Page Six

We hear...THAT a Skanska shop steward who has connections to a candidate on the Carpenters United NYC Slate had the employer include their campaign material in all employees pay checks.

A MESSAGE FROM THE MEMBERS VOICE SLATE

As Delegates to the New York City District Council of Carpenters, the Members Voice Slate shall bring to the Delegate Floor the following propositions, each to be given full and open debate, each to be given a clear and fair vote and each to be immediately available for membership inspection and scrutiny.

• RATIFICATION OF CONTRACTS BY THE MEMBERSHIP 
• REDESIGNED THE DISTRICT COUNCIL WEBSITE AND CREATE A VOICE FOR THE MEMBERSHIP 
• ELIMINATE ASSESSMENTS ON P.L.A. JOBS
• REVIEW ALL ASSESSMENTS AND PUT THAT MONEY TO A MORE PRODUCTIVE USE THAT BENEFITS THE MEMBERSHIP
• FULL TRANSPARENCY OF ALL COUNCIL FINANCIAL REPORTS 
• OVERHAUL THE APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM  
• OVERHAUL THE OUT-OF-WORK-LIST RULES 
• NEGOTIATE A FAIR CONTRACT THAT PROTECTS THE MEMBERSHIP 

VOTE THE MEMBERS VOICE SLATE

Page Six

We hear...THAT things are clearly getting desperate for the Carpenters Alliance Slate. Members are reporting that National Acoustics is supporting the slate by distributing their campaign material in employee pay checks and Martin Costello (slate member) is cold calling members urging them to vote for the Carpenters Alliance Slate.

Candidates Accused of Running Illegal Raffle

I didn't know raffles are illegal- Pat Brennan.

Illegal $5.00 Raffle Ticket

The Carpenters United NYC Slate is trying to raise money to pay for their campaign and could be visited by New York State’s Inspector General Ellen N. Biben, for allegedly running an illegal raffle.

The campaign is running a $5.00 per ticket raffle, with the grand prize being a “Large Flat Screen TV,"  a "Tablet" for the second prize and a "Basket of Cheer" for third prize. New York State law specifically outlaws games of chance for political fundraising.

The October 13, fundraiser collected money from "friends and family" in support of running for Delegates to the New York City District Council of Carpenters by selling raffle tickets to "union members and non-union members" a source said.

It is illegal under the New York State Racing and Wagering Board to run a raffle for personal benefit.

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Delegate Election Update

Local 20

• no election, delegates chosen
• Delegates are Glenn Arnold, Larry Cirillo and Peter Malandro
• Executive  Committee Member Christopher Wallace

Local 45

• Date: October 25^th, 2011
• Time: 6AM -5PM
• Location: 51 Roosevelt Ave  Valley Stream, NY

Local 740

• no election, delegates chosen
• Delegates Dan Walcott and John Ippoloto
• Executive Committee member is Mike Cavanaugh

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Cary Kane Law Firm Files Order To Show Cause

Yesterday Larry Cary, of the law firm of Cary Kane LLP, filed an Order to Show Cause for Preliminary Injunction, before United States District Judge Richard M. Berman, ordering that Review Officer Dennis Walsh (RO), show cause in writing on or before Friday October 21, 2011 (5:00pm) why an order should not be issued pursuant to Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1) reversing the Review Officer's decision to disqualify Michael Ciechorski, Kevin Corrigan, John DeFalco, Shawn Eichorn, George LaMontagne, Charles Lucas, Tommy McGonnigle and Bill Walsh, from their candidacy for office with the New York City District Council of Carpenters and (2) restoring these applicants names to the ballot in the upcoming December 15, 2011 Council election.

Last Wednesday the RO turned a routine nomination meeting on it's head by vetoing 16 of the 34 candidates who were expecting to be nominated. After hearing about the veto, I spoke to Walter Kane and Larry Cary, (the attorneys representing the Carpenters Committee for Democracy and Workers Rights) they said the firm is willing to help vetoed candidates make an appeal.

Eight of the sixteen candidates responded to the offer and met with the law firm last Thursday for a consultation and deposition.

The complaint filed by Cary, argues that the candidates were vetoed for various "arbitrary and capricious" reasons and that the RO exceeded his authority under the June 3, Stipulation and Order and is "reviewable by the court."

