http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0031/robbins.shtml
August 2, 2000
Published August 2 - 8, 2000
A Wealthy Union's Tactics Infuriate Its Rivals
Chasing the Rat
by Tom Robbins
Some of the highest-paid union officials in America work
not in marble palaces in Washington, D.C., but for a
little-known labor organization based in a bland office
building on Queens Boulevard.
Steven Elliott, president of the United Service Workers of
America, made $425,000 last year. Union vice president
Peter DeVito, including his pay from an affiliated local,
made the same, less the cost of a six-pack: $424,993.
Secretary-treasurer Edward Byrne pulled down $332,000.
All told, 16 officers and employees of the 30,000-member
union earned more than $100,000 in 1999, including
Elliott's daughter, son-in-law, and brother-in-law.
Although no agency officially keeps count, experts say the size of the
Service Workers' leaders' salaries puts them in the pantheon of high
union earners, right behind ousted former janitors' union chief Gus
Bevona ($450,000). Elliott's salary alone is more than double that of
AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney, who makes $192,500.
All told, 16 officers and employees of the United Service Workers of
America earned more than $100,000 in 1999, including the president's
daughter, son-in-law, and brother-in-law.
Elliott, 49, declined to be interviewed, but other Service Workers
officials said there's nothing wrong
with such pay levels.
"We can afford them because we out-organize every other union," said
Mark Reader, the union's $175,000-a-year director of organizing. "They
believe in paying well for talent and performance."
At the same time, however, the union's aggressive organizing has
sparked a rare and bitter
interunion dispute in which the high salaries have become a prime
exhibit.
The clash between the USWA and the city's building-trade unions has
been marked by the kind of angry demonstrations usually reserved for
strikebreaking employers.
Building-trades officials have accused Elliott of signing contracts with
employers that provide lower wages and benefits than those paid in other
union agreements.
Moreover, they claim that Elliott's organizers have trailed the giant
inflatable rats that have been adopted as union protest mascots in the
past few years, reaching out to sign contracts with the targeted
employers.
"There is a pattern of [Elliott's] showing up in midstream organizing
drives," said Mike Prohaska, eastern regional director of organizing for
the Laborers union. "We will have spent time and resources, then one day
the contractor says, 'Don't bother me anymore, I'm union now.' "
The building trades are used to such poaching from a handful of
independent unions that often pop up in the midst of labor altercations.
But the Service Workers represents a more potent threat, officials say,
because it is under the umbrella of the Transportation Communications
International Union (TCU), which, in turn, is affiliated with the
AFL-CIO.
Last month the argument moved from union boardrooms to the streets when
some 50 union members representing a half-dozen building trades brought
a 12-foot-tall plastic rat to the Service Workers' offices at 138-50
Queens Boulevard. There, they passed out flyers accusing Elliott of
"lowering the high standards that are paid to skilled construction
workers" and signing "deceptive sweetheart contracts."
Cops responded in force to the protest, deflating and briefly seizing
the rat. A police official explained that someone at the USWA had
complained about the rally. The battle has also produced a rare official
resolution from the New York State AFL-CIO
condemning the USWA. The resolution, passed in May, said that Local 339
of the USWA "has intensified its efforts to blatantly undermine
organizing activities." It called on AFL-CIO president John Sweeney to
expel the local and to sanction its parent, the TCU.
Meeting in Chicago last week, the national building-trades department of
the AFL-CIO upped the ante by passing its own resolution calling for
Sweeney to suspend the TCU unless Elliott retreats.
Sweeney has weighed in on the matter once already, sending a letter in
late March to the TCU stating that his office had received "serious and
repeated complaints . . . [indicating] that the USWA's conduct here goes
beyond the limits of legitimate, aggressive competition."
On the home front, the powerful New York City Central Labor Council has
convened a committee to examine the charges. Officials there say a
hearing on the matter is expected soon after Labor Day. So far, however,
USWA officials have shown no signs of backing off. Union officials deny
signing sweetheart deals or undermining anyone else's organizing. What
they're doing, Service Workers officials insist, is old-fashioned
organizing among workers badly in
need of union protections. "There is an opportunity to
organize," said
Reader. "Jurisdictions don't matter among the
unorganized. This is a threat to the old system, to their hiring hall."
Most of the complaints against the union, he said, have come from the
New York District Council of Carpenters and Local 78 of the Laborers
union, which represents asbestos-removal workers. Both unions have
mounted stepped-up organizing campaigns in recent years following
separate, court-ordered cleanups of mob influence. "They are two of the
most despicable unions in New York in terms of past history," said
Reader.
"They have riled up the rest of the trades."
The Service Workers, however, has its own troubled past.
"Given their long, sordid history, it is the pot calling the kettle
black," said Jeffrey Schaffler, a former federal labor-racketeering
investigator. "To say [the USWA] is filling a gap where
racketeering locals have failed is a sad overstatement."
The union began as a small, independent operation called Amalgamated
Local 355 that
represented workers in the fuel-oil delivery business, as well as some
manufacturers. A special commission on organized crime appointed by then
president Reagan reported in 1986 that the local had "a long history of
association with organized crime" and that founder Bernard Tolkow was a
longtime associate of legendary labor racketeer John "Johnny Dio"
DioGuardi.
Federal labor investigators say Tolkow's true expertise lay in his
ability to use low-cost
medical-insurance plans to attract union members who received little
else in the way of
representation.
According to Elliott's official biography, posted on the union's web
site, he went to work in the local in 1979 as its organizing director.
That was the same year that Tolkow pled guilty to lying to federal
officials about his interest in union-funded real estate ventures.
Under Elliott, a former auto-shop worker, the union added scores of auto
dealerships and repair shops to its roster and, in 1987, formed the USWA
with Elliott as president.
With 15,000 members, the independent union became an attractive merger
target for other
unions, and in 1993 it affiliated with the Service Employees
International Union, then headed by Sweeney. That partnership ended in
1996. Elliott's representatives say the parting was amicable; others say
the SEIU became disenchanted with its partner.
Last year the USWA affiliated with the TCU, a small international made
up largely of railroad locals with declining memberships. The marriage
was widely viewed among labor officials as one of convenience: The
Service Workers brought 30,000 dues-paying members to the 70,000-member
TCU; the TCU gave the Service Workers its vital official AFL-CIO status.
The union was also given wide latitude to expand. In a letter to members
announcing the
affilation, TCU president Robert Scardelletti stated that the "USWA will
be able to organize without interference from the international union."
So far, the international has backed up its controversial affiliate, but
that support could wane if Sweeney threatens sanctions.
In the meantime, the Service Workers is gaining strong supporters on the
other side of the
bargaining table. A new employers' association formed two months ago,
the Association of Building Trades Contractors, has cited the Service
Workers as "a strong and viable" alternative to the Laborers union.
Association cofounder Maureen Howard, an asbestos abatement contractor,
said she signed an agreement with Local 339 of the USWA at her
employees' request, but said she welcomed the union because of what she
termed "harassment" from the Laborers.
"I definitely prefer 339," said Howard, who acknowledged that the
union's contracts cost her less than those offered by the Laborers
union. "What I don't need is that rat outside when I'm working in a
high-profile building."