Not trusting L. 157 trusteeship, carpenters create own blog

The following article, by veteran building trades activist and AUD Research Director James McNamara, appears in the May-June issue of Union Democracy Review. See also Richard Dorrough's previous comments on this. -- Matt Noyes

When Carpenters International President McCarron trusteed New York Local 157 in November, few members questioned his booting out the top elected officials: President William Hanley, Financial Secretary Fred Kennedy, and VP George Lilacia. Among other misdeeds, they were charged with taking pay for a combined 481 days; but they could not account for 117 full days or 226 partial days in a nine-month period. McCarron assigned Frank Spencer, an international VP, to supervise the local.

But members did question assigning a key role in the cleanup to the NYC District Council and to its executive secretary treasurer, Martin Forde¸ who is currently under investigation by District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's Labor Racketeering unit. In 2004, Forde had been convicted of taking a bribe to allow a mob-connected contractor to hire non-union workers. But when Judge Jeffrey Atlas learned that, during the trial, jurors read Tom Robbins's Village Voice article reporting Forde's alleged corruption, he had no choice but to set aside the conviction. A new trial was set for May, this year, almost 10 years after Forde's alleged bribery in 1998.

In the interim, in September 2007, Federal Judge Charles S. Haight, Jr. fined Forde $10,000 for violating union job referral rules that gave unemployed members hiring priority. Earlier, in 1998 when Forde was a Local 608 business agent, a federal judge fined him for ignoring the union out-of-work list to assign a job to a friend.

Under the supervision of Frank Spencer, no membership meetings were held during the first six months of trusteeship. Local members who objected to his failure to communicate launched their own http://local157.blogspot.com/ under the direction of John Musumeci. In May, Spencer finally gave in to members' demands and scheduled what he called "an informational meeting,” not an official meeting. Members now demand that local elections be scheduled this year for local officers, executive board members, and delegates to the district council. Meanwhile, Forde has appointed what he calls the "new leaders" of the local, mostly from among his own district council staff.

The federal monitorship over the district council, imposed by the 1994 consent decree, continues. But the union's historic culture of corruption, although weakened, obviously is not eliminated.