeConche after an argument because he thought the union official was getting a weapon out
of his car's back seat.
He added that LeConche never pressed charges.