The RO's authority over a candidate for Council Officer is very broad and final. The Stipulation and Order paragraph 5.k.iv (page 13) states:

"Any candidate seeking to run for a position as an Officer of the District Council during the Review's Officer's tenure must first be approved by the Review Officer, who will determine whether in light of the terms and objectives of the Consent Decree the candidate is qualified to run for office and represent the union membership. Any such decision by the Review Officer will be final and non-reviewable."  

Below is the Memorandum of Law in Support of an Order to Show Cause and links to exhibits and affidavits of the canadidates.

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A MESSAGE FROM THE MEMBERS VOICE SLATE

The Members Voice Slate —Let Your Voices Be Heard!

A new era is upon us, we are approaching the day where we take the first steps necessary toward ending this frustrating 2 1/2 -year long UBC supervision and regain our vote and our voice.

Your vote is your voice—The voice of this union.

We are asking you to use your voice once again to support and vote for the Members Voice Slate as Delegates to the New York City District Council of Carpenters.

Itʼs important to remember that your vote is toward a vision for the future. It is a vote to build a better union we can all be proud of. It is a vote to finally put us on a path where we can protect the interests and rights of our member's above all else.

We have a brand new opportunity for our District Council and the Members Voice Slate is the best opportunity to get it right!

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Local 157 Delegate Election

On Monday October 24, Local 157 will conduct an election for (48) Delegates to the NYC District Council and one (1) Executive Committee member.

Elections will be held at the New York City District Council of Carpenters Labor Technical College, 395 Hudson Street, from 6:00 a.m through 7:00 p.m, a regular scheduled meeting will follow.

There are (6) independent candidates and three slates of candidates running in the election.

The new delegates will serve for a term of 20 months and approve the upcoming collective bargaining agreement, which most likely will include the UBC's highly controversial full mobility proposal or contractors' insistence on the right to hire 100% of carpenters they choose.

On Wednesday, September 14, delegates to the council voted and approved a Cement League "Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) by a vote of 45 to 18 and voted and approve a Wall-Ceiling MOU by a vote of 35-28 (the Wall-Ceiling MOU is contingent on full mobility, presently, as per a federal judge's order, contractors must hire a third of their workers through the union's out-of-work-list). 

Full mobility is a big political issue with the membership. The Carpenters United NYC Slate does not mention full mobility in their campaign material and their position remains unclear. Candidates on the Carpenters Alliance Slate support full mobility and have voted in favor of the proposal. The Members Voice Slate is opposed to full mobility and your elected executive board has unanimously voted against the proposal in the delegate body.

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Election Process

Click to view spelling errors.

Be advised that the District Council will hold a meeting on October 20, 2011 at 10AM on the 10th floor of the council. Each local will have an officer and at least one staff member who utilizes the Ultra System and routinely collects dues. The election process and mandated dues collection procedures will be discussed. The eligibility to vote will also be addressed. Any questions can be addressed by the Director of Operations, Matthew Walker at the District Council.

This notice has been faxed to all local union offices as well as being posted on the District Council website.

Matthew Walker
Director of Operations

(John's note: Spelling errors in the notice, Distrcit and eligability)

Important Election Information

All members are reminded to have their dues paid and processed by the close of business on November 18, 2011. Failure to comply will result in ineligibility to vote. The election for District Council Officers will be a mail in ballot. Members are also reminded to update contact information with their local union affiliates including current address. Election information is posted on the District Council website.

Update: Council Election Turned Upside Down

This is what I have learned. Review Officer Dennis Walsh, used his authority and vetoed 16 of the 34 candidates who were expecting to be nominated. The candidates were vetoed for various reasons and each candidate did received a letter Wedensday night explaining the reason for the action. The RO's authority over a candidate for Council Officer is very broad and final. 

The Stipulation and Order paragraph 5.k (page 13) states:

"Any candidate seeking to run for a position as an Officer of the District Council during the Review's Officer's tenure must first be approved by the Review Officer, who will determine whether in light of the terms and objectives of the Consent Decree the candidate is qualified to run for office and represent the union membership. Any such decision by the Review Officer will be final and non-reviewable." 

I spoke with several candidates and they will be attending a meeting tonight in the office of Cary Kane LLP.  Walter Kane and Larry Cary, are the attorneys representing the Carpenters Committee for Democracy and they are willing to help all vetoed candidates make an appeal. This story is still developing so stay tuned for the latest news.

Cary Kane Law Firm Will Help Vetoed Candidates File Appeal

By John Musumeci

After hearing about 16 candidates being vetoed by RO Walsh, I spoke to Walter Kane and Larry Cary, the attorneys representing the Carpenters Committee for Democracy and Workers Rights. They say they have been getting phone calls from candidates all day asking about what can be done. The firm is willing to help vetoed candidates make their appeal. It does not matter which slate you were on. They suggest that because the appeal deadline is short, vetoed candidates wanting the law firm’s assistance come directly to the firm tomorrow afternoon for a consultation. There is no need to call in advance. They said that if you have anything in writing explaining the basis for the veto you must bring it to the consultation.

Cary Kane LLP, 1350 Broadway, Suite 1400, Suite 1400, NY, NY (between West 35th and West 36 Streets, near Macys) 212 868-6300. You need ID to get into the building.

Vetoed Candidates 

John Daly, Thomas McKeon, George LaMontagne, Michal Ciechorski, John DeFalco, Tommy McGonnigle, Charles Lucas, Shawn Eichorn, Eddie Herrero, Robert Graham, Joe Mertens, Kevin Corrigan, Jimmy Smith, Bill Walsh, John King, Tom King.

Council Election Turned Upside Down

Review Officer Dennis Walsh turned a routine nomination meeting on it's head last night by vetoing 16 of the 34 candidates who were expecting to be nominated.

Walsh posted this letter on the council website and did not explain why he vetoed the 16 members.

Story still developing...stay tuned.

CONTINUE READING...

Full Mobility a good thing?

By Chico Zen

I have yet to hear why full mobility is a good thing for the union. One of the stipulations discussed:

"the contractors must agree to in order to have full mobility including that there will only be NYC District Council of Carpenters on the job site."

Yeah! Awesome!!! Finally dealing with the travesty of non-nycdcc members getting a large number of NYC jobs.

OK, so what will stop NJ, LI, CT members from switching their books? How easy or hard will it be for people to switch their books? You know what? They haven't addressed cause they haven't thought about it.

Don't tell me your for full mobility because the OWL is broken. The OWL is broken, what has the union done to fix it? They tell me, "we can't fix it cause we don't run the list." OK, so the union can't come up with list of improvements to present to the government? No effort to look at why and how the OWL is hurting our union?

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Notice of Nomination Meeting on Wednesday October 12th

On October 12, 2011 at 5PM – The District Council will hold a meeting at the Labor Tech. College 2^nd floor common room to permit candidates approved by the Review Officer to accept or decline nominations for positions as District Council Officers.  Any questions can be directed to the Review Officer’s Office or the Director of Operations.

Court Conference Transcripts of August 8, 2011

THE COURT: So on my list, although the first topic is status of the funds, this is not the right day to ask about status of funds, but we will do it anyway. The order of topics that I am interested in, and then I will hear what you want to talk about, is the funds, and I think there were a couple of funds that we did not hear about last time. Then the status of the bylaws proposed, and also the status of the proposed restructuring. If Mr. Conboy wanted to bring us up-to-date on collective bargaining, that was in progress last time, and if there is anything about year end elections that anybody wants to talk about. Anybody have anything else that they want to talk about? No. Do we have somebody to talk about the funds?

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Feds: Corrupt City Official Took Some Of His $600K Bribes In Coffee Cups

By Garth Johnston 

Oh to have been a fly on the wall when Mayor Bloomberg heard about this! Today the FBI arrested the top official in charge of new affordable housing construction in New York City, along with six developers, on charges including federal racketeering, conspiracy and bribery.

According to court papers [PDF] Wendell B. Walters, the 49-year-old assistant commissioner for new construction of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, collected approximately $600,000 in bribes and kickbacks on about $22 million in moderately priced housing projects he oversaw in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn between 2002 and 2011.

CONTINUE READING...

Court Conference Transcripts of September 26, 2011

THE COURT: So this is one of our regularly scheduled essentially status conference, and what I thought, if this works for you, we would hear about these topics, and perhaps in this order.

CONTINUE READING...

Full Mobility Hits Speed Bumps

The UBC's full mobility proposal or contractors' insistence on the right to hire 100% of carpenters they choose, hit a speed bump in federal court last Tuesday.

In his opening remarks to federal judge Richard Berman, Review Officer (RO) Dennis Walsh said, "that the current delegate body is not correctly constituted and does not fairly represent the members."

Walsh specifically cited that Local 157 is "very much under-represented and that other locals are over-represented. He also stated that any Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA’s) should be presented to the new delegate body which can be seated within one month from today."

Judge Berman expressed his agreement with that proposition.

Since being elected in June, President Patrick Nee has been demanding fair representation in the delegate body. Before Local 608 was dissolved, it had 18 delegates, and Local 157 had 11 delegates (29 total), currently Local 157 is represented by only 24 delegates.

In a letter to John Ballantyne, Nee cited that "the general carpentry locals which have two thirds of the members, have only 44 delegates and the specialties locals have 43 delegates."

"Locals 1556 and 2790 are new specialty locals which were chartered by General President Douglas McCarron and all of their delegates were appointed by McCarron.  These two locals received an additional 9 delegates above what the 1999 Bylaws would allow them," Nee wrote.

On Wednesday, September 14, delegates to the council voted and approved a Cement League "Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) by a vote of 45 to 18 and voted and approve a Wall-Ceiling MOU by a vote of 35-28 (the Wall-Ceiling MOU is contingent on full mobility, presently, as per a federal judge's order, contractors must hire a third of their workers through the union's out-of-work-list).

Contractors argue that this system is inefficient and hurts productivity because they end up with workers who may not have certain skills needed on specific job sites. Rank and fliers argue that full mobility will turn the union into a contractors union with no ability to obtain work from the out-of-work-list.

UBC representative Kenneth Conboy spoke, and said that he was aware of Pat Nee’s letter to John Ballantyne questioning the representation ratio but only received it Friday and had not time to study it.

Conboy did not submit a formal motion for full mobility or a promised Stipulation and Order (executed by the District Council, the RO, and the US Attorney's Office), instead he handed judge Berman his letter of June 21 (originally sent to the RO and to US Attorney's Office) outlining the full mobility plan and the blueprint for the new Labor Management Corporation.

Walsh also made it plain in court that if mobility is passed by the delegates, it will be subject to strict scrutiny from his office and that "there will be no toleration of any prospect for even the slightest system failure or corruption" (the government expressed its strong agreement to that position).

Rats Infest Ridgewood Over Labor Union Dispute

Carpenter's union protested with large inflatable rats outside of general contractor's Ridgewood home Thursday morning

By James Kleimann

A New York City labor fight moved to the tree-lined streets of Ridgewood Thursday when members of a New York carpenter's union placed two large inflatable rats in front of the home of a rival union member.

Police were dispatched Thursday morning to the Woodside Avenue home of Terrence Higgins, a general contractor, after complaints of the over 15-foot-tall rats towering above the West Side street.
The dispute stems from the New York City District Council of Carpenters (NYCDC) alleging that Higgins is a member of rival union United Service Workers Union (USWU) and is not paying the "appropriate" benefits and wages to carpentry workers he's employed for New York building projects.

NYCDC representative Michael Donnelly said Higgins and the USWU are intruding on the NYCDC's turf while not paying wages and benefits up to standards set by the department of labor.

The NYCDC claims it isn't "one union versus the other" but rather a "wage dispute," though it's not the first time the two unions have tangled. Donnelly said the NYCDC is fighting for the welfare of the rival union members.

"If they were paying these carpenters the area standards and benefits they were supposed to be, there wouldn't be a dispute at all," Donnelly said.

Higgins did not respond to requests for comment. The United Service Workers Union also did not return requests for comment.

Donnelly said the inflatable rat demonstration was designed to get the attention of Higgins. The NYCDC told Patch it would not rule out returning with more rats to Woodside Avenue in the future.
Police told the NYCDC members the rats could not remain on the street, as they presented a safety issue for motorists. The rats were deflated and removed. No summonses were issued